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A Step towards the Quantum Vision of Life
R.P.Bajpai
Institute of Self-Organising Systems and Biophysics, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong 793022,India
( rpbajpai@yahoo.com or rpbajpai@hotmail.com )
and
International Institute of Biophysics, IIB e.V. Raketenstation, Hombroich, D41472, Neuss Germany
The integration of Biology in the web of knowledge is far from complete; many properties of living systems remain incomprehensible in the physical framework of molecular biology based on the concepts derived from the successful description of non-living matter. There is thus a need to enlarge the physical framework either by revising its basic concepts or by adding new ingredients. The nature of basic concepts is evolutionary but any further evolution or revision requires compelling inputs. The properties of living systems have not been considered compelling enough to cause a revision in the basic concepts; so the emphasis of the various attempts made to explain the properties of living systems has been on new ingredients. These attempts did not yield commensurate dividends. The basic difficulty has been the requirement that the new ingredients should affect only some properties, whose number has been decreasing with time. The difficulty made any model with new ingredients suspect and untenable. Perhaps, new ingredients are not required and there is only a need to revise some aspects of few basic concepts of physical paradigm. The supporting evidence for revising basic concepts is provided by some recent discoveries in different scientific disciplines. These discoveries also indicate the directions along which the changes are to be made. The discoveries have kindled the hope of obtaining an integrated and unified vision of living and non-living world. The relevant discoveries are: limitations of the framework of molecular biology, strange features of biophoton signals, quantum information processing in entangled photon signals, Grover’s quantum search algorithm, and possibility of using Grover’s algorithm in DNA replication and protein synthesis. Both biophoton and entangled photon signals demonstrate the quantum nature of photon and are experimental inputs. The non-classical features of biophoton signals highlights the limitations of molecular biology and can not be accounted in the classical framework of photon emission. The entangled photon signals exhibit quantum non-locality and provide channels for quantum information transfer. The observation of entangled states has stimulated investigations on the nature of reality and information, which are generating new knowledge and insights.
The new knowledge needs to be percolated in the domain of molecular biology and is relevant for understanding many properties of living systems. A conceptually simple, accurately measurable and still incomprehensible property is the emission of photon, called biophoton. Only living systems emit biophoton. A biophoton signal is easily identifiable by its characteristic features. The unexplained features of biophoton signals are incessant emission, non-exponential shape, situation specific nature, and the observed dependence of probability of subsequent photon emission in duration ranging from 10ms to 10ms on signal strength. A biophoton signal is very sensitive to physiological and environmental changes. Its sensitivity is unpredictable and quite often shows some oscillatory components. The intensity of the signal increases during biological processes; the increase is much higher during mitosis and death. These unexplained features are the basis of an impressive list of applications. The list uses only a small portion of the information of a signal; the larger and profound portion remains untapped because of our ignorance of the origin of biophoton. The larger portion holds the secret of life. Every photon signal is able to retain the information about its origin for a long time; a biophoton signal can not be an exception. A biophoton signal is usually detected after about 1ns of the emission, that is too short a time either to change its nature or to corrupt its information. As a result, biophoton signal has to be a primary source of information about life. Since the classical picture is unable to decipher the information from the primary source, the quantum picture has to be invoked for this purpose.
The necessity of using a quantum picture arises in another context related to a fundamental question why only four types of nucleic acids and twenty types of amino acids coded by a group of three nucleotides occur in living systems. The only non-trivial answer suggested so far is that a living system is a quantum system which matches base pairs in DNA replication and amino acids in protein synthesis by carrying out quantum search operations. A quantum search makes it possible to select a required object from the symmetric state of four objects in only one query and from the symmetric state of twenty objects in three queries. The outcome of the search is exact in the first case corresponding to base pair selection and slightly erroneous in the second case corresponding to amino acid selection. A natural emergence of 1,4,3,and 20 can not be a mere coincidence. Besides, a quantum search is the optimal strategy and is much faster and efficient. A successful implementation of the suggested scheme requires quantum coherency of the living system during the search operations required in a task. Quantum coherency means that the system behaves like one whole unit and completes a task in a quantum state. The task may require many molecular reactions at different space-time points and some energy will either be emitted or absorbed in each reaction. Quantum coherency ensures the cooperativity of these reactions and stipulates the energy transfer to be coherent i.e. only through states entangled with the system. Electromagnetic nature of molecular reactions implies the entangled states of the energy to be the states of photon. The requirement of the cohernt absorption of energy is not so severe; it is not needed in exothermic reactions and endothermic reactions may not occur. But a coherent emission of energy is unavoidable. A photon signal in an entangled state must emanate in the quantum search. The mechanism can be implemented if there are scattered patches or domains of coherence. Energy in any patch can be transformed coherently to produce a higher mode photon and different patches can perform independent tasks in a parallel manner.
