The Logic of the Four Possibilities

"In scrubbing and cleansing your profound mirror Are you able to rid it of all imperfections? In loving the common people and breathing life into the state, Are you able to do it without recourse to wisdom? With nature’s gates swinging open and closed Are you able to remain the female? With your insight penetrating the four quarters Are you able to do it without recourse to wisdom?"

Ames, Roger; Hall, David (2010-05-12). Dao De Jing- Chapter 10: A Philosophical Translation (Kindle Locations 844-846) Chapter 10. Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.  

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Ever since the time of Aristotle, logic (and most philosophy) in the western world has been constrained to obey the principle of non-contradiction. This simply means that what is true, and what is false do not overlap. If something is said to be true it cannot also be false, and if something is said to be false it cannot also be true. Intuitively this seems to be a reasonable logical axiom. It is so reasonable on it's face that it has rarely been questioned. How could we after all, make any sense of our language if truth and falsity overlapped in logical space?

As it turns out the principle of non-contradiction may not be so logically necessary as it seems. Graham Priest is a mathematician/logician /philosopher who has been making arguments for a para-consistent logic that allows for the possibility of true contradictions for 25 years. This type of logic goes back more than 2,500 years to the original Buddha in what is known as the Catuskoti. The Catuskoti (sometimes termed as the tetralemma) is translated to mean the four corners (or the four possibilities). Much argument in Buddhist philosophy takes this form with Nagarjuna (known as the 2nd Buddha) the most well known practitioner. The four possibilities include not only standard conceptions of truth or falsehood, but also seemingly contradictory possibilities such as both (true and false) or neither (true or false).

Why Turn to a Para-Consistent Logic?

Is there a good reason however, to allow for the ambiguity and lack of consistency that arguments from the four possibilities entail when the classical logic of mutually exclusive truth and falsehood seems so intuitive? Graham Priest points to how unavoidable contradictions seem to be persistent in language, mathematics, and the physical world. Here is an example from language known as the liars paradox.

This sentence is false.

Due to it's self-reference one cannot determine the sentence to be purely true or false with out contradicting it's own contents.

Another example comes from the world of numbers. It is true that the sets of (a) natural numbers, (b) even natural numbers, (c) odd natural numbers, and (d) prime numbers are all infinite sets. It is then a contradiction that b,c, & d are all also subsets of a. How could there be an infinite number of odd numbers if the number 2 is not an odd number? This is a true contradiction.

There is also the great mathematician Kurt Godel who showed that any logical system:

• could not be both consistent and complete; and also
• could not prove itself consistent without also proving itself inconsistent. 

Godel's proof is beyond my expertise and beyond what could be presented here, but I think it is fair to say that he was a pretty brilliant dude.

Another example comes from the mathematics behind the phase changes of a fluid. The emergence of new properties due to phase change is often accompanied by mathematical singularities (infinities). The concept of emergence calls into question a reductionist approach to science. For example,  even if fundamental physics were to find an ultimate 'Theory of Everything' that links the very small (quantum mechanics) to the very large ( theory of relativity) that 'Theory of Everything' would be of little use in describing the new properties that come into play as we move from physics to chemistry, biology and the problems facing modern social beings.

Finally of course there is the inconsistent logic in play in interpreting the results of the double slit experiments from quantum mechanics itself. See this article for a brilliant description of how the logic of the four possibilities might best model those results.

Given these examples, it seems that a logic which allows for more than just the standard two possibilities of truth and falsehood might better model the inevitable unknowns and inconsistencies we are presented with as we attempt to navigate and make sense of the world.


How About the Drawbacks to a Para-Consistent Logic? 

The main argument against para-consistent logic ( including dialetheism which is the type of para-consistent logic that Graham Priest argues for ) is called the 'Argument from Explosion'. This is something like a 'slippery-slope' argument. Basically if something can be said to be both true and false then anything can be argued and argument itself loses all meaning. But Priest makes clear that only some, (not all) contradictions are true. Thus dialethism is not vulnerable to the 'Argument from Explosion'.

Another argument is the 'Argument from Exclusion '. This argument claims that a sentence is only meaningful if it rules something out. Again Priest argues that dialtheism ( & also the logic of the Catuskoti ) is also protected against this argument for similar reasons as to the 'Argument from Explosion'. This dialetheism link also describes how this form of para-consistent logic is also protected from another argument known as the 'Argument from Negation'.

So How Does All This Relate to the Catuskoti (the Four Possibilities)?

Interpretation of the Catuskoti is notoriously difficult, especially for those steeped in western cultural logic. In this paper (warning : requires some familiarity with logic to digest), Priest outlines his interpretation of Nagarjuna's writings on the Catuskoti. An important concept that Priest relies upon when understanding contradiction from Nagrarjuna's perspective is a Buddhist principle that distinguishes two types of reality, conventional reality and ultimate reality. Priest uses these two types of realities ( or truths ) along with the four possibilities to  connect his interpretation to a many valued logic of relational semantics. In this logic 'conventional truths' are knowable but 'ultimate truths' are not. This relates to the Buddhist concepts of non-separability & emptiness whereby any thing or concept only exists in relation to some other thing or concept. Thus every thing or concept is empty of it's own pure essence and therefore must be known in context or relation to other things..

This also reminds me of the physicist Neils Bohr's conceptions of truth and contradiction as Bohr famously said:

There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/n/niels_bohr.html#ICUA2pthmtT3DKGD.99

"There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true."

