Spanspermia: Does Life Come from Outer Hilbert Space?

SepiaBeetle

How quantum is life? It's not. At least not in any functional sense. Here I argue from first principles for the impossibility of any physiological scale quantum phenomena which cannot be described classically. To do so I invoke scaling and complexity arguments, and highlight their universality and utility across orders of magnitude in computational study. I discuss a taxonomy of scale for quantum effects in biology, and suggest that the very properties which would make quantum biology meaningfully distinct as a discipline would simultaneous render it intractable. Finally, I argue that a more promising frame for life is not quantum but algebraic. With examples from neuroscience, applied mathematics, machine learning and physical computing, I argue that the scale-free formalism of linear algebra has far greater utility as a tool for existential investigations on the nature of life.

Download Essay PDF File

Download Reference PDF File

Download Technical Endnotes PDF File

EmeraldBeetle

SepiaBeetle thank you for your wonderfully erudite, amusingly accessible and deflationary critique of “quantum biology” along with the Hossenfelder‑esque deconstruction of the academic research and publishing industries that drive academics through “perverse incentives” to “chase trends like a pack of starving rats”!

Do you think you’re being perhaps just a tad too hard on the discipline though? I personally don’t see what’s terribly wrong with recognising that “quantum biology” is often shorthand for the use of quantum chemistry in biological contexts – even though the evidence for functionally relevant quantum coherence and entanglement appears constrained to femtoseconds at physiological temperatures (with spin coherences up to microseconds?) over \leq nanometre spatial scales.

Your perfectly reasonable diatribe is, however, for me, also a very welcome and timely propaedeutic for all the essays in this competition that have deep‑dived into the “quantum biology” of photosynthesis, magnetoreception, ion tunnelling, etc., with seemingly full confidence in the “premature proclamations of paradigm shifts”, but many without nuance or even a nod to the contentious nature of the ongoing debates over quantum vs classical mechanisms and stochastic modelling under warm and wet biological conditions.

The deflation of “quantum consciousness” theories as “not theories, but magical thinking clothed in scientific language” is also well put, if somewhat brusque! As a philosopher concerned with phenomenal consciousness I see no path forward for much of the NCC research – especially the “quantum biology” wing – beyond illuminating the brain’s relation to the functional aspects of human and other organismal behaviour. Deriving phenomenal consciousness from grey meat (quantum or otherwise) is also, I think, a category error.

Your Hilbert space light at the end of the tunnel is likewise well taken, and I personally find the question of how “meat might mimic algebraic abstraction” a structurally motivated approach to modelling 'life'!

Steve Dufourny

SepiaBeetle Hi,
I respect your essay, that said, we cannot be too reductionist, philosophically speaking. To adopt a reductive physicalist stance while acknowledging our limitations seems a bit strong when making broad physical and philosophical claims.
Indeed, you assert that life is not quantum in any functional sense. For you, only algebraic and informational structures matter ,hence, no quantum biology. Yet the mere fact that decoherence occurs rapidly at biological scales does not justify such a definitive conclusion.

If we replace quantum mechanics with mathematical universality and linear algebra, how can we justify such philosophical reductionism? It implies a purely computational and universal framework without addressing the underlying physical, mathematical, logical, and informational causes of this reasoning itself. Doubt remains essential when truth is unknown. This concerns epistemology, skepticism, and the freedom to explore deep unknowns.
Quantum coherence may not yet explain processes like photosynthesis, but our present knowledge of quantum mechanics is limited. Deeper particles, fields, and philosophical possibilities may still exist. Therefore, we cannot conclude or reduce possibilities prematurely; instead, we must explore them without asserting them until they are proven.

All this calls for epistemic humility, since our current sciences cannot fully explain life, consciousness, fundamental entities, or the origin of the universe. When we generalize too quickly, we risk making category mistakes ,asserting what has not been universally demonstrated. Algebra is a tool, not an ontology. Freedom of thought remains crucial, in my view, as long as we respect determinism and avoid claiming to know what has not yet been proved.
After all, empirical claims must be testable, while philosophical reflection allows us to open new possibilities.

