Andrei,
I have read some of the works of Hameroff, Penrose, Zizzi, Kauffman;
and I have been fascinated by the Penrose-Hameroff �Orchestrated
Objective Reduction� (Orch OR) argument. I particularly have enjoyed
Hameroff�s suggestion that consciousness caused the Cambrian
Explosion, and Zizzi�s �Big Wow� theory that Orch OR happened right
after everything coalesced into a single universe. McFadden�s
�quantum evolution� sides more with Prigogine and his entropy-spewing
�dissipative structures.� Still, what they are saying that matters
most about the quantum of anything are those teensy-tiny material
structures like fullerenes and microtubules.
Why should I bother with such things if I am trying to apprehend
biological QI? I really don�t think biological evolution reaches
down far. Frankly, I don�t think natural selection can distinguish a
fullerene from microtubule any better than a dog can tell the
difference between a gunnysack and a Persian rug.
What seems oddest to me about this discussion on QI is its tendency
to avoid any �quantum� aspects genetic information, which is taken by
some to mean �pure information� (Dawkins); and, as such, it is an
irreducible aspect of Darwinian evolution. If there really is such a
thing as QI in biological systems then the genes and their digital
algorithms ought to be at least as important as the creative
consciousness that caused the Cambrian Explosion to explode. Would I
be any more speculative if I proposed that genes are the outright
manifestations of Orch OR, cooperating out of a coincidental
universe, where little bits of matter matter less than no matter at all?
Thanks. I have had my two posts for the week.
�Richard
��������
Dear Richard,
As I pointed in my previous Emails, one should not identify the
mathematical formalism of QM (as well as QI) with its one special
application, namely, to the description of probabilities (and hence
information) for so called quantum systems. The formalism is
essentially very general. It could be applied in particular in biology
and genetics. But it should not be a reductionist application. One need
not try reduce biological processes to dynamics of quantum systems
(electrons, neutrons, photons, ... composing a biological system).
My point of view (which was developed in details in my
book:Information dynamics with applications to psychology, cognitive
and social sciences and anomalous phenomena, Kluwer, Fundamental
series in Physics) is that the mathematical formalism of QM (namely
calculus of probabilities described by vectors and density matrices in
the complex Hilbert space) could be used everywhere we want to
represent information in the probabilistic framework by neglecting by
huge amounts of information (which we are not able to get) about
systems.
I called such representations not quantum (by reserving the latter
terminology for quantum systems), but quantum-like.
I do not think that such a thing as quantum biology or genetics could
be created, but quantum-like biological or genetic models might be
created and they could be useful.
I would like to make comparasion with the problem of applications of
QM to decription of cognition. There was published a lot of paper
about QUANTUM cognition (e.g., Roger Penrose connected it with quantum
gravity). I do not think that there is some reality behind such
speculations. There is the huge gap between quantum and neuronal
scales!!! But we can speak about quantum-like cognition. In this
approach we do not try to reduce cognitive processes to real quantum
processes. But we say: cognition is a probabilistic representation of
neuronal information. THis is a probabilistic projection of the
detreministic world of billions of neurons to our feelings and
sensations which are nothing else but probabilistic images extracted
from the deterministic neuronal world. Since there is projection of
information, one could apply quantum like models: in my book there is
an algorithm for representing statistical data by complex probability
amplitudes. After this one can work in quantum mathematical formalism.
All the best, Andrei
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Received on Mon Jun 26 18:37:40 2006
