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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Biophysically Coherent Quantum Dynamics

Contrary to zealously and long held assumptions regarding the indeterminacy of the quantum regime, it is increasingly apparent that at the functional level of quantum biophysics such assumptions break down. Two recent papers bear this point out. And it is not as if the researchers in this field necessarily set out to challenge  prevailing dogma. The latest paper "Long-lived quantum coherence in photosynthetic complexes at physiological temperature" demonstrates that matrix protein energy landscapes provide an encapsulating protection of chromophores to produce a "near-perfect quantum efficiency" transfer of energy in photosynthesis. So the question here that presents itself immediately is how is it that a completely supposedly unsolvable stochastic chance quantum fluctuation can be garnered routinely and pervasively at the most elemental functioning of living systems?

Another recent more theoretical work "The relevance of continuous entanglement in DNA," educes a potential energetic model of DNA as a chain of harmonic quantum entangled oscillators. In this regard, the work of Ludmilla Yakushevich and colleagues on a DNA solitonic wave function  model is highly relevant.

Perhaps if we redirect our attention to the underpinnings of scientific epistemology toward this type of  thinking about dynamic biophysical work functions, the apparent absurdity of indeterminate randomness introduced into "pure" physics by Heisenberg et al. nearly a century ago will fade into the irrelevancy it so justly deserves. The truly "pure" substance of human creative thought as evidenced most immediately in classical contrapuntal composition is never located in the notes on the page of the musical score, but rather in that beautiful and truthful process lying above, beyond and "in between" the notes. It is the standpoint of accounting for the transformative power of human technological innovation which physics erroneously excludes from its purview. However, the scientific pursuit of what Cotton Mather and Benjamin Franklin espoused as the "good,"  will perforce always resolve such ugly Manichean metaphysical charades that plague today's schoolrooms.

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