Quantum Evolution: Life in the Multiverse by Johnjoe McFadden (PDF)

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Quantum Evolution presents a revolutionary new scientific theory by asking: is there a force of will behind evolution? In his astonishing first book, Johnjoe McFadden shows that there is.‘McFadden’s bold hypothesis that quantum physics plays a key role in the origin and evolution of life looks increasingly plausible. The weird behaviour of matter and information at the quantum level could be just what is needed to explain life’s astonishing properties. If these ideas are right, they will transform our understanding of the relationship between physics and biology.’ PAUL DAVIESIn this brilliant debut, Johnjoe McFadden puts forward a theory of quantum evolution. He shows how living organisms have the ability to will themselves into action. Indeed, such an ability may be life’s most fundamental attribute. This has radical implications. Evolution may not be random at all, as recent evolutionary theories have taught: rather, cells may, in certain circumstances, be able to choose to mutate particular genes that provide an advantage in the environment in which the cell finds itself. This ‘will’ – described by McFadden as ‘the life force’ – has startling implications. It is at the root of consciousness and free-will and provides a new understanding of the origins of life and the purpose of death.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐A well written, layman’s overview of a huge number of topics in modern science. Cellular biology, biochemistry, evolutionary theory, cosmology and quantum physics are each given their own chapters, along with a good overview of quantum biology, which can only be appreciated once a basic understanding of the other topics is established. I found it easily understandable, but I also have some science background from colle courses and having read numerous layman’s books.What I disliked was the “sales approach” the author uses. He promises to give us new and insightful ideas about the nature of life and the origins of life and consciousnesses in the universe at the outset of the book, then about 80% of the rest of the book is, “But first we need to take a detour and discuss…”, “But now we have to cover this field of science….”, “But wait! There’s more! If you have followed along to this chapter, we need to diverge yet again…”. After a while, I felt liked I’d been roped into a never ending online infomercial, that never gets to the point.When he finally does get to the point of the book, at the dry end of the book, what we realize is two things: (1) the author has carefully sculpted and constructed his overviews of the various systems within science to cherrypick and put forth the specific interpretations within these fields that agree with his final conclusions. So we’re not getting so much an objective overview of each field as we are a very carefully constructed, almost lawyerly, argument meant to support a very subjective case. (2) The final arguments he makes about how he thinks life and consciousness may have arisen in the universe are incredibly specious, even granting that he admits its pure speculation. The foundation of his argument is so ridiculously thin, it becomes immediately apparent that he needed hundreds of pages of ancillary justification to even try and put it forth with a straight face.What does he say? I’ll save you the suspense of slogging through the whole book only to get to the punchline of a terribly constrewed idea: SPOILER ALERT: He relies on three common pillars of thought, only one of which has any solidity (in my opinion): quantum superposition (which is the solid one), the multiverse (the particular conception that posits a separate universe being spawned for every possible subatomic, atomic, molecular and macroscopic event in existence), and the anthropoic principle.He employes the example of a simple protein capable of self-replication, calculates the enormous number of atomic combinations that could result from combinations of its base constituents (only one of which would be capable of self-replication), and argues that at some point on the pre-life earth, these atomic elements must have come together in a state of quantum superposition, with each permutation spawning off its own entire multiverse, until the permutation that allowed for a self-replicating protein spawned its own universe in which to begin the process of life, while all other permutations lead to dead end universes. And how do we know this really happened? Why of course, because we are here to talk about it.Yes, that is really the conclusion he comes to. And his arguments about consciousness are even worse.I hate to be so derogatory about the book, the author seems like a very well intentioned, kind and intelligent person, grasping for answers we simply are not at a place yet in science to answer. I have spent my life asking the same questions and looking for reasonable answers, and I’d hoped to at least find some insight in this book to lead me forward. What I found instead, was Monty Python’s Cheese Shop sketch.I do thank the author profusely for putting forward the best, most clear explanation of the double slit experiment I’ve read to date. Years ago, I came to agree with the conclusion he champions, that light (and other phenomena subject to particle/wave duality), are fundamentally wave-like in nature and only acquire local characteristics when tested. I do not however, agree with the ridiculous notion that we retroactively created the universe in the very act of evolving to become conscious observers of it (yes, he really does go there). Even Star Trek writers know to stay away from such silly time travel paradoxes. It is not the impenetrable obtuseness of an idea, but rather it’s immediate simplicity and elegance, that makes for genius of thought. I think last century there may have been some dabbling cross-fertilization between gypsy swamis from the Far East and substances discovered at the bottom of experiment beakers by biochemists, with their neighbors across the hall in the physics labs, that spawned such lunacy. Sorry, but we’re just not that important in the grand scheme of things. To those in the scientific community to whom it may concern, please stop with the utter nonsense and mysticism under the cloak and trappings of science. We all want answers, but jumping off the solid edge of reason into the abyss of blubbering fantasy is not a leap of faith, it just makes us all look a little more naive, to put it nicely.

