In 2021 I noted that in all information-based systems we understand, Cognition creates Code, which controls Chemical reactions. Known agents write software which controls hardware, and not the other way around. I proposed the same is true in all of biology. Though the textbook description of cause and effect in biology proposes the reverse, that Chemical reactions produce Code from which Cognition emerges, there are no examples in the literature demonstrating either step. A mathematical proof for the first step, cognition generating code, is based on Turing's halting problem. The second step, code controlling chemical reactions, is the role of the genetic code. Thus a central question in biology: What is the nature and source of cognition? In this paper I propose a relationship between biology and Quantum Mechanics (QM), hypothesizing that the same principle that enables an observer to collapse a wave function also grants biology its agency: the organism's ability to act on the world instead of merely being a passive recipient. Just as all living cells are cognitive (Shapiro 2021, 2007; McClintock 1984; Lyon 2015; Levin 2019; Pascal and Pross, 2022), I propose humans are quantum observers because we are made of cells and all cells are observers. This supports the century-old view that in QM, the observer does not merely record the event but plays a fundamental role in its outcome.The classical world is driven by laws, which are deductive; the quantum world is driven by choices, which are inductive. When the two are combined, they form the master feedback loop of perception and action for all biology. In this paper I apply basic definitions of induction, deduction and computation to known properties of QM to show that the organism altering itself (and its environment) is a whole shaping its parts. It is not merely parts comprising a whole. I propose that an observer collapsing the wave function is the physical mechanism for producing negentropy. The way forward in solving the information problem in biology is understanding the relationship between cognition and QM.
In 2021 I noted that in all information-based systems we understand, Cognition creates Code, which controls Chemical reactions. Known agents write software which controls hardware, and not the other way around. I proposed the same is true in all of biology. Though the textbook description of cause and effect in biology proposes the reverse, that Chemical reactions produce Code from which Cognition emerges, there are no examples in the literature demonstrating either step. A mathematical proof for the first step, cognition generating code, is based on Turing's halting problem. The second step, code controlling chemical reactions, is the role of the genetic code. Thus a central question in biology: What is the nature and source of cognition? In this paper I propose a relationship between biology and Quantum Mechanics (QM), hypothesizing that the same principle that enables an observer to collapse a wave function also grants biology its agency: the organism's ability to act on the world instead of merely being a passive recipient. Just as all living cells are cognitive (Shapiro 2021, 2007; McClintock 1984; Lyon 2015; Levin 2019; Pascal and Pross, 2022), I propose humans are quantum observers because we are made of cells and all cells are observers. This supports the century-old view that in QM, the observer does not merely record the event but plays a fundamental role in its outcome.The classical world is driven by laws, which are deductive; the quantum world is driven by choices, which are inductive. When the two are combined, they form the master feedback loop of perception and action for all biology. In this paper I apply basic definitions of induction, deduction and computation to known properties of QM to show that the organism altering itself (and its environment) is a whole shaping its parts. It is not merely parts comprising a whole. I propose that an observer collapsing the wave function is the physical mechanism for producing negentropy. The way forward in solving the information problem in biology is understanding the relationship between cognition and QM.
Introduction Key features of quantum mechanics are the uncertainty principle, wave–particle duality, quantization of energies and the modification of classical probability laws. Biology is concerned with how natural systems function – from understanding how genetically coded information is replicated, to attaining a mechanistic model for complex multistep reactions. Recently researchers have been asking whether quantum mechanics, normally the domain of physics, is also needed to understand some biological processes. This field includes fascinating developments in theory and experiment, as well as multidisciplinary discussion, and the state-of-the-art is documented in this book. Erwin Schrödinger, in his famous book What is Life ? (Schrödinger, 1944), noted that quantum mechanics accounts for the stability of living things and their cellular processes because of our understanding, via quantum mechanics, of the stability and structure of molecules. The fact that quantum effects create, sometimes large, energy gaps between different states of a chemical system is also important. Such energy gaps, between electronic energy levels, enable living organisms to capture and store the energy carried from the sun by photons, and to visualize the world around them via optically induced chemical reactions. Davydov's view in Biology and Quantum Mechanics (Davydov, 1982) was that quantum mechanics is most relevant for isolated systems in pure states and therefore is of little importance for biological systems that are in statistical states at thermal equilibrium.
For the past 20 years and more, arguments about the role of quantum mechanics in consciousness and mind theory have been mounting. On the one side are traditional neuroscientists who believe that the way to understanding the brain is through looking at the nerve cells. On the other side are various physicists who suggest that the laws of quantum mechanics may have an influence on the dynamics of consciousness and the mind. At the same time however, consciousness and the mind cannot be separated from matter. They originate in the microscopic world of the human brain. There can be no definite separation between mind and matter; there is no ‘mind’ without ‘matter’, and no ‘matter’ without ‘mind’. In terms of cognitive neuroscience, we know a great deal about the working of nerve cells. For example, we understand quite well about the formation of action potential, ion exchange, energy use, axonal transport, the vesicle cycle, and formation, oscillation and breakdown in nerve transmission. But we still do not understand how experience is formed in our material brain (color, sound, smell, taste, pain, imagination, decision, dreams, love, or orgasm) and how consciousness arises in an unconscious material organ. The insufficiency of these answers no doubt arises from the insufficiency of the methods used by cognitive science.
