Quote:
Looked at this way, the chemical reaction leading to the first self-replicator (or indeed any chemical reaction) becomes a sequence of electron and proton movements within and between molecules. The walk in multi-dimensional peptide addition space, that led to the self-replicating peptide, becomes a walk in position space for electrons and protons. The route to a single self-replicator will still be extremely improbable but quantum measurement and the inverse Zeno effect could capture the motion of the particles along that route and thereby make it more likely.
But how can the motion of particles, within and between molecules, be measured? Enzymes can perform that feat. The precise position and energy of particles within enzymes is crucial for their enzymatic activity. Enzymes regularly perform quantum measurements of the states of their own particles. I have already described how proto-enzymes would have inevitably emerged in the quantum peptide. The enzymatic actions performed by these proto-enzymes would have performed quantum measurement of the particles that make up those peptides. The proto-enzymes would have emerged unscathed from the measurement process and - after measurement - their quantum state would have drifted back into the quantum realm. However, any chain of electron and proton motion that led to a self-replicator would have been irreversibly amplified into the classical world. Although proto-enzymes may remain at the quantum level, a self-replicator inevitably amplifies its quantum state to the classical level. The self-replicator nailed the growing peptide to the classical world.
We are then left with a chain of quantum measurements terminating with a self-replicator that amplified the quantum system to the classical level. This is exactly analogous to the inverse quantum Zeno effect. Whereas, in the light and sunglasses experiment, we rotated the angle of polarization of light by quantum measurements performed by a series of polaroid lenses; in the quantum proto-cell, it was a series of proto-enzymes that performed the quantum measurements. In the light experiment, it was our observation of light passing through the horizontal lens that performed the final irreversible act of measurement which amplified the quantum system; but in the proto-cell, it was the emergence of the self-replicator that nailed the system to the classical world. The emergence of the self-replicator was the end of the line for the inverse quantum Zeno effect. Quantum measurements by proto-enzymes along the route to the self-replicator laid down a series of stepping stones that led to the emergence of life.
Only a few measurement steps would have been necessary to enhance significantly enhance the probability of generating the first self-replicator. Remember that a single Polaroid lens performing quantum measurement can increase the probability for photon transmission through a crossed lens system (combination of horizontal and vertical lenses) from zero to six per cent - an infinite increase. Even if only two or three steps along the path to self-replication were subject to quantum measurement, it may have been sufficient to raise the probability of our self-replicating peptide from 1/10^32, to a value achievable in a quantum proto-cell within a small warm primordial pond. In this guise, the inverse quantum Zeno effect performed a role later taken over by Darwinian natural selection. just as the evolution of the highly improbable structure of the eye was guided through the multiverse of design by natural selection's ability to capture beneficial mutations, so the evolution of the highly improbable self-replicator was guided through a prebiotic chemical multiverse by quantum measurement's ability to capture the quantum states which led to the self-replicator.
|
This comes from a book called Quantum Evolution - The new science of life by Johnjoe MacFadden. It is an excellent read, which requires no prior knowledge. The first half of the book briefly explains natural selection, genetics and quantum mechanics. It can be skipped if you are already familiar with these topics. The second half expalins how the effects of quantum mechanics may have played a major part in our evolution, explains modern experiments which back up the theory, especially the phenomena of "Adaptive Mutations". It also goes on to hypothesise about the role of quantum mechanics in our evry conciousness.
So what do you think about the extract? Any thoughts? I can post other extracts if anybody wants.