Main Is Quantum Evolution The New Science Of Life? en>fr fr>en
By webmaster  Comments: 253, member since Sun Mar 07, 1999On Sat Feb 05, 2000 05:15 PM
This <a href="http://unisci.com/stories/20001/0204006.htm">article</a> describes a new theory that evolution of life requires the use of quantum mechanical multiverses. From a cursory reading, I don't buy it. The simpler explanation of coherence/dechoherence seems a tad easier to believe than parallel universes. What if we achieve complete artificial intelligence in a computer? Was it alive before, too? The paper posits that life is somehow different than nonlife at a quantum level. This should easily be disproved by the first computer artificial intelligence being. Or maybe it already has if you take alife into consideration.<p>
<ul>
In quantum mechanics, everything that can happen will happen. When an electron or proton is placed at a crossroads where it can travel to the right or to the left, it goes both ways.
<p>
In quantum systems, fundamental particles exist as ghostly "superpositions" where they can be in a billion different places at once or in a billion different states at once.
<p>
Today, one of the most popular interpretations, and one that has the backing of Nobel prize-winning physicists, is that there exists a multiverse in which everything that can happen really does happen -- but in parallel universes. Although our conscious self inhabits only one branch of the multiverse -- our own universe -- fundamental particles inhabit the entire multiverse. It is this property that allows them to occupy multiple places or states simultaneously: Each place or state is in a parallel universe.
</ul>
This <a href="http://unisci.com/stories/20001/0204006.htm">article</a> describes a new theory that evolution of life requires the use of quantum mechanical multiverses. From a cursory reading, I don't buy it. The simpler explanation of coherence/dechoherence seems a tad easier to believe than parallel universes. What if we achieve complete artificial intelligence in a computer? Was it alive before, too? The paper posits that life is somehow different than nonlife at a quantum level. This should easily be disproved by the first computer artificial intelligence being. Or maybe it already has if you take alife into consideration.<p>
<ul>
In quantum mechanics, everything that can happen will happen. When an electron or proton is placed at a crossroads where it can travel to the right or to the left, it goes both ways.
<p>
In quantum systems, fundamental particles exist as ghostly "superpositions" where they can be in a billion different places at once or in a billion different states at once.
<p>
Today, one of the most popular interpretations, and one that has the backing of Nobel prize-winning physicists, is that there exists a multiverse in which everything that can happen really does happen -- but in parallel universes. Although our conscious self inhabits only one branch of the multiverse -- our own universe -- fundamental particles inhabit the entire multiverse. It is this property that allows them to occupy multiple places or states simultaneously: Each place or state is in a parallel universe.
</ul> |