The existence of living organisms in the mesoscopic realm may be quite nontrivial and actuallymay emerge from the interplay between quantum mechanics and gravity. On one side, quantumbiology investigates how quantum mechanical phenomena, such as superposition, entanglement,and tunnelling, contribute to biological processes. These quantum effects, once thought to beirrelevant in the “warm, wet, and noisy” environment of living organisms due to decoherence, havebeen found to play significant roles in various biological systems, from photosynthesis to enzymecatalysis. On the other side, gravitational forces have been implicated in the organization ofmicrotubules, which are essential for maintaining cellular structure and function. Recent studieshave demonstrated that gravitational forces can induce three-dimensional chromosomal conformational changes, which are associated with rapid transcriptional responses in human T cells. Sometheories propose that gravity might play a role in decoherence, such as in the Penrose-Hameroffmodel, which proposes that quantum coherence in microtubules could be the basis for consciousawareness and quantum computing-like information processing, with gravity playing a role in thecollapse of the quantum wave function. The model predictions that microtubules can support longrange coherent phenomena have been confirmed by experimental observations of superradiancefrom mega-networks of tryptophan UV-excited transition dipoles, particularly in microtubulearchitectures. Another experimental research highlights that microtubule network exhibits ahierarchy of three-fold resonant frequency patterns across biological scales – from tubulin proteinsto microtubules and neurons. This suggests a quantum-to-classical transition governed by scalefree dynamics, potentially underlying information processing in the brain. A very intriguing fact isthat at the most fundamental level of the origin of life, the standard genetic code, we can observethe scale-free computing that arises from arithmetic regularities of the nucleon numbers related tothe code’s numerous symmetries. Given that some of these symmetries probably originate fromdifferent evolutionary epochs, such scale-free computing may be a latent background mechanismof the organization of the genetic code and therefore relevant to natural computing.
For the past 20 years and more, arguments about the role of quantum mechanics in consciousness and mind theory have been mounting. On the one side are traditional neuroscientists who believe that the way to understanding the brain is through looking at the nerve cells. On the other side are various physicists who suggest that the laws of quantum mechanics may have an influence on the dynamics of consciousness and the mind. At the same time however, consciousness and the mind cannot be separated from matter. They originate in the microscopic world of the human brain. There can be no definite separation between mind and matter; there is no ‘mind’ without ‘matter’, and no ‘matter’ without ‘mind’. In terms of cognitive neuroscience, we know a great deal about the working of nerve cells. For example, we understand quite well about the formation of action potential, ion exchange, energy use, axonal transport, the vesicle cycle, and formation, oscillation and breakdown in nerve transmission. But we still do not understand how experience is formed in our material brain (color, sound, smell, taste, pain, imagination, decision, dreams, love, or orgasm) and how consciousness arises in an unconscious material organ. The insufficiency of these answers no doubt arises from the insufficiency of the methods used by cognitive science.
Recently, quantum biology and molecular quantum computation have attracted substantial attention. Quantum biology applies quantum mechanics to biological systems at the molecular scale. Molecular quantum computing explores the degrees of freedom of molecules that can be used to produce quantum coherence, such as charge, orbital, opto-spin (interplay between optical excitation and spin), vibration, and rotation, to process quantum information. Cognitive science focuses on understanding how learning processes are realized, particularly within the human brain. The most common topic among these three is the computational process, which can exploit different levels of representation, either classical or quantum. Here, we review progress in quantum biology, molecular quantum computing, and quantum theory in cognitive science. Based on our critical analysis and review, we highlight that molecular quantum computing could be an important bridging research area between quantum biology and a deeper understanding of neuronal cells in cognitive science. Thus, these three areas can be the core to understanding how the classical world emerges from the quantum world and human intelligence. To answer these questions, we may gain insight by studying the quantum processes that underlie biological systems, such as photosynthesis and enzyme catalysis. An unprecedented opportunity for molecular quantum computing is to perform functionalities similar to those of the human brain. In this manner, we could not only expand the boundaries for quantum computing but also gain a better understanding of cognitive processes.
Evidence is growing for the theory of embodied cognition, which posits that action and perception co-determine each other, forming an action-perception loop. This suggests that we humans somehow participate in what we perceive. So, how can scientists escape the action-perception loop to obtain an observer-independent description of the world? Here we present a set of conjectures informed by the philosophy of mind and a reverse-engineering of science and quantum physics to explore this question. We argue that embodiment, as traditionally understood, can manifest aspects of imaginary-time quantum dynamics. We then explore what additional constraints are required to obtain aspects of genuine, real-time quantum dynamics. In particular, we conjecture that an embodied scientist doing experiments must be described from the perspective of another scientist, which is ignored in traditional approaches to embodied cognition, and that observers play complementary roles as both objects experienced by other observers and ``subjects'' that experience other objects.