Not even 3 pages, but not bad at all. Congrats.
Life as open thermodynamic system is built on catching the sunlight as energy source. This must be efficient and 'driven' and here quantum effects are essential. Chemistry alone is not sufficiently fast and effective.
All the rest of the ecosystems build on this. In total the efficiency is not so high though, but there are cases that reach up, as instance the information transfer must be quick and efficient. Enzymes are such that make it quick and efficient and so they are quantum operators.
Regarding physical aspects we have the problems of consciousness and mind to explain, and they handle information. So we must use thermodynamics and dissipation or the lack of it, and how we harvest the info.
ZucchiniMongoose while quantum mechanics forms the foundation of all chemistry, certain organisms appear to exploit quantum advantages at the molecular level.
Tegmark is famous for analyzing the decoherence time, but if his analysis would be right it eliminates all this too. Oscillations and vibrations decoher before they have a biological effect then. Here we must remember the open and driven systems we have and how we can think and gather info to react on in a small amount of time..
In short, a good essay, congrats.
Ulla.