 I find this way of thinking about truth, contradiction and the limits of knowledge both very reasonable and of great practical importance. I believe it is easy to confuse our models or maps of the the world for the ontology of what ultimately exists. Instead of seeing these models  as useful descriptions we often take them as ultimate truth. Our models can be based on subjective perceptions and beliefs or on objective science yet each of these methods tends to avoid contradiction rather then embrace it's inevitability.

On the other hand  I think it is also dangerous to fall into the trap of using the inevitability of ultimate uncertainty and contradiction as a crutch to avoid the hard work of subjectively and objectively discovering that which we can. Whether from the viewpoint of an individual or a society, much of what currently is uncertain, and much of what is currently unknown is waiting to be discovered. Not all contradictions are 'true' contradictions, but it is our current uncertainties that can serve as the springboard to fill in some of those gaps.

Attention as the source of Consciousness (By way of Neural Synchrony)

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
Marcel Proust

One of the great mysteries in the field of conscious studies relates to our ability to experience the world as a coherent whole. Many details are known for example, about how the brain processes visual information in the form of relflected light photons eventually creating our visual experience. But this process includes many seemingly independent modules with specific functions operating in different spatial locations. For example, when we look at an object (lets say a red chair) we process the color of the object separately from it's shape, separately from depth, separately from  it's texture. And if an object is moving we process that movement in yet another distinct process.

Our visual experience however is unified. We do not see color separately from form, or depth, or texture. We do not consciously combine these features to experience a red chair, instead we receive our perceptions as ready-made wholes. In studies of consciousness the problem of how this constructed experience can take place in real-time is known as the binding problem. Our visual experience is not alone in  this regard. When we communicate through speech we do not contemplate each word. Instead we have some general meaning in our consciousness we wish to express and the words seem to flow from some unknown source in an attempt to capture that meaning. Similarly, when we process the symbols of a written language the individual words take a backseat to the flow the contextual meaning and the individual letters hardly enter our conscious process at all.

Jesse Prinz a neuro-philosopher, and Jonjoe McFadden, a molecular biologist each have been making strong arguments that to increase our understanding of consciousness instead of focusing on the firing individual neurons we need to consider the phenomenon of neural synchrony. Neural synchrony is the phenomena where the firing rate of neurons in distinct regions of the brain seem to harmonize within a similar frequency. There is an ever continually expanding amount  scientific evidence that correlates this neural synchrony in the brains electromagnetic field with the manner in which we orient our attention .

Prinz has been instrumental in synthesizing this evidence into a leading theory of conscious. I am currently reading his densely informative book 'The Conscious Brain: How Attention Engenders Experience '. If interested one can also check out this shorter paper When is Perception Conscious? In a nutshell Prinz presents evidence that attention is the key to consciousness. in his own words:

"Perceptual states become conscious when and only when the perceiver is attending."

 When we attend, either narrowly to a selected feature of our environment, or more diffusely to a larger view the neurons in the regions of the brain correlated with that functional attention fire together in synchrony. Prinz argues that this attentional process makes information available to our working memory, and this availability to working memory corresponds with consciousness. Interestingly in those regions not directly associated with our functional attention the neuronal firing is chaotic. Prinz believes our phenomenal experience is unified and orderly because the spotlight of our attention is the locus of this order which emerges from chaos. We cannot access the unconscious chaos because the act of attending is an intrinsically unifying process.

Prinz focuses much of his theory on the relationships between perception, attention, neural synchrony and consciousness. McFadden in contrast places more emphasis on the brains electromagnetic field as a source for the unity of our conscious experience. Whereas both Prinz and McFadden each lean heavily for empirical support from neuroscience imaging studies, behavioral psychology experiments, and brain disease findings, McFadden's theory on the unity of consciousness also leans on holistic connections from gestalt. quantum mechanics, and information theory. Like Prinz, McFadden's theory and it's justifications are complex and cannot be giving proper due in a short blog post from a non-expert and limited writer like myself. Two good recent papers from McFadden can be found here & here. Nevertheless I will attempt a very brief summary.

In the first paper McFadden lays out a good deal of evidence similar to Prinz detailing the phenomenon of neuronal synchronicity. He links this phenomenon to the brains electromagnetic field ( which he sees as the 'seat of consciousness') which like all fields represents a unity of formless information. Like Prinz, McFadden sees our awareness as the breeze that swings the gate between unconscious mechanistic fragmentation and conscious unity.

"The key mechanistic difference between unconscious and conscious information in the brain is not the presence or absence of firing in any particular neuron or region of the brain but a particular level of synchrony of firing between distantly separated neurons . Information that you are not aware of is encoded in asynchronously firing neurons but when you become aware of that information those same neurons fire in synchrony."

McFadden goes beyond simply describing the brains EM field as an effect of neuronal activity. Instead he uses recent evidence that points the EM field as also having a causal functional role that influences neuronal activity. This is not a one-way relationship, but an interdependent feed-back loop. This is an important argument given that a number prominent current philosophers such as David Chalmers argue that consciousness is epiphenomenal (not having a causal influence on the physical world).

In the second linked paper, McFadden describes the properties he sees necessary to accommodate both the binding problem of visual perception, and the problem of deriving meaning from information. He points out that this is not just a matter of complexity. We have many powerful information processing computers, yet these digital computers  have made little progress in performing many 'common sense' tasks. The features (or properties ) that McFadden describes, feel as though if they were communicated by a different author they could poetically be describing the principles of some eastern philosophies.