Hilbert space is the abstract mathematical realm where all possible states of a system exist as vectors ,a beautiful tool for formalism. That said, Hilbert himself rejected metaphysics, as a formalist, he considered symbolic mathematical systems as the only valid truth. But this perspective lacks general causes and universality concerning information, mathematical equations, logical relations, physical structures, and their philosophical origins.
Hilbert’s work is admirable in detail but limited in scope. His admirers, and later thinkers like Tegmark, have tried to replace Spinoza’s or Einstein’s God with a purely mathematical structure , but this, in my humble opinion, is reductive. These mathematical abstractions can model many things but cannot explain life or consciousness.
In conclusion, Hilbert space describes relations within our limited observations, but it is not an ontology.

Regards

SepiaBeetle

EmeraldBeetle

First, thank you for taking the time to read and respond! My life got in the way at precisely the moment this came out so I didn't have a chance to address the point you raised until now. I think the question you raise about the stance I adopted is legitimate, and had there been more space I would have expanded upon this very point. For the sake of context my background is in quantum/applied mathematics, and I remember in my PhD there was a popular line from visiting speakers that mathematics is the new microscope for biology. At the time I remember being somewhat unpersuaded by the evidence of some n variable non-linear differential equations being truly useful. Toy models describing population dynamics did not strike me as earth shattering. What I failed to understand at the time was the extensibility, and the degree to which sheer computational power could scale these ideas. On the other side of that my research now is in and around the theory of quantum computing, where again the whole game is one of scale. The blunt reality of that though is that it is spectacularly hard to scale up quantum systems in a controllable manner, without their statistics simply collapsing to that of classical probability. My point here is that even in that regime the question of what is genuinely a quantum effect - still less an advantage - is yet to be settled. So if in even the most pristine systems we can engineer, the essential quantumness of what is being done can be questioned! Now though the field is so thoroughly poisoned with VC money the gap between hype and reality makes it essentially impossible for any outsider to interrogate the actual state of the technology. Quantum is one of those magic sticky words, and because most people aren't quantum physicists it's easy to weaponise it as a surrogate for understanding. This matters hugely, and in a golden age of fraud I think it's vital that we minimise the space for bad actors to play in. Ten years ago people were claiming electronic coherence in complex molecules, but in the time since there's been ample evidence that it's actually just phononic modes, and that the simulations we can do can't agree on whether it does anything whatsoever functionally. Practically every essay on here however takes the original marketing pitch as read, even though the evidence is - at minimum - questionable! This is I think a real problem, and it's the thin end of the wedge in legitimating the completely fantastical claims. Quantum biology is a radical term - to my mind it's a definitional contradiction in scales. It's not sufficient to say "oh it's a useful shorthand" because that's only true for the people who actually know what they're doing. There's already huge progress being made under the umbrella of computational or systems biology, which is where all the biology scale stuff is actually being done. For that reason I think using such a highly specific and visible word like quantum carries with it some obligations. I am not allowed to call all computing quantum, even though every chip on the planet uses transistors relying on quantum effects. I don't think it's too much to ask that the invention of new taxonomical categories is both useful and necessary. I've not seen any evidence that relabelling chemical processes which happen to occur in living matter as quantum biology does either. It muddies a huge amount of issues, with zero explanatory or predictive gain. Again I'll stress this is to say nothing about the research itself, but scientific integrity begins at home. If the only things you can label quantum biology exist below the scale of physiology, then you're simply playing a semantic game. If we just start from the perspective of disciplines labelling topics, I think it's reasonable to expect a new one to not simply be a subset of an already extant one. For example, Quantum machine learning is its own thing! It has a number of highly distinct features as compared to its classical counterpart, and these are both predictive and testable. For quantum biology not to simply be a reindexing of chemistry, I don't think it's unreasonable to hold it to the same standard. That is, to ask for positive evidence of a quantum effect at the biological scale! That kind of demonstration simply hasn't materialised, and - for the reasons I outlined in the essay - I am highly sceptical it ever will. For that reason I think it's an unhelpful label that flatters to deceive. Then again I am an compulsive categoriser, so perhaps it's only me this really bothers.