⭐McFadden begins with a discussion of what defines life. He concludes that “directed action” is a key notion. This is something analogous to the appearance of “will” in humans or higher animals. Moreover this directed action takes place all the way down to the microscopic level within organisms. Organisms are characterized by order via directed action at scales large and small.Prior to presenting the core arguments for quantum effects in life, McFadden reviews evolution and DNA replication. He also looks at the different theories for the origin of life. On his way toward providing his own answer, McFadden next takes a closer look at biochemistry, showing that as you drill down into particular biological functions you find they are driven by directed movements of individual protons or electrons via the electromagnetic force. This puts us squarely in the domain of physics, specifically quantum physics.McFadden presents his own very readable summary of QM, leaning heavily on the two-slit experiment as a heuristic device. His strategy is to show that quantum measurements are happening at the micro-level in living systems. He gives an example of an enzyme action that ultimately depends on a single proton, which we know must be in a superposition of states absent measurement. So, a living system must be measuring itself. His view is that the classical world depends generally on continual measurement for its manifestation. This discussion leads to the next key tool McFadden wants to use: the quantum Zeno effect (and inverse Zeno effect). This, he speculates, is what is responsible for directed action at the micro-level.With the review of QM in hand, he returns to a discussion of the origin of life and the question of how the first replicator was assembled (given the extreme improbability of it happening by chance). He theorizes that quantum superpositions could allow exploration of a large space of possibilities at the scale of an amino acid peptide chain. But the chances still seem small of making the self-replicator. However, harnessing the (inverse) Zeno effect could increase the probability. And, once you have a self-replicator, can we assume natural selection can do the rest of the job? No, there is still a big challenge here in getting a simple replicator to build the complex machinery of a cell. Moreover, in computer simulations, replicators tend to generate simpler systems, not more complex ones.McFadden speculates that if a system on the edge of the classical frontier repeatedly fell back into quantum superposition and took advantage of the inverse quantum Zeno effect, this could have added complexity. Still, we haven’t been able to do anything like this in the lab.And yet, the case seems relatively more compelling that non-trivial quantum effects are being exhibited in living cells (even if they are difficult or impossible to directly detect). To give credence to the existence of these effects one can estimate that decoherence times would be lengthy enough for them to occur in the relevant context. Also, important to note is that it is only coherent systems are sensitive enough to be affected by the weak electromagnetic fields which are known to exist in the cellular realm. McFadden concludes the quantum/classical barrier exists at the sub-cellular level of biology, and that organisms are comprised of “quantum cells”.Getting back once again to the definition of life, McFadden says the cell’s ability to “capture” low entropy states to maintain order at the microscopic level via (internal) quantum measurements and the quantum Zeno effect is responsible for the distinctive directed action which characterizes life.In the final chapters, McFadden first reprises the discussion of the role of quantum effects in DNA mutation and adaptive evolution. Then, he closes with his theory of how quantum effects in the brain may be linked to human will and consciousness.On the one hand, this book consists of speculation stacked on speculation. On the other hand, each step progresses from features of physics or biochemistry that we know to be true. Between the spheres of quantum physics and the human mind lies the world of biology: I continue to look for arguments and evidence that biological systems have features that can bridge these realms. This book was a fine effort along this line.