The features include context-dependence, inter-dependence, emergence, unity and compression. Ok, compression is not a common term associated with eastern philosophy, but McFadden is using the term to describe how many separate fragments can be experienced at once 'in a flash'. It is interesting to me how this sense of 'compression' seems to be the complementary opposite to the common term in modern science 'reductionism'.

Here is McFadden's concluding sentence:

"The information underpinning meaning, understanding and commonsense knowledge is holistic and gestalt in character. This gestalt information can only be encoded in a physical field: the CEMI field. "

CEMI stands for conscious electromagnetic field information. The paper describes how the CEMI field has the potential to satisfy all the necessary features to serve as the 'seat of consciousness'. Fields are by definition, waves of possibility, holistic and unifying, and uncertain in their nature. As McFadden describes:

"Each point in the space of the field is thereby potentially receptive to the information encoded by the entire field."

"In a very real sense, the field unifies the distributed information at the point of absorption such that a change in the firing state of any neuron in the network will be communicated to all neurons that are influenced by the brain’s EM field. The field integrates and unifies the information encoded in the firing rates of all neurons to which it is causally connected."

What most interests me in the theories of Prinz and McFadden is the enormity their potential implications. Implications that point to the potential importance of mindfulness practices in developing our capacity to attend both selectively to the particular, and diffusely to context. That we may only see and be conscious of that which we attend to helps explain introspective shortcommings such as confirmation bias. This also points to the importance of humility, and the acceptance of uncertainty giving how easy it can be to confuse  a narrow internal coherence with a wider 'truth'.

Perhaps like the theorized CEMI field itself, I see these implications suggesting the promise of unification. If the theories are correct the scope of that unification will only be limited by the receptivity of our attention/awareness to the potential implications.

Introspection, Mindfulness and the 'Blind Spot' Bias

There is an recent interesting post  at the Scientific American blog that delves deep into the underlying nature of human biases. There is a vast and robust literature of scientific social research findings detailing the many ways our introspective intuitions can lead us astray. A long time leading resercher in the field of human bias has been nobel prize winner Daniel Kahnemen. Kahneman summarizes much of his work over many years in his recent book 'Thinking Fast and Slow' which cover a multitude of these biases such as the confirmation bias, over-confidence bias, halo effects framing effects etc....... A good summary of the book can be found here.

The blog a Scientific American 'The Blindspot Bias' by Samuel McNerney can be found (here). McNerney points out an interesting phenomon that tends to occur when the research behind theses biases is presented to individuals.

"Here’s my worry. The same thing occurs when lay audiences read books about thinking errors. They understand the errors, but don’t notice the trick – that simply learning about them is not enough. Too often, readers finish popular books on decision making with the false conviction that they will decide better."

"The overlooked reason is that there are two components to each bias. The first is the phenomenon itself. Confirmation bias, for example, is your tendency to seek out confirmation information while ignoring everything else. The second is the belief that everyone else is susceptible to thinking errors, but not you. This itself is a bias – bias blind spot – a “meta bias” inherent in all biases that blinds you from your errors."

Ok, then what is this 'blind spot bias and how can we avoid falling prey to  it? According to McNerney:

"The problem is rooted in introspection. Biases are largely unconscious, so when we reflect on thinking we inevitably miss the processes that give rise to our errors. Worse, because we’re self-affirming spin-doctors, when we introspect, we only identify reasons for our infallibility. In this light, we see why mere exposure to biases compounds the problem: they actually make us more confident about how we decide."

This presents a delemma for those who would like to apply a rational approach to objectively seeing the world more closely for how it is rather than for how it suits our current motivations. If the thoughts that unconsciously feed our introspection are themselves fraught with bias how does one avoid a cycle of rationalization? I think McNerney points us in the right direction by making a distinction between introspection and mindfulness.

"Mindfulness, in contrast, involves observing without questioning. If the takeaway from research on cognitive biases is not simply that thinking errors exist but the belief that we are immune from them, then the virtue of mindfulness is pausing to observe this convoluted process in a non-evaluative way. We spend a lot of energy protecting our egos instead of considering our faults. Mindfulness may help reverse this."

One way to think about mindfulness is the training of our awareness to bring some objectivity into our normally subjectively dominated experience. Like any useful acquired skill mindfulness training requires consistent practice. We have a natural default mechanism which we are otherwise blind to.

 The leading researcher behind the blind spot bias is Emily Pronin of Stanford University. Pronin has identified that this bias is rooted in a fundamental asymmetry in the way we value our own introspections and behavoirs in comparison to the credence we apply to the behaviors and introspections of others. This is not just some researchers pet theory, these are robust findings validated across multiple studies.

We tend to define ourselves (usually in a favorable light) based on our own best intentions ( which are available on introspection) rather than on our own actual behaviors. When it comes to others, however, we have more access to their behaviors than we do regarding their intentions. This is why when others behave in ways that are hurtful to us we tend to believe they acted with intention to be hurtful, while when we ourselves act in hurtful ways we are more likely to credit some external factor. We might say 'That wasn't me, I don't do that kind of thing, it was because........', and then try to compose a coherent reason that casts us in a better light.

