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Spooky World of Quantum Biology (cutting edge science article)From: Michael Winn
Subject: Philosophy
Date/Time 2009-06-04 12:40:16
Remote IP: 66.32.26.191
Messagenote: this is where science is finally trying to catch up with alchemical processes of "gan ying": coherence created by resonance at a distance. The movement is in the right direction, away from old ideas of mechaniing the process, allowing light/chi to flow in all directions and all timelines at once and using the feedback to choose the most evolutionary timeline in the present movment.
micihael
THE SPOOKY WORLD OF QUANTUM BIOLOGY
By Michael Garfield
hplusmagazine.com
June 1, 2009
http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/bio/spooky-world-quantum-biology
One hundred and fifty years ago, paleontologist Thomas Henry Huxley (an
autodidact and philosopher who coined the term "agnostic" and was known as
"Darwin's Bulldog" for his passionate defense of natural selection) asserted
that humankind would eventually take the processes of evolution into our own
hands. Within a few decades of his proclamation, a cadre of equally
brilliant scientists including Werner Heisenberg, David Bohm, and Max Planck
began to unravel the mysterious properties of quantum mechanics. These two
theories -- evolutionary and quantum dynamics -- can each be considered
among the most important discoveries of all time. Taken together, they have
changed almost everything about the way we understand reality. However, in
spite of the popularity of interdisciplinary research and unifying theories
over the last hundred years (despite, even, quantum physicist Erwin
Schröedinger's 1944 book, What Is Life?), it was only recently that the
relationship between these two vastly important domains was even considered.
Now, a new kind of science, called "quantum biology," is beginning to emerge
–- and it could change everything we know, again..
The premise is simple. Life is a molecular process; molecular processes
operate according to the quantum playbook; therefore, life is a quantum
process. And yet, it wasn't until the nineties that anyone suggested biology
could be better understood by looking at it through the lens of quantum
theory. (The seminal paper was D.V. Nanopoulos' "Theory of brain function,
quantum mechanics and superstrings.") Not long after that, the idea caught
on -- particularly in the neurosciences, where the idea of the brain as a
quantum computer quickly became a topic of fierce debate.
Quantum computation, a science still in its infancy, promises swiftness and
efficiency vastly superior to anything possible with conventional silicon
chips. Rather than relying on binary bits like contemporary systems, quantum
computers use "qubits" that include all possible superpositions of a
particle's classical state. Instead of being "trapped" in a single
configuration, the logic gates of a quantum computer employ multiple
possibilities in synchrony -- using the entire set of alternative outcomes
to arrive at an answer.
It's a promising avenue for people with big plans for strong AI or virtual
reality. The only complication is that coherence -- in which the many
possible states of a particle or group of particles stay hung in
superposition -- is something scientists have only been able to study under
extremely controlled conditions. It's only possible when that system doesn't
interact with anything else that might "collapse the wave function," and so
most of the major options for quantum computing involve impractical
scenarios like creating a supercooled vacuum.
This is one of the reasons that many scientists have considered quantum
biology both unlikely and unscientific. The thermal noise of biological
systems seemed too great to allow for quantum weirdness; and even if it
could, how on Earth would we study it? But science is the story of
ingenuity's victory over shortsightedness -- and one research team, led by
Gregory S. Engel at UC Berkeley, has devised way to directly detect and
observe quantum-level processes within a cell using high-speed lasers.
They were trying to establish exactly how organic photosynthesis approaches
95% efficiency, whereas the most sophisticated human solar cells operate at
only half that. What they discovered is nothing short of remarkable. Using
femtosecond lasers to follow the movement of light energy through a
photosynthetic bacterial cell, Engel et al. observed the energy traveling
along every possible direction at the same time. Instead of following a
single trajectory like the electrons on a silicon chip, the energy in
photosynthesis explores all of its options and collapses the quantum process
only after the fact, retroactively "deciding" upon the most efficient
pathway.
What does this all mean? Not only does quantum phenomena occur in living
systems, but the basic processes of life we take for granted rely on the
transfer of information backward in time. Life is so magical because it
cheats.
Although the mechanisms by which a living cell can prevent decoherence by
dampening its own chemical "noise" remain utterly mysterious, findings such
as Engels' conclusively demonstrate that room-temperature quantum computing
is possible (and knowing how something works isn't always necessary in order
to use it). And Engel's group isn't the only team to detect it: other
laboratories have implicated a phenomenon called electron tunneling
(micro-teleportation, in which an electron disappears in one location and
instantaneously appears somewhere else without having traveled the
intermediate distance) at work behind a range of organic phenomena, from our
sense of smell and the activities of our enzymes to the neutralization of
free radicals with anti-oxidants… possibly even consciousness itself. Paul
Davies (Arizona State University) and JohnJoe McFadden (The University of
Surrey) have independently suggested that computation in the netherworld of
quantum coherence might explain how the earliest self-replicating molecules
overcame the inestimable odds against them -- life's very existence may be
the consequence and continued operation of a quantum computer. We may
ultimately have to accept our human quest for qubit calculation as a kind of
biomimicry, rather than something new and unique.
Quantum biology stands to answer other big questions, as well -- questions
that many contemporary biologists prefer to ignore. McFadden, in his
excellent primer Quantum Evolution, cites several experiments that suggest
certain mutations are "intelligent," even "anticipatory." For example,
bacterial cultures have been observed to evolve clever responses to lab
toxins at speeds that -- just like the emergence of DNA from a primordial
soup -- defy astronomical odds. Can biological quantum calculation account
for this? McFadden thinks so. (His hypothesis was itself anticipated in the
science fiction of Greg Egan, whose novel Teranesia featured some very
"spooky" retrocausal mutations -- including the instantaneous appearance of
entire new ecosystems via competing future evolutionary scenarios. Whether
such extreme examples of quantum biological principles are possible remains
to be seen.)
As we continue to probe biological phenomena that beat quantum computer
scientists to the punch, a new picture emerges of evolutionary computing and
design. Huxley's prophecy that we will eventually take the reins of our own
evolution might come true sooner than predicted by establishment
geneticists. But by appealing to the quantum oracle, we may be acting in
service of something far older and more intelligent than we can even guess.
Ultrafast computing, accelerated by our explorations into the new science of
quantum biology, could well be the critical technology that pushes us over
the edge into the Singularity -- a timeless and transcendent event in which
we already live, because it is the nature of life itself -- a vast sentience
beyond human comprehension, and we are merely the newest avenue for its
expression in the world. Classical or quantum, human or ecological, natural
selection still gets the last laugh.
- Spooky World of Quantum Biology (cutting edge science article): (494) Michael Winn (1575) - - 2009-06-04 0:40 pm
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