Thought Provoker
Posts: 530
Joined: April 2007
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Hi All,
Ok, we are back on the air for detailed discussions.
First a review of things from other threads.
In The Voice from the Middle Ground, we got into a discussion about Special Relativity verses General Relativity.
I think this concept is key to understanding the reality that includes cosmology, quantum physics along with biology. Special Relativity is NOT reality. It is incomplete. General Relativity is the observed reality. There is a single, inertial frame of reference. This means our universe exhibits Minkowskian Geometry (not Euclidean Geometry). From Einstein’s Ether: Why did Einstein Come Back to the Ether?...
"In (1905) Einstein constructed a relativity theory that was based on the assertion that the ether was superfluous. In 1908 Minkowski formulated the theory of the “absolute world”. The nineteenth century ether no longer existed. A new kind of ether (space-time) came into being. One could keep on maintaining the ether, and at the same time strip it of the notion of absolute rest. Einstein seemed to agree, and after 1916 he returned to the ether. In 1920 he combined Minkowski’s absolute world concept and Mach’s ideas on rotational movements…"
To belabor the point, General Relativity and, therefore, Minkowskian geometry is an everyday reality...
"Although the Global Positioning System (GPS) is neither designed nor operated as a test of fundamental physics, it must account for the gravitational redshift in its timing system. When the first satellite was launched, some engineers resisted the prediction that a noticeable gravitational time dilation would occur, so the first satellite was launched without the clock adjustment built into subsequent satellites. It showed the predicted shift of 38 microseconds per day. If general relativity suddenly stopped working tomorrow, the GPS control center in Colorado would know within hours; the relativistic correction to the timing is large enough to make GPS useless if it is not allowed for. Also, while it is true that GPS is not operated by the Defense Department as a test of general relativity, physicists have analyzed timing data from the GPS to confirm other tests. An excellent account of the role played by general relativity in the design of GPS can be found in Ashby 2003."link
Space-time is reality.
Calculating space-like distances ("dl") in space-time adheres to the following equation...
dl^2 = dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2 - dt^2
Where the four dimensions are complex quantities. Which means that a time-like distance ("ds") is just a different view of the exact same thing...
ds^2 = dt^2 - dx^2 - dy^2 - dz^2
Photons (traveling at the speed of light) have a Minkowskian distance of ZERO whether calculated time-like or space-like. Quantum "paradoxes" like GHZ states are trivial to understand for photons since they can be anywhere and anywhen instantly.
This provides an understanding of how any and all quantum effects can be interconnected regardless of distances in space and/or time.
Hopefully, we can generally agree that quantum effects can be interconnected in space and time. The question becomes are they interconnected?
I believe they are for the same reason I believe magnetic fields and electrical fields are interconnected. It makes for an understandable model. Maxwell's equations would be just a mathematical model if not for the consistency it has to observations. Penrose's mathematical model does the same thing for quantum observations.
While there may be resistance to the implications of this, the alternatives are not that attractive. Either we continue to wait for someone to come up with a better idea (we have been waiting for eight decades) or we embrace a metaphysical concept called Many Worlds.
Metaphysics is metaphysics whether Many Worlds or God.
Once it is realized that quantum effects are interconnected, it is a short hop to realizing there is no such thing as randomness.
A lack of randomness wasn't a problem when Newtonian Physics was king. The only possible sources for randomness are quantum effects and conscious decisions (free will). Psuedorandom generators are not random.
If quantum effects are interconnected, their randomness is an illusion. Quantum effects are non-deterministic but they are also not random. This leave consciousness.
Are conscious decisions random?
Not if they are directly dependent on quantum effects.
This would explain quantum physic's measurement problem. The observer doesn't "randomly" decide which measurement to take. Conscious decisions are interconnected with the quantum effects being measured.
The implication of this is that the appearance of randomness in living organisms is a direct artifact of quantum effects.
Before we review the evidence of living things directly using quantum physics, we need to discuss the concept of decoherence.
The term "decoherence" harkens back to the time when scientists were arguing whether light was made up of waves, particles or both. After many experiments the prevailing thought was that a light wave collapsed into actual particle for some to-be-discovered reason. However, a universally acceptable reason never materialised and the term "decoherence" has morphed into a term loosely describing a process of transforming quantum effects into macro world observations.
Quantum superpositions are generally being accepted as reality. Qubits are quantum bits that are entangled with other quantum bits whose states are both 0 and 1. This superposition state is unstable. Superposition can and does collapse when isolation is compromised. Why this happens is a subject of debate.
How long can quantum states remain in superposition?
Arguably they can remain in superposition for years. I say "arguably" because it is mostly theoretical but experiments have been performed involving things like pulsars with massive galaxies in between acting like dual-slit experiments.
For a more down-to-earth experiment NIST has shown qubit superposition lasting 7 to 10 seconds. link
Qubits demonstrate long-lasting interconnected quantum superposition is possible, but does this happen in living organisms?
Early in 2007 a team of Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley researchers identified quantum mechanical effects as the key to the astonishing ability of photosynthesis to utilize nearly all the photons absorbed by the leaves of green plants. Now a different team has found new evidence that points to a closely packed pigment-protein complex of the photosystem as the key to those quantum mechanical effects.
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How nature manages to pull off this stunt was a long-standing mystery until the spring of 2007, when a study led by Graham Fleming, Deputy Director of Berkeley Lab and a UC Berkeley chemistry professor, found the first direct evidence of what he calls a "remarkably long-lived wavelike electronic quantum coherence." link
While it is tempting to end the discussion here, quantum based photosynthesis doesn't explain how consciousness is interconnected to quantum effects (the final piece to solve the quantum measurement problem).
Single-celled organisms avoid obstacles and predators, find food and engage in sex. How are they able to accomplish this? An obvious presumption is that the cell's cytoskeleton performs the combined function of skeleton, muscle and nervous system. The cytoskeleton is made up of microtubules and actin. Microtubules (MTs) are made up of tubulin dimers. Dr. Hameroff offers...
Tubulin subunits within MTs are arranged in a hexagonal lattice which is slightly twisted, resulting in differing neighbor relationships among each subunit and its six nearest neighbors (Figure 9). Thus pathways along contiguous tubulins form helical pathways which repeat every 3, 5 and 8 rows (the Fibonacci series). Alpha tubulin monomers are more negatively charged than beta monomers, so each tubulin (and each MT as a whole) is a ferroelectric dipole with positive (beta monomer) and negative (alpha monomer) ends.
If the alpha and beta states of these small tubulins (8 nm by 4 nm by 5 nm) can be in quantum superposition, it would provide an explanation for how the actions of living organisms are directly interconnected to quantum effects.
It is reasonable to presume that tubulins are capable of being in quantum position since similar sized fluorofullerenes exhibit quantum behavior. link However, this is once again a situation where something can happen but it is questionable whether it does happen.
DNA provides another possible example of life directly using quantum effects. Patel is refining the model (Grover's algorithm) of the search function inherent in the DNA...
The initial and final states of Grover’s algorithm are classical, but the execution in between is not. In order to be stable, the initial and final states have to be based on a relaxation towards equilibrium process. For the execution of the algorithm in between, the minimal physical requirement is a system that allows superposition of states, in particular a set of coupled wave modes.
The processing power that quantum superposition provides, whether for photosynthesis, DNA processing or cellular awareness could be very useful to living organisms. Is it such a far-fetched presumption that life has evolved a method to take advantage of this useful tool?
Life's direct dependency on quantum physics becomes obvious in the case of photosynthesis. It is also likely for DNA. While the case for microtubules is harder to make right now, too many observations are explained by it to dismiss it out of hand, IMO.
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