This asymmetry can go beyond our person to person interactions and can lead to very damaging effects on larger levels. For example we sometimes apply the same logical asymmetries to groups we see ourselves a part of, as compared to those groups we feel a separation from. This is a primary source of discrimination and helps explain the inability to understand and tendency to demonize other cultures.

Update: Some Wittgenstein qoutes from "On Certainty" that are relevant to the 'blind spot bias:

94. But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness; nor did I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false.
97. The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift. But I distinguish between the movement of the waters on the river-bed and the shift of the bed itself; though there is not a sharp division of the one from the other.
253. At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded.

For Wittgenstein we will always have some blindness regarding the origins of our beliefs. The stream of consciousness we experience is constrained by the river-bed of our unconsciously formed world views. Through a receptive nonjudgmental and mindful practice perhaps we can connect the narrow steams into a wider riverbed.


See also: This link for perspectives from Dewey and Zhaungzi

Heart Rate Variability

“Small is the number of them that see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”
― Albert Einstein


In my previous post I discussed a paradox regarding the evolution of complex living organisms and entropy. Entropy in its classical definition is always directed from away from order and towards disorder. Living systems are able for a time to resist this entropic force maintaining internal integrity by flexibly adapting to an outside environment.

This interplay between internal stability and external adaptability is made possible through the  communication of many nested interacting physiological systems. It is known that autonomic nervous system modulation plays an integral role in many aspects of this complementary interplay by maintaining stability through homeostasis, and by changing in response to the environment through allostasis. The autonomic nervous system has a prominent role in this process and has two complementary sub-components corresponding to the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches. The sympathetic nervous system is predominate during stress while the parasympathetic nervous system is predominate when relaxed.

So What is Heart Rate Variability

Recently there has been a great deal of research related to heart rate variability (HRV) as a non-invasive bio marker of stress. Heart rate variability is related to the regulation of the sinoatrial node, the natural pacemaker of the heart.

The rhythm of the heart is primarily under the control of the vagus nerve, which inhibits heart rate and the force of contraction. When you inhale, you take your foot off the parasympathetic brake and your heart rate accelerates. When you exhale, you press down on the parasympathetic brake and your heart rate slows. This change in your heart rate from beat to beat is called heart rate variability (HRV), and HRV is a widely used method for studying cardiac autonomic modulation.

HRV can also be considered a measure of vagal tone, and is elevated in those with active lifestyles and low in those who are sedentary. Paradoxically HRV is higher when relaxed and lower under stress. A high resting HRV indicates that the heart is manifesting complex patterns subtly responding to its environment in an adaptive manner. This is a good sign and tends to correspond with a sense of well-being.

Low HRV is thought to reflect excessive sympathetic and/or inadequate parasympathetic activity and is a strong predictor of mortality in patients with Congestive heart disease. Reduced HRV is a powerful and independent predictor of an adverse prognosis in patients with cardiac disease. It has a potential to become a non-invasive diagnostic and prognostic index in clinical practice. HRV is also lowered in psychological disease states, such as anxiety, depression, and PTSD.

Julian Thayer has been one of the leading researchers relating neuroimaging studies and HRV indices to stress. Here is a review of much of his work. Thayer and his colleagues propose a model they refer to the "Neural Visceral Integration Model"

"We further propose that the default response to uncertainty is the threat response and may be related to the well known negativity bias. Heart rate variability may provide an index of how strongly ‘top–down’ appraisals, mediated by cortical-subcortical pathways, shape brainstem activity and autonomic responses in the body. If the default response to uncertainty is the threat response, as we propose here, contextual information represented in ‘appraisal’ systems may be necessary to overcome this bias during daily life. Thus, HRV may serve as a proxy for ‘vertical integration’ of the brain mechanisms that guide flexible control over behavior with peripheral physiology, and as such provides an important window into understanding stress and health."

This model specifies a central autonomic network (CAN) brain network including prefrontal and sub cortical regions that function to support adaptability and health. The primary output of the CAN are sympathetic and parasympathetic neurons that innervate the heart. Top (prefrontal) down (subcortical) inhibition is associated with increased vagal input (^ HRV). 

A Neurovisceral Integration model (NIM)

A neurovisceral integration model (NIM) proposes that the autonomic nervous system is a final common pathway that links psychological and physiological states and that HRV can be a useful index of NIM and organism self-regulation. This can be thought of as a western model that describes the heart-mind concept that is familiar to eastern philosophy, traditional Chinese medicine and tai chi practice. Or more simply as Nelson Mandela said:

"A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination."

Heart rate variability is also gaining a great of interest in the field of endurance exercise.  Endurance training is one of my interests and I own a watch and heart rate monitor that allow me to capture HRV data.  Oscar Wilde was onto something when he said  “Hearts Live By Being Wounded”,  yet there is a fine line between the stress that causes a healthy progressive adaptation, and the stress that can lead to imbalance and disharmony. Attention to HRV levels over time may help those undergoing strenuous training  attempting to attain peak condition while avoiding over training.