⭐You really get two books for the price of one. In each case, the author, a practicing scientist, has chosen to present the ideas in a popular science book rather than a published paper. We the readers are privileged to see cutting edge science in action.The first idea is to do with evolution. There are a few points where standard neo-Darwinian theory struggles, not least how self-replicating molecules such as RNA got started in the beginning. The standard response of neo-Darwinians is that we do not yet know the details of these steps, but they will fall into place just as other steps that used to seem difficult have become clear. The standard response of creationists and their less radical siblings is that God is required to explain these steps. For example, the previously atheist philosopher Anthony Flew came to believe in a kind of God in order to explain the initial step of evolution.In this book, Johnjoe McFadden puts forward a quantum mechanical extension to neo-Darwinian theory, which successfully explains these difficult steps. Just as a quantum computer can try out vast numbers of possible solutions to a maths problem that would be beyond the scope of any normal computer, so too quantum mechanics can try out vast numbers of possible self-replicators, or any of the other difficult steps in neo-Darwinism.To me, his arguments seem quite plausible, though it would be good to see them presented more mathematically and with less hand-waving. Certainly, they are worth considering seriously, as they have profound effects on evolution, theology, and the probability of finding life elsewhere in the universe. I think that some of the ideas, particularly around directed evolution of antibiotic resistance, sound as if they would be fairly easy to test scientifically.The second big idea in the book is to do with consciousness. McFadden puts forward an argument that the human brain is effectively a quantum computer, and that the quantum mechanical side of the brain is what generates consciousness. For me, this idea is weaker than his ideas around evolution. The mechanism he postulates for quantum computing in the brain is very heuristic and not very plausible. Moreover, I think he has misunderstood consciousness (admittedly rather an easy thing to do). Would a quantum computer be conscious? What about a simulation of a quantum computer on a classical computer? He relies very heavily on introspection, so thinks that there must be a single ‘cartesian theatre’ (my words not his) as that is how it feels to him, even though experiments tell a contrary much more parallel view. In my opinion, the chapter on consciousness should have been in a different book, and split more clearly into two separate ideas: that the brain works to some extent as a quantum computer; and that consciousness is a separate physical process in the brain.The first part of the book is much better, and certainly deserves five stars (I’d give more if I could). There are a few minor points where I think it could be improved.The presentation of the Youngs slits experiment as viewed by a frog is incorrect. If the frog were able to tell which slit the photon came from there would be no interference. This does not affect the argument as a whole, but it would be good to correct the error in a subsequent edition.The Kindle version is pretty unreadable because it has no pictures or figures. Also, some of the characters are represented in a weird way — for example TB is called T?At the start of the book, McFadden tries to be kind to non-scientists by avoiding scientific notation. Planck’s constant is written out as 0.0…06, for example. By the end of the book, he has given up on this. Much better to be consistent all the way through, and maybe explain the notation.Hard bits of science, such as quantum mechanics or the action of enzymes, are presented in passing as a digression in whichever chapter uses them first. This is rather charming, but I think the brevity of the explanations would leave non-scientists reeling. I would not recommend this book as your first introduction to quantum mechanics or chemistry.The presentation of the evolutionary ideas uses many worlds theory plus the anthropic principle. I can see that this works for steps directly leading to human intelligence, but I don’t think it is appropriate for unrelated steps, such as antibiotic resistance or cancer. McFadden states that his ideas also work in other interpretations of quantum mechanics, but his explanations using the quantum zeno effect do not feel very rigorous.Finally I note that the first few chapters of this book are reproduced almost word for word in the later book ‘Cosmo Sapiens’ by John Hands. If I were the publisher of this book, I’d be looking carefully at the possibility of plagiarism.——— edits following further investigation of the ideas contained in the bookThere is a detailed critique of the use of quantum mechanics, particularly the quantum zeno effect, in the later chapters of the book in a paper by Matthew J. Donald available on arxiv number 0101019, and a reply by Johnjoe and Jim Al-Khalili number 0110083. Both critique and response are well-written and investigate in far more depth the more hand-wavy parts of Quantum Evolution. Between them, they address many of my criticisms of the book, and are worth reading after you have read the book itself. They are freely available online, and you can skip the more technical parts without losing the gist of the argument.

⭐This is an excellently written book. It gives insight into a fascinating field of science and does so in a way that does not require substantial prior knowledge. This book really opened up my mind. A brilliant read which I look forward to reading again and again.

⭐I found the idea that some sort of quantum computing could be the basis for the evolution of living things quite fascinating. The author is patient and writes in a way that takes the non scientist into the mysteries of life at the molecular level, quantum mechanics, quantum computing and the nature of consciousness. His description of these things to a lay reader is quite gifted. In fact it’s the best non-mathematical description of quantum mechanics I’ve come across, it’s worth reading for this alone. The explanation of how life comes to form irreducibly complex processes is the most plausible I’ve come across. The last section on consciousness might be a theory too far but builds up in the same logical steps and is a great piece of work in its own right worth a book to itself. This is not a fantasy world of some mystic either, the author is a reader in Molecular Biology at the University of Surrey. I would recommend it strongly.

⭐As it was printed in 2000 its actually a little out of date. Not for the beginner either, which I definitely am!

⭐Excellent book, very up to date and comprehensive, covering a wide range of scientific subjects related to the biological in physical explanation of what is life.

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