QM and Organic Evolution

[foodchain]

I made another thread about the relationship of QM and organic evolution in which I thought was interesting so I would like to rehash such with a different question.

 

In quantum decoherence a themes is that quantum systems are not isolated environments. If by QM its possible to model the total reality of an environment, even if its by individual systems operating as a collective whole, be it an organism or a star. The question then I think takes on more of a role being QM is a framework in which to explain the presence of something so elementary in these systems such as a star and or chemistry.

 

So using a QM framework somewhat akin to decoherence do you think it would be possible to model say evolution in an ecological sense?

 

I mean being life has a molecular basis like many other physical objects:D It would also I think show benefit in that a mutation or simply a variation of this ties into an ecological or environmental theme both on say expression of the organism in real time in relation to the environment, but on an internal basis also such as if the mutation for instance was lethal in a developmental stage.

 

I think such a question can bring about more fundamental questions I think in biology such as what chemically could allow for such states in any theme of entropy for instance to if life automatically evolves in a Darwinian sense and DNA repair for instance is a reality of such.

 

I look forward to discussion on this one if anyone is interested. Please just don’t say no and type in a why also, that would be greatly appreciated. I have a lasting interest in this question and would like to work on it to say broaden the understanding of life if such a question looks like it could produce any sort of data. I don’t know if people already try to study life from such an angle, if they do please add links as I have not really noticed anything I think that falls along the exact lines I am putting forward. I have also put some thought into various mathematical tools I would like to use, such as boundary conditions for example though I have not worked on any equations at this time.

 

*As a side note I think such studies could have a basis in say understanding material systems overall.

 

For the sake of a reply I will try to add some more info in. I think initially you would have to define of course a set of tools. I am looking towards boundary conditions in relation to scope of say a biological process say the Krebs cycle in terms of trying to find say quantum relaxation or equilibrium as a goal of homeostasis from a molecular viewpoint. I think scope would have to become important for trying to define not only a history but the extent of a system to be modeled. Being metabolism can I think be viewed for say a multicellular organism as a product of each cells giving metabolism at a time I think scope becomes again more important to the task at hand.

 

If for instance we can look at epistasis as a particular genome executing in time, time being an important function of course via the proteome I think it could also lead to more insight on the basis of a phenotype to genotype. So possibly trying to view a giving epistatic network in a time based way to environmental stimulation via the proteome. Biochemistry and genetics of course have yielded high amounts of information on say a giving metabolic pathway or signaling aspect of biological function. I would say starting with just something already well understood in that faction. The ultimate aim I would try to think is that a giving amount of possibilities must exist at any point in time, which sort of makes an organism look like a giant rubix cube.

 

I think this would allow from say the realities of something like atoxia to be studied in an environmental or ecological relationship down to a molecular level, to the point of being able to explain from a molecular viewpoint to a whole system at an organismal level of why for instance a bauplan for aquatic life varies as much as it does to say terrestrial life. Being abotic and biotic factors both have a physical basis I think natural selection could then have more light shed on it in real time as to maybe why a gene would become silenced or not. Being epigenetic networks for instance become a reality and that genes must communicate via a post translational modification reality in the proteome to each other I think the gene centric view suffers greatly as does biology. More so when the reality of environmental impact stands as it does in regards to importance.

 

The overall idea I think would hinge on a more reduced level of viewing basically energy/matter based interactions down to even a subatomic level for possible information, or a more concrete bridge of natural selections impact on life. It would though allow for you to start very small and the ability to predict say tertiary structure of a protein is already past beings science fiction.

[Fred56]

The information set we have collected so far on metabolic systems is pretty big, but do we know how closely it describes what happens in a cell, or bacteria?

How complete a picture do we have of a particular pathway? Going deeper and determining any subatomic 'reality' at the metabolic level would increase the information, but again, how closely would this define or describe the bigger picture? What sort of processor would we use to crunch it?

Isn't it the case that all we know (despite all the info) is that we still don't know a lot of stuff? Protein folding is still an NP-hard kind of problem, I think, because we don't yet know enough to model this all that well, plus we don't yet have the processing ability to crunch a problem like that?

 

The only scientific connection I have heard about is quantum Darwinism (which seem to pop up in SFN a bit lately), which is a theory about how life observes, or how the indeterminate quantum state becomes a single observed 'event', or how we 'select' a value from an indeterminate set.

 

Beyond that, sorry I'm not so confident I can say I understand what you are really asking...?!

[foodchain]

The information set we have collected so far on metabolic systems is pretty big, but do we know how closely it describes what happens in a cell, or bacteria?

How complete a picture do we have of a particular pathway? Going deeper and determining any subatomic 'reality' at the metabolic level would increase the information, but again, how closely would this define or describe the bigger picture? What sort of processor would we use to crunch it?

Isn't it the case that all we know (despite all the info) is that we still don't know a lot of stuff? Protein folding is still an NP-hard kind of problem, I think, because we don't yet know enough to model this all that well, plus we don't yet have the processing ability to crunch a problem like that?

 

The only scientific connection I have heard about is quantum Darwinism (which seem to pop up in SFN a bit lately), which is a theory about how life observes, or how the indeterminate quantum state becomes a single observed 'event', or how we 'select' a value from an indeterminate set.

 

Beyond that, sorry I'm not so confident I can say I understand what you are really asking...?!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well if you take a modeled quantum system you can disturb it via the environment in which you will induce change. If this is a basic reality of matter at least like you would find in say chemistry that you can also view such a facet of nature as applying to biological systems. Being current consensus has life blindly evolving for the most part, or that its not made in a shop somewhere then natural phenomena has to explain it. If the rules which for instance control chemical behavior are based in QM say from selection possibly then modeling an organism at that level I think would give a much more precise, and accurate depiction of it.

 

Again I think you could start incredibly small in relation to an organism from what already exists, such as the Krebs cycle, that aspect of metabolism has been thoroughly documented more then say what attributes to fingernail appearance such as natural width or length. So it would take modeling such a system alone on a QM basis before say trying to tackle the whole picture. Again I know it would just produce a giant mutable rubix cube but if you could understand it there to how its actually interacting at a level of matter/energy then the benefits I could only see as enormous.

 

As for processing power I would think large scale distributed networks would be the answer. As I think is visible with the reality of arvix I think putting such out would generate response if even papers. Biophysics already has this but I think biophysics in general stays far more applied and experimental and lacks say as large of a theoretical basis that would lead to theory you would find at a cosmic level. I think such truly is called theoretical biology but I do not know how many people are running around in it trying to crunch QM and organic evolution for instance. I think overall though that it’s a better option for study on the basis of how much you could possibly reduce uncertainty.

 

The major issue to me from what I understand would be how much can you currently equate the understanding of life to the understanding of QM, I think you would have to generate possibly something more novel such as hypothesis to both really. I read a paper recently, like the day after I made this post that showed relaxation being pivotal in accurate prediction molecular behavior biological in origin. So some framework that can work obviously exists.