There are many measures used to quantify heart-rate variability some of which come from complexity, chaos and information theory. Included among these HRV measures are measures of entropy. In future posts if time avails I plan to keep something of a diary capturing my HRV in various activities, rest, biking, running, cognitive stress states of composing a blog or writing up statistical results at work. This should allow me to see how sensitive and reliable these indices are to various activities over time. Here are some examples:

First this is my HRV data yesterday at rest before heading out on my bike to work:

Beats Per Minute = 50.36
Shannon Entropy =2.84
Correlation Dimension (D2)=3.44

Beats per minute is simply a measure heart rate. Low beats per minute in a resting heart rate is associated with high HRV, thus 50 beats per minute resting HR suggests a likely high HRV. For the measure labled Shannon Entropy, a low score indicates more complexity and high HRV. Compared to this study of engineering students at rest in which their average Shannon Entropy was 3.17 my score of 2.84 is good sign. HRV reduces with age (I am 50 yrs old), but perhaps my endurance training is paying off (or maybe engineering students have trouble resting ) . Correlation Dimension (D2) is another measure of complexity. In this case a high score means high HRV. Again my results here look good as the average for the engineering students was 2.83.

Now here is my HRV data on the 1st 30 minutes of my bike to work (the software only allows a 30 minute max period).

Beats Per Minute = 124.8
Shannon Entropy =5.32
Correlation Dimension (D2)=0.547

This all makes sense. My HR speeds up due to the stress of the physical activity. Both the entropy and D2 measures indicate less complexity (thus lower variability) in my heart rate.

Now here is my HRV data on a mildly stressful writing task sitting at work:

Beats Per Minute = 60.67
Shannon Entropy =3.39
Correlation Dimension (D2)=3.24

Again this all makes sense. My HR is 10 beats higher than at rest in the morning. The entropy and D2 measures both indicate less complexity in the HRV thus somewhat more stress. Interestingly the paper I linked above with the engineering students was a study of HRV and stress on exams. According to table 5 in the paper I wouldn't have qualified as being under stress with the entropy or D2 measure (although D2 was very close). The data does suggest more stress than my earlier resting test. These measures seem to be doing a good job so far of quantifying stress loads.

Entropy and Natures Nested Relationships

Yield, and maintain integrity.
To bend is to be upright;
to be empty is to be full.
Those who have little have much to gain,
but those who have much
may be confused by possessions.

Excerpted from Tao Te Ching Chapter 22. Stan Rosenthal Translation

Entropy ( like information as discussed in my last post here ) has many meanings and definitions which can lead to confusion. Increasing entropy has been described as; increasing disorder, a dispersal of energy, an increase in information, an increase in uncertainty, a decrease in information, moving closer to equilibrium, and increase in freedom or possibility, and even as the flow of time itself.

Much of the confusion with the term in my view is related to its great potential for wide applicability across domains. The term entropy originated in physics from the laws of thermodynamics. These original thermodynamic laws however refer to closed systems like a gas within a container. Systems in nature however are never completely closed.

The domains in which entropy has been applied range across a wide spectrum from it's origin in the the purely physical theory of thermodynamics to it's more abstract uses in information theory. In between, entropy has also often been used to describe living systems. Here the great physicist Erwin Schrödinger ( of the quantum mechanical 'Schrödinger equation') providing an example from his wonderful book 'What is life':

"Every process, event, happening—call it what you will; in a word, everything that is going on in Nature means an increase of the entropy of the part of the world where it is going on. Thus a living organism continually increases its entropy—or, as you may say, produces positive entropy—and thus tends to approach the dangerous state of maximum entropy, which is death. It can only keep aloof from it, i.e., alive, by continually drawing from its environment negative entropy—which is something very positive as we shall immediately see. What an organism feeds upon is negative entropy. Or, to put it less paradoxically, the essential thing in metabolism is that the organism succeeds in freeing itself from all the entropy it cannot help producing while alive."

As the quote above suggests, the nested quality of natures systems also adds to the potential for confusion. Our interpretation of entropy is relative to our frame of reference. The physicist JB Brissaud authored an interesting article in the journal 'Entropy' in 2005 with title 'The meanings of entropy'. Brissaud speaks to how the nested nature can impact the interpretation:

"Thermodynamics is the physical science which links the microscopic and macroscopic worlds and the meaning of entropy shows a curious mirror effect according to the adopted point of view; what is information for one is lack of information for the other."

Brissaud makes a crucial insight into the paradoxical nature of entropy. For an observer looking from the outside trying to understand a complex system, a low degree of entropy is associated with many interconnected subsystems that constrain each other allowing the system to resist the entropic pull towards dissipation and equilibrium. Yet if we consider the system itself as an observer, then the reverse is true. From the perspective of the system, entropy is associated with possibility, or freedom of choice. In other words from the point of view of an agent/organism, intelligent systems maximize their capacity to extract useful information or energy from their environments. 

Complex living systems are said to have low entropy because they have many inter-related sub-systems which constrain each other in a complex and constant flux of communication. Low entropy systems then are complex due to a large number of internal constraints which provide many pathways to enable the system to flexibly interact with the outside world under conditions of uncertainty. Very simple systems then are less adaptable and more vulnerable to environmental change. 

This resolves a paradox. Low entropy complex systems have an intrinsic intelligence that affords them the opportunity to learn from novel environmental conditions through a receptivity to uncertainty. Highly self-organized systems can be said to have the 'intelligence' to respond to a variety of possibilities. These systems can efficiently exploit resources ( stored energy ) from the environment and dissipate that energy back. Thus from an objective (outside) point of view complex living systems are maximum entropy producers, while from the organisms point of view existence is maintained by keeping internal entropy low.

