Binary Machines, Quantum Playground? On the Transformational Potential of Aesthetic-Epistemic Intervention

Abstract:

What kind of reality do our language machines draw us into? Binary language models are not neutral: they tend to reproduce substantialist worldviews, even when explaining quantum physics. This article argues that aesthetic and pedagogic intervention can reshape these defaults. Drawing on Cassirer, Barad, and Bohr, it presents Symphony of the Spheres — a co-creative epistemic artifact developed with AI that translates names, historical numerological systems, and color theories into context-dependent tunes. The result is a performative instrument for quantum-relational thinking: non-linear, contextual, participatory. Binary machines, it turns out, can be cracked open.