Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 299.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
                      Hosted by DH-Cologne
                       www.dhhumanist.org
                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org




        Date: 2026-01-24 15:01:45+00:00
        From: Isaac Carrasco-Ortiz <carrascoisaac01@gmail.com>
        Subject: Quantum Computing on DHHumanist

Dear Willard McCarty,

I hope this message finds you well on this lovely Saturday. My name is
Isaac Carrasco-Ortiz, and I am an MPhil student at Trinity College
Dublin in the Digital Humanities & Culture programme. I am reaching out
to you out of interest from a recent message I noted from you on the
DHHumanist Listserv.

The idea of how humanity will come to understand, teach, adopt, and
(inevitably) market and profit off of quantum computing is something
that I've wondered about a lot, especially regarding my experiences in
digital literacy community work. For context, I am Chilean-American, and
I came to Trinity with 2 years of work in digital literacy for senior
citizens in Boston, Massachusetts. The main idea that I'd like to convey
to you is that engaging with computing systems and respective
computational thinking is a unique and domestic process that occurs for
all of us independently, influenced and shaped by our unique lived
experiences. I believe that no one adopts or engages with digital
technologies in the same manner. Yet, we are governed by digital systems
that in some way funnel our experiences into common ground (ie, we learn
to know what "spam" messaging entails, we learn to know what "following"
a webpage of interest means, we learn to know how digital communication
differs from in-person communication). And moreover, we all operate and
think biased according to the Boolean logic that our digital systems
have codified as a truth into everything that we could possibly imagine.
As such, we seem to engage uniquely yet uniformly with our digital
systems today.

Now, regarding your point about quantum computing, and within it quantum
logic, we face a potential future reality where our humanity shifts yet
again in terms of perspective and temporality (ie, instead of being
biased that if X is Y, and Y is Z, X is Z, we will have to come to terms
with engaging with systems that might not be governed by such
principles). In a world where quantum logic governs a
non-negligible part of our lives (though I acknowledge that it's also
possible that quantum computing systems could only be relegated to
certain institutions and spaces, but history tells us otherwise!), I
fear for the consequences of a future humanity that is once again
divided by missed opportunities in understanding our governing digital
systems. For example, please find here
<https://earlyradiohistory.us/1909ads.htm> an excerpt from the American
telephone journal /Telephony/ regarding a housekeeper's struggle to
learn to live with their new telephone after being bombarded by
advertisements in the year...1909. We might find a similar grievance
today in 2026 where I might be unable to book a medical appointment
physically at the office, since I would need to first create a digital
presence for myself for my doctor's health portal where I can then
request a medical appointment and have it logged in the digital systems
of my medical provider and thus make it "exist", "real" and "true".
Therefore, I can imagine a world in say 2100 where a person who learned
to live and expect digital systems based in Boolean thinking will
fundamentally struggle with accessing and taking advantage of the
quantum digital systems that they may be expected or even required to
engage with in order to not become invisiblised by their community. Our
technological progressions, from the printing press to today, have
always seemed to alienate parts of our communities and has the potential
to give birth to frictions and resentments between ourselves, and it's
that revelation that most concerns me when it comes to new technological
and digital advancements such as recently with "AI" and perhaps a future
with quantum computing and logic.

Apologies in advance for the terribly long message, but I felt compelled
to reply to your message. I hope to receive a reply from you, and
perhaps we could explore this idea further together.

Have a wonderful rest of your day,
Isaac


_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe at: http://dhhumanist.org/Restricted
List posts to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
List info and archives at at: http://dhhumanist.org
Listmember interface at: http://dhhumanist.org/Restricted/
Subscribe at: http://dhhumanist.org/membership_form.php