A fascinating new computer simulation study (bbc news reports on it here) adds support to this conception of entropy by connecting maximum entropy production to the emergence and evolution of intelligence. The simulations are based on a 'causal entropic force' , which is guided by the goal of keeping as many options open as possible. From the BBC report:

"The simplistic model considers a number of examples, such as a pendulum hanging from a moving cart. Simulations of the causal entropy idea show that the pendulum ends up pointing upward - an unstable situation, but one from which the pendulum can explore a wider variety of positions. The researchers liken this to the development of upright walking. Further simulations showed how the same idea could drive the development of tool use, social network formation and cooperation, and even the maximisation of profit in a simple financial market."

"While there were hints from a variety of other fields such as cosmology, it was so enormously surprising to see that one could take these principles, apply them to simple systems, and effectively for free have such behaviours pop out," Dr Wissner-Gross said.

This reminds me very much of the intention one attempts to achieve in tai chi practice. One of the important principles in tai chi is to maintain the ability to respond to an opponent or the environment by moving in any potential direction. The idea is to never over-commit or predetermine ones physical or cognitive awareness or orientation in any given direction. Initially when learning the postures one learns how to place themselves in, and move between specific positions. With practice the awareness becomes more holistic (not on the specific postures), but instead on subtle feedback mechanisms that allow for continuous flowing movement within the context of some core guiding principles.  This is basically a practice in developing an internal body intelligence which once developed frees the awareness so that it may be receptive to the potential surprise that unfolds in an uncertain future.

This is similar to the way human physiology maintains it's vital  systems within a narrow range ( homeostasis ) with the support of other systems that respond more dynamically to unpredictable changes in the surrounding environment ( Allostasis ). Freedom and constraint while seeming to conflict and oppose each other can within the framework of negative feedback systems interact to support an equilibrium where complex self-organizing systems maintain integrity within (core constancy) while flexibly responding to change. The ability to adapt to the unknown represents maximum entropy from the perspective of the self-organizing system. To an outsider observer the same systems ability to maintain it's integrity against the force of entropy represents a far from equilibrium low entropy dynamic.

There is no promise extended however from the nature of entropic forces  that complex systems will maintain a persistent integrity. If the ability to exploit and dissipate the environments stored energy reserves outstrips our capacity to adapt to the entailing environmental changes then the system will no longer be sustainable. Consider our current rate of exploitation with regard to our natural resources (something will have to give).

"Yield, and maintain integrity;

be whole, and all things come to you".

Excerpted from Tao Te Ching Chapter 22. Stan Rosenthal Translation


Update: I had to link this wonderfully produced video of a David Foster Wallace commencement speech which I think beautifully expresses the concept of intelligence, wisdom and meaning being hinged to maximum entropy principles.

What is Information

 “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in infomation?”
― T.S. Eliot

We are living in the age of information. It is so obviously true that it can almost go unstated. Never before has access to information been so great. The global capacity for the almost instantaneous sharing of information has the potential to solve many problems. Despite the unprecendented access to information however, problems rooted in a lack of access to or acceptance of quality information still abounds. Sometimes at the extreme this is due to an active cultural supression  such as the Talibans violent reign against the education of women. Often there are more subtle forces at work that make it difficult for cultures and individuals to process information in an unbiased way,

“In the long run I certainly hope information is the cure for fanaticism, but I am afraid information is more the cause than the cure.”

― Daniel C. Dennett


In our (U.S.) society when it comes to quality information I believe we have both a bottom-up  and top-down problem. The term 'low information voter' became a common phrase in the last election. Political campaigns are organized around simple black & white soundbites trying to feed enthusiasm in their base. Our news media has become entertainment, with each channel finding a niche population that it can preach to. The goal in each case is to provide the audience with what it wants to hear and what it can easily digest. We have settled into an equilibrium whereby for the most part we (the people) recieve the information we desire. With so many tv channels and so many websites it is easy both to avoid information that makes us uncomfortable, and to find information that confirms what we already believe. This is not the way to improving our knowledge of the world let alone our wisdom.

If we are to break this symmetry I believe we need a new understanding of what information is. I believe we need a theory that accounts for information as a process rather than something merely abstract and separate from the physical world.

So what is information?  In the common sense usage of the term we think of information as being somehow disconnected from the physical world. This is also true of the technical definition of information theory put forth by Claude Shannon for use in signal transmission and computor science in 1948. Shannon also created a digital logic and the formula for his information theory in digital bits is analgous to the formula in the physical world for entropy. In fact Shannon named his formula which describes a reduction in uncertainty as informational entropy. Shannon new this formula was limited to signal transmission and indicated that it was not intended to account for the interetation or meaning in the signal.

In my view a theory of information can not be complete unless it accounts for the fact that for information to be recieved there must be an observer. Leaders in the modern field of artificial intelligence like Ray Kruzweil seem to make the assumption that intelligence can be attained from abstracted information without concern for it's physical substrate.  A good critique Kurzweils approach  can be found here , 


This is similar to the view of the brain as something analagous to an information processor.  Here is the neuroscientist David Eagleman describing one way the brain acts like an information processor,

“We open our eyes and we think we're seeing the whole world out there. But what has become clear—and really just in the last few centuries—is that when you look at the electro-magnetic spectrum we are seeing less than 1/10 Billionth of the information that's riding on there. So we call that visible light. But everything else passing through our bodies is completely invisible to us.

