Quantum phenomena are notoriously difficult to grasp. The present paper first reviews the most important quantum concepts in a non-technical manner: superposition, uncertainty, collapse of the wave function, entanglement and non-locality. It then tries to clarify these concepts by examining their analogues in complex, self-organizing systems. These include bifurcations, attractors, emergent constraints, order parameters and non-local correlations. They are illustrated with concrete examples that include Rayleigh–Bénard convection, social self-organization and Gestalt perception of ambiguous figures. In both cases, quantum and self-organizing, the core process appears to be a symmetry breaking that irreversibly and unpredictably “collapses” an ambiguous state into one of a number of initially equivalent “eigenstates” or “attractors”. Some speculations are proposed about the non-linear amplification of quantum fluctuations of the vacuum being ultimately responsible for such symmetry breaking.

众所周知，量子现象很难掌握。本文首先以非技术性的方式回顾了最重要的量子概念：叠加，不确定性，波函数崩溃，纠缠和非局部性。然后，它试图通过在复杂的自组织系统中检查它们的类似物来阐明这些概念。这些包括分叉，吸引子，紧急约束，顺序参数和非局部相关性。它们以具体的例子进行说明，包括瑞利-贝纳德对流，社会自组织和格式塔对模棱两可人物的感知。在量子和自组织这两种情况下，核心过程似乎都是对称性破坏，不可逆转且不可预测地将模棱两可的状态“塌陷”为许多最初等效的“本征态”或“吸引子”之一。