RoseWren

Steve Dufourny I agree with your opinion. "Hilbert space describes relations within our limited observations, but it is not an ontology" – yes, yes!

Steve Dufourny

RoseWren
Thanks, I think it is important because the abstract vector space of this Hilbert mathematical construct permit quantum states ,operators with probabilities and relationships, and dynamics but not the physical objects in themselves. So it is not an ontology it is evident , it is not a claim about the fundamental nature of our reality , it is a tool to modelize and provide consistent framework about the prossibilities and the interactions, that is why I find it very relevant mathematically speaking. We arrive so at an important point about the interpretations of our quantum mechanics . We cannot confound so the maths and the reality , maybe it is the error of Tegmark because it treats the mathematical universe as if it is the universe itself. That implies a kind of epistemic caution due to fact that the mathematical structures describe but do not constitute the existence in itself.
Best regards

RoseWren

Steve Dufourny This is an old problem https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/en-ru.ru.c57b4765-68efa835-e6b9987e-74722d776562/https/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_object#cite_ref-3 , which relies heavily on formal logic, which doesn't prove, but only reveals the author's train of thought. I believe that a real proof is an explanation from the perspective of how people create concepts, both those denoting real-life objects and abstractions. Since the topic of concepts was originally the domain of scholasticism, from which science, when it emerged, tried to distance itself, for example, by introducing the need for "objectivity," this topic still has some room for development.

Steve Dufourny

SepiaBeetle

Hi,While I respect your points of view and the beautiful words you use to express the ideas in your essay, can we really overgeneralize quantum engineering to nature, considering the constraints?
If we take engineered systems, biological systems, and quantum systems, can we truly generalize about their coherences? We cannot make category errors in fact, due to the limitations of ontology. We arrive at deep ontological questions about what primary information is, and why negentropic systems emerge.
How quantum is life? And how quantum is biology? These have physical, ontological, and even informational limitations. So, can we conclude that functional advantage is equal to ontological reality?A quantum advantage is not the same as quantum causation, in my humble opinion.
For me, quantum biology is not a contradiction in scales.
Can we make such false analogies with quantum computing terminology? Probably not.It is about operations, frameworks, and categories mainly. Because biology uses quantum effects and is made of quantum systems, it now becomes a question of the information that has permitted these biological systems to exist, and why ontologically speaking we have negentropy.

You also speak about social critique, hype, and reality. We could consider another important point,vanity. But this is a complex problem when we consider computing, biology, and free will. That said, we indeed need concrete taxonomical categories, while also adding analyses of problems and possible methods and solutions. This may be the most important thing,being open to epistemic extrapolations is better than living in a kind of philosophical prison, like a bureaucratic discipline. Creativity, art, and the joy of discovery,while knowing our limitations are essential for science and humanity.
Intelligence is not the same as consciousness. I love Feynman,,one of my favorites. The most important thing is the taste for learning the fundamentals with passion. He said wonderful words, and they relate to what I mentioned before about vanity. Feynman said,Never confuse education with intelligence, you can have a PhD and still be an idiot. He was right.
I had to stop university because of serious health problems, but I cannot stop studying. For many years I have spoken with PhDs,some very relevant, from whom I learned a lot and stayed humble,but also others, vain and limited, who proved Feynman right. The habit does not make the monk.

Public hype and genuine science… after all, it is a question of respect for laws and creativity. Communication problems may be as important as scientific validity.
The most important thing is probably to remain open-minded about philosophy and ontology, without accepting a reductive or chosen philosophical prison. We must try possibilities, not conclude when we are not sure.
Can we be selectively sceptical in a community of theoretical physics, given such deep physical, ontological, and philosophical limitations? yes but with this open minded choice ,That is why we can explore interpretations of quantum mechanics and possibilities without asserting assumptions.
It is not about the research itself, nor the label, but about the possibility to explore while trying to respect universal laws and studying the concrete laws, axioms, and equations. Ontology and neutrality are essential,but also humility, I think.

Best regards, and good essay, wish you all the best in the essay contest