Even though we accept the reality that's presented to us, we're really only seeing a little window of what's happening.”

There is a reason we only 'see' a small fraction of the relations taking place in the electro-magnetic spectrum that surrounds us. We need to find a signal within all the the noise and disorder that allows us to navigate world. Joseph Brenner,  who I previously posted on would refer to this as a part of the process of the 'invisible hand' of information. As Brenner puts it:

'Understanding the ‘invisible hand’ of information should not rest exclusively on a vast catalog of computational processes and models addressing physico-molecular occurrences, but also on making integrated sense of the differentiated ways of existence that a living system enacts. The invisible hand of information is the great shaper of the natural and social world.'

The information that characterizes this proces of reducing uncertainty is not some purely non-physical abstact invisible conceptual quantity. The physical and non-physical, visible and non-visible are interdependent and non-separable. The physical structures of living systems embody within themselves informational patterns as the author and science writer James Gleick describes this nicely in his book The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood :

"Not only do living things lessen the disorder in their environments; they are in themselves, their skeletons and their flesh, vesicles and membranes, shells and carapaces, leaves and blossoms, circulatory systems and metabolic pathways - miracles of pattern and structure. It sometimes seems as if curbing entropy is our quixotic purpose in the universe." 

The physicist Robert Logan has an excellent recent paper that details the history of information theory titled 'What Is Information?: Why Is It Relativistic and What Is Its Relationship to Materiality, Meaning and Organization'. In this paper Logan suggests that it would be useful to think of information emerging across four levels:

   

1. Data are the pure and simple facts without any particular structure or organization, the basic atoms of information,
2. Information is structured data, which adds more meaning to the data and gives them greater context and significance,
3. Knowledge is the ability to use information strategically to achieve one's objectives, and
4. Wisdom is the capacity to choose objectives consistent with one's values and within a larger social context

First there is just the data, this is Shannon information. An observer is then neccessary to interpret the data and this is where meaning begins to emerge. Knowledge emerges when meaningful information can be put to use instrumentally by individuals. Wisdom however is more complex and more difficult. Wisdom requires the understanding of a larger context beyond an individuals actions and the direct effects they may cause. This level of information is open ended as we can never 'see' all the long range effects of our actions nor the myiad of causes behind how we act. Yet it is wise to consider  the information we expose ourselves to as well as the information we project. Do we find ourselves biased to recieve a certain type of information or knowledge? If we are to become wiser I believe this is an important question to ask,

Time permitting I hope to learn and post more on this subject as others like Terrence Deacon, and Stuart Kuafman are conducting fascinating work on the relation between information, entropy, and the emergence of life and consciousness.

“A file on a hard disk does indeed contain information of the kind that objectively exists. The fact that the bits are discernible instead of being scrambled into mush - the way heat scrambles things - is what makes them bits.

But if the bits can potentially mean something to someone, they can only do so if they are experienced. When that happens, a commonality of culture is enacted between the storer and the retriever of the bits. Experience is the only process that can de-alienate information."

― Jaron Lanier, You are Not a Gadget

Unifying the 'Hard' and the 'Soft'

"Even the hardest tempered sword,
against water, is of no avail"

Lao Tsu - Stan Rosenthal Translation chapter 4 excerpt

In my previous post with the help of Lee Smolin I documented some of the the amazing progress we have made in the hardest of the 'hard' sciences known as physics. Finding a unity between seemingly separate and distinct things was shown to be a common theme underlying these great discoveries.

Similar progress has taken place across the sciences in chemistry, biology, neuroscience, medicine, psychology etc..... As we have increased our access to information our knowledge has become more precise within these fields. At the same time these fields have become more distinct and our knowledge base in some ways now contains more separation than ever before. Sub-special fields across disciplines like evolutionary psychololgy, neuro-psychology, and behavioral economics have emerged, and while these fields try to fit one within another they do not ask or answer questions like:

 'what is common across all these fields'? or 'how might we better unify our knowledge under a larger umberlla'?

There are political pressures in fact to take an approach that will widen these knowlege gaps between the 'hard' sciences the 'softer' sciences, not to mention philosophy, and the arts.

Anthropologist Scott Atran  in this article at the huffingtongton post details some of these political pressures.

"In a major speech last month, Eric Cantor, the U.S. House majority leader, proposed outright to defund political and social science."

Here, Atran gives his view on this issue:

"social science is in fact moving the "hard" sciences forward. For example, recent research based on social science modeling of cancer cells as cooperative agents in competition with communities of healthy cells holds the promise of more effective cancer treatment. Those who would defund social science seriously misconstrue the relationship between the wide-ranging freedom of scientific research and its ability to unlock the deeper organizing principles linking seemingly unrelated phenomena."

 Physics had historically been considered a 'hard' science for dealing with the concrete objective facts of the physical world. This afforded more precision and mathematical rigor than the subjective content of a field like psychology. We now know however that the fundamental physical nature of the world is not so concrete afterall. Ironically it also turns out that our least concrete problem has come to be known as the 'hard' problem of consciousness.

Despite the challenges there has been some brilliant work in recent years attempting to identify these deeper organizing principles to help unify the hard and soft sciences. This work has been conducted by a relatively small group of researchers with transdisciplanary backrounds including Robert Logan, Stuart Kaufman, Terrence Deacon, Joseph Brenner, and others. In this post I am going to focus on the work of Joseph Brenner. Much of this work has common to it attempts to unify a theory of information that includes the idea of emergence.

