Quantum evolution imap://mail.cbs.dtu.dk:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/_CBS/all-pre04%3E55...

Subject: Quantum evolution

From: Thomas Schou Larsen <schou@cbs.dtu.dk>
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 18:47:44 +0100
To: cbsall@cbs.dtu.dk

An interesting thought found at

http://unisci.com/stories/20001/0204006.htm

Is Quantum Evolution The New Science Of Life?

A biologist from the University of Surrey in the UK, Dr

Johnjoe McFadden, has put together a revolutionary theory
that seeks to explain the beginnings of life in a brand
new popular science book, "Quantum Evolution."

A clue to understanding life is the realization that its

dynamics are different than those that rule the
non-living, McFadden says.

For inanimate objects, the dynamics we see are the

product of the disordered motion of billions of
particles; they are a kind of average dynamics. At the
macroscopic level, we see patterns and order, while at
the molecular level there is only chaos.

But life is different. Inside living cells, there is

order right down to the level of the single molecule that
determines the form of every creature that lives or has
ever lived: DNA. Living dynamics are not a product of
chaos, but of highly structured actions directed by the
molecular ringmaster: DNA.

This singular dynamic brings life under the sway of that

most strange of sciences: quantum mechanics. Many people
are familiar with the peculiarities of Einstein?s theory
of relativity -- bending of time and space -- but it is
less well known that he also helped to found that other
triumph of 20th century physics, quantum mechanics.

And quantum mechanics is so strange that even he could

never accept its implications.

In quantum mechanics, everything that can happen will

happen. When an electron or proton is placed at a
crossroads where it can travel to the right or to the
left, it goes both ways.

In quantum systems, fundamental particles exist as

ghostly "superpositions" where they can be in a billion
different places at once or in a billion different states
at once.

Physicists don't understand quantum mechanics. Nobody can

agree on what it really means for our view of reality. In
some interpretations, observations by conscious beings
make the world "real." In others, signals travel backward
in time to connect every particle in the universe.

Today, one of the most popular interpretations, and one

that has the backing of Nobel prize-winning physicists,
is that there exists a multiverse in which everything
that can happen really does happen -- but in parallel
universes. Although our conscious self inhabits only one
branch of the multiverse -- our own universe --
fundamental particles inhabit the entire multiverse. It
is this property that allows them to occupy multiple
places or states simultaneously: Each place or state is
in a parallel universe.

Quantum mechanics rules the dynamics of electrons,

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protons and other fundamental particles. But it has come

as a surprise to many scientists that it also holds sway
over bigger systems.

German scientists have recently demonstrated that a

single fullerene molecule, composed of a sphere of 60
carbon atoms (the famous "buckyball"), can be in two
places at once.

Few physicists doubt that as the technology advances,

bigger and more complex systems will be shown to inhabit
the quantum world. Fullerene molecules have a diameter
similar to that of the DNA double helix. If fullerenes
can enter the quantum multiverse, then DNA can manage the
same trick.

That the genetic code may inhabit the quantum multiverse

has startling implications. Mutations are the driving
force of evolution; it is they that provide the variation
that is honed by natural selection into evolutionary
paths.

Mutations have always been assumed to be random. But

mutations are caused by the motion of fundamental
particles, electrons and protons -- particles that can
enter the quantum multiverse -- within the double helix.
If these particles can enter quantum states. then DNA may
be able to slip into the quantum multiverse and sample
multiple mutations simultaneously.

But what makes it drop out of the quantum world? Most

physicists agree that systems enter quantum states when
they become isolated from their environment and pop out
of the multiverse when they exchange significant amounts
of energy with their environment, an interaction that is
termed "quantum measurement."

Cells may enter quantum states when they are unable to

divide and replicate and become isolated -- perhaps they
can?t utilize a particular foodstuff in their
environment. They may collapse out of the multiverse when
their DNA superposition includes a mutation that allows
the mutant to grow and replicate once more. From our
viewpoint, inhabiting only one universe, the cell appears
to "choose" certain mutations.

That cells may be able to choose advantageous mutations

is heresy for Darwinian dogma. But experiments performed
with bacteria demonstrate that under some circumstances,
that is precisely what they do. Although these
experiments are still controversial, they pose a real
problem for Darwinian evolutionary theory.

Quantum evolution may be the answer.

Quantum evolution may also account for that greatest

puzzle of biology -- how life arose.

Most biologists try to understand this event in terms of

conventional chemistry -- the random chaotic motion of
billions of particles. But even the simplest living cells
are extraordinarily complex, far too complex to have
arisen by chance alone.

The astronomer, Fred Hoyle, has described the likelihood

of random forces generating life as equivalent to the
chances that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might
assemble a Boeing 747. The world is just not big enough
to evolve life if it relied entirely on chance.

But if the earliest strivings towards life were not in

the conventional universe but in the quantum multiverse,
then these objections do not arise. Any small primordial
pond could generate life -- if its denizens could slip

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into the quantum multiverse.

Proposing that DNA or cells choose their destiny may

appear nonsensical, but it is certainly not intended to
imply any kind of conscious choice in simple cells.

However, even classical science has a problem with what

we call "conscious choice," or our free will. According
to Newtonian mechanics, future events are entirely
determined by what happened before. We may believe we
make decisions, but classical deterministic science tells
us that we are fooling ourselves. Our destiny and every
action we make are determined by a series of previous
events whose ultimate source is the Big Bang.

Quantum mechanics allows us an escape from this gloomy

outlook. Quantum mechanics systems are not entirely
deterministic; interactions affect how they evolve.
Within our own brain, those same quantum mechanical
dynamics that drive mutations may be responsible for what
we call "conscious choice." Mutations and our free will
are certainly very different phenomena, but their
directive force may be inherited from a common quantum
mechanical source.

At its most fundamental, life is a quantum phenomenon,

this book argues. We may owe our existence to quantum
evolution, it concludes.

Johnjoe McFadden is a Reader in Molecular Microbiology at

the University of Surrey. He took his PhD at Imperial
College, University of London, and has since specialized
in infectious diseases, examining the genetics of the
agents of tuberculosis and meningitis.

He has lectured extensively in the UK, Europe, the USA

and Japan and his work has been featured on radio,
television and in national newspaper articles. He is the
inventor of several molecular-based diagnostic tools that
are widely used in the UK and worldwide. He was runner-up
for the 1997 Wellcome Trust Science Prize for popular
science writing.

He was born in Ireland, is 43 years old, is married and

lives in Wimbledon with his wife and young son. This is
his first book for a non-specialist audience.

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