Physics of selective systems: Computation and biology

J. J. Hopfield

Neil David Theise, Menas C. Kafatos

Niels Bohr and Max Delbruck believed that complementarity—such as wave–particle duality—was not limited to the quantum realm, but had correlates in the study of living things. Biological complementarity would indicate that no single technique or perspective allows comprehensive viewing of all of a biological entity's complete qualities and behaviors; instead, complementary perspectives, necessarily and irrevocably excluding all others at the moment an experimental approach is selected, would be necessary to understand the whole. Systems biology and complexity theory reveal that, as in the quantum realm, experimental observations themselves limit our capacity to understand a biological system completely because of scale‐dependent “horizons of knowledge,” a form of biological complementarity as predicted by Bohr and Delbruck. Specifically, observational selection is inherently, irreducibly coupled to observed biological systems as in the quantum realm. These nested systems, beginning with biomolecules in aqueous solution all the way up to the global ecosystem itself, are understood as a seamless whole operating simultaneously and complementarily at various levels. This selection of an observational stance is inseparable from descriptions of biology indicates—in accordance with views of thinkers such as von Neumann, Wigner, and Stapp—that even at levels of scale governed by classical physics, at biological scales, observational choice remains inextricably woven into the establishment, in the observational moment, of the present conditions of existence. These conceptual shifts will not only have theoretical impact, but may point the way to new, successful therapeutic interventions, medically (at the scale of organisms) or environmentally/economically (at a global scale). © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 18: 11‐20, 2013

Koichiro Matsuno

William Douglas Nault

This working paper explores the hypothesis that quantum coherence observed in neuronal microtubules may not merely support conscious experience, but may be actively chaped or selected by it. building on prior work outlining a coherence control framework for physical systems, this paper examines whether biological structures such as microtubules can function as interfaces where macroscopic cognitive states influence microscopic coherence dynamics.\ Recent experimental and theoretical studies in quantum biology suggest that microtubules may sustain transient quantum coherence under physiological conditions. While most existing modles treat these effects as bottom-up contributors to cognition, this work investigates a complementary top-down perspective: that conscious processes may bias, stablilize, or collapse coherent states within biological substrates. The paper does not claim impirical proof, but proposes a conceptual mapping between coherence selection, neural organization, and subjective experience. This framework is peresented as an exploratory theoretical modle intended to generate testable questions at the intersection of neuroscience, quantum physics, and consciousness studies. This work extends earlier coherence-based modles while remaining explicitly speculative and open to refinement though empirical and theoretical critique.

Hafiz Md. Hasan Babu

In order to create two new computing processes that can be referred to as quantum molecular biology, these two computing systems can be combined. Quantum-DNA computing and DNA-quantum computing are also components of this quantum molecular biology. This chapter explains how DNA computing constructs the operations for multi-valued systems. The study of molecular biology is concerned with nucleic acids and proteins–macromolecules that are critical to biological processes–and how they interact and behave within cells. Quantum molecular biology is the field of study that investigates processes in living organisms that cannot be accurately described by the classical laws of physics. So, quantum molecular biology is a kind of computing technology which can be quantum-DNA computing or DNA-quantum computing. It also presents the ternary logic in the DNA computing system, that means establishing basic gates and fundamental operations in the ternary system.

Michael J. Dinneen, Nies, André, Khoussainov, Bakhadyr