The implementation of the scheme also requires the existence of two more mechanisms- one to maintain the quantum coherency and other to revert the system back to the original state after a number of quantum searches. Quantum coherency of the system or of its patches is difficult to maintain for a long time; environmental interactions will make any quantum state incoherent. The quantum states with a coherency time of about a millisecond are now feasible in non-living systems. It is, therefore, conceivable that quantum coherency of similar duration can occur in living systems as well. The system will not be able to complete all of its tasks in this duration and will become incoherent. However, the duration is sufficient to perform some of its tasks at molecular level and to store the information about unfinished tasks for future use. The system should have the capability to operate the two required mechanisms in the incoherent state, which will make the incoherent state essential and useful for the existence of life. The system can recoup the lost energy from usual biochemical reactions and can reset the memory of various registers like a digital computer in the incoherent state. If it assumed that recouping and resetting bring a living system back to its coherent state then the cycle will be complete. The system can continue to complete the unfinished tasks without any loss of co-ordination. It is a feasible scenario for understanding the behaviour of a living system. The scenario visualises a living system as a machine that switches back and forth between coherent and incoherent states; the machine converts chemical energy into information in its incoherent state but processes information in its coherent state. The quantum processing capability of the machine considerably improves the efficiency of the system and confers distinct evolutionary advantages. Molecular biology mostly deals with the properties of the system in its incoherent states and need to be extended to take into account the capability of the patches of the system to switch from incoherent state to coherent state. Loss of switching capability will make the condition of a patch or system pathological. The system may recover from the pathological condition by some internal or external interventions. The problems of health, disease and quality of food are related to this capability.
The scenario can explain all observed features of biophoton signals. The mandatory requirement of photon signal in an entangled quantum state explains the non-classical features of biophoton signals. DNA replication and protein synthesis are essential for any biological processes and occur in all living systems all the time. As a result, biophoton emission is also ubiquitous and incessant. Situation specific nature of the signal is a consequence of the variation in the response of the system to stimuli with its physiological state. The large increases in biophoton flux during mitosis and at the time of death occur from different reasons. The increase at mitosis arises from the generation of a large amount of information, while the increase at the time of death is the usual thermodynamic cooling that occurs at the sudden destruction of a large amount of information. A biophoton signal, therefore provide a direct evidence of the scenario and can be used to probe the finer details.
The quantum processing capability of a living system increases the diversity and information content of a biophoton signal and confers bizarre capabilities to the system. The possible quantum states of biophoton are inexhaustible. Perhaps, a few parameters can specify a state of biophoton. The information can be coded in these parameters. Another possibility of information coding is provided by the mode of switching between coherent and incoherent states. This is a manifold increase in information and is hidden in the fluctuation of intensity. Perhaps an analysis of fluctuation in biophoton signal measured at time intervals of the order of a millisecond will give some clues to the information. The bizarre capabilities arise from the non-locality of the entangled signal. The entangled signal connects the system to the environment and can be used for broadcasting and receiving information. These properties fall in the domain of consciousness and are like other observable properties understandable in the quantum picture. We thus see that the three features of photon manifest in three different classes of properties of living systems: the classical features in biomolecules and biochemical pathways, the non-classical but local features in spatio-temporal co-operativity and long range co-ordination and the non-classical and non-local features in consciousness and free will. The understanding the behaviour of biophoton signals is a preliminary step for further probing the quantum vision of life.
