Many of the ideas presented in this volume originate from the findings of the so-called Geneva-Brussel school of quantum mechanics, particularly from the work of some of its most distinctive members, like Joseph Maria Jauch, Constantin Piron and Diederik Aerts (see the references). The main fertile idea behind the work of this school is the observation that the usual methodology adopted by the majority of physicists, consisting in first developing a mathematical structure, then trying to find out what would be its interpretation, is not suitable if one wants to fully clarify the conceptual difficulties inherent to our description of reality. A better methodology is to first identify and elucidate what are the relevant concepts, understand them on a solid operational base, and only then use them to build a meaningful and intelligible scientific theory of reality. Following this more natural approach, researchers of the Geneva-Brussel school (and more particularly D. Aerts) succeeded in deriving a powerful conceptual and mathematical language, capable of properly describing the different entities populating our physical reality with a great level of generality, thus discovering new and more general structures, extending beyond the previously known classical and quantum ones. In this way, they also succeeded clarifying many (if not all) of the paradoxes and conceptual ambiguities present in the standard interpretations of quantum physics, and developed a very general approach (still under development) with which they were able to describe physical as well as non-physical entities (like for instance cultural artefacts, concepts, minds, etcetera).

A presentation of the mathematical formalism of the Geneva-Brussels school is far beyond the scope of the present writing and the general audience it aims to reach. However, in the Socratic dialogue presented below, I will tentatively introduce the reader, in simple and non-mathematical terms, to some of the central concepts and ideas of this language. In doing so, I will also freely and creatively entangle these ideas with a number of considerations and reflections that extend from physics to multidimensionality and the evolution of the consciousness. For this reason, it should be emphasized that by no means is the present essay to be considered as an “approved” review of some of the ideas of the Geneva-Brussels’ school, although the reader can certainly make good use of it as a first elementary introduction to these topics.

This volume was originally published as a two-part article in the Journal of Conscientiology in 2006 and subsequently republished in AutoRicerca in 2014.