Brenner (heavily influenced by Stefane Lupasco) has developed a new type of logic he calls 'Logic in Reality'. Classical logic depends on distinct true/false propositions. Brenner feels however that the natural world being a contiuous relational process does not fit this model of absolute distinctions. Interestingly Brenner's 'Logic in Realty' formalizes some concepts that have been around for a long time, yet have not been prevalent in modern western science or philosophy. One concept central to Brenner's logic is non-separability as he describes here:

"Non-Separability underlies all other metaphysical and phenomenal dualities , such as cause and effect, determinism and indeterminism, subject and object, continuity and discontinuity, and so on. I thus claim that non-separability at the macroscopic level, like that being explored at the quantum level, provides a principle of organization or structure in macroscopic phenomena that has been neglected in science and philosophy."

Those familiar with eastern philosophies like Taoism and Buddhism will also recognize non-separability as a central theme. Brenner continues outling the core concepts of his 'new' logic here:

" 1) every real complex process is accompanied, logically and functionally, by its opposite or contradiction (principle of dynamic opposition), but only in the sense that when one element is (predominantly) present or actualized, the other is (predominantly) absent or potentialized, alternately and reciprocally, without either ever going to zero; and  

 2) the emergence of a new entity at a higher level of reality or complexity can take place at the point of equilibrium or maximum interaction between the two."

 The principle of dynamic opposition (PDO) is another way of describing the complementary opposition represented in yin/yang diagram from taoist philosophy below. In the diagram the black and white fish complement each other, as it is through thier opposition that the circle is completed. 



Image credit www.clker.com



In addition the black dot in the white fish, and the white dot in the black fish indicate that there is always some yin within yang, or some yang within the yin. This corresponds with Brenners PDO ( ' when one element is (predominantly) present or actualized, the other is (predominantly) absent or potentialized, alternately and reciprocally, without either ever going to zero'.)

The 2nd bullet is also key to Brenners logic and relates to the controversial yet fascinating topic of emergence. Emergence refers to the idea that when parts, or processes come together they take on qualities or properties that could not be predicted by the individual parts on thier own. For example hydrogen and oxygen do not suggest the property of 'wetness' until H2O molecules form. The phase transitions of water in relation to temperature also represent the emrgence of new properties. Whether it is in the  'predominantly actualized' physical world or the 'predominantly potentialized' non-physical world, conflict is an unavoidable non-separable part of nature. When the maximum interaction between opposing processes creates a larger equilibriun new properties emerge. This is how conflict, opposition, and diversity can be shown as necessary conditions and when resolved unity can emerge.


Brenner's logic suggests that non-separability, the principle of dynamic opposition and emergence are more than just interesting metaphors. He feels these concepts underly all change, and that if we are to attempt to bring a naturalized logic, science and philosophy together they must be taken seriously.

A couple weeks ago I responed to a friends facebook post. The post had suggested that we attract into our life like magnet what is in harmony with our dominant thoughts. I expanded on that idea with this comment (which I post here at the risk of being self-referential).

"We absorb, and we reflect, we attract and we repel. What is reflected depends on what is not absorbed. We see a blue shirt as blue because the shirt absorbs all colors other than blue and reflects only blue. The thoughts we project are similarly a reflection of what we fail to absorb. We are attracted to what we project and repelled by what we fail to absorb."

My comment took the real physical phenomena of how we process the reflection of light as information to see color, and turned it into a metaphor for how we recieve, seek  and project mental information. While my metaphor may have contained some insight it was less than rigorous and incomplete.

It is the case that within the visible light spectrum we see color based on what is not abosrbed by objects. The molecular structure of a black shirt will absorb all visible light and reflect none so we see black. We have no choice in this  process, information processing at this level is involuntary and unconscious. The light that is absorbed by the shirt will be converted into heat.  

At the conscious level however new properties emerge. Information processing at the conscious level contains a potential that was unavailable at lower levels. Brenner would say that information in the physical realm is 'predomonently actualized' while cognitive information can be 'predominantly potentialized'. What we fail to cognitively absorb initially and what we project no longer need always be the same. We can reflect on what we initially failed to absorb, and can at least in principle direct our reflection inwardly before projecting outwardly. This process however requires an awareness and acceptance of the principle of dynamic opposition.

Brenner describes his logic (LIR) as being amenable to contradiction and inconsistency:

"LIR has no difficulty in dealing with inconsistency, interpreting it as a natural consequence of the underlying principle of dynamic opposition in physical reality. Many if not most of the problems in the (endless) debate about the nature of change, as pointed out by Mortensen (2008), seem to require a fundamental inconsistency in the world,which LIR naturalizes. LIR, then, is an information system that is not “brittle, like a classical logic system,” in the presence of an inconsistency. Inconsistency in the former is not only not as destructive as in the latter but is also accepted as  an essential part of its ontology."

Reflexively we are attracted to information that confirms the prior knowledge we have already absorbed. When we come  across novel information that contradicts or is inconsistent with our prior beliefs we tend to repel it. This sense of repulsion however may be a clue that our prior knowledge ( which is always incomplete ) is being provided with an opportunity to resolve a contradiction. The degree of interaction between our awareness of what we have absorbed, and our curiosity to unify what remains unresolved will determine what emerges. This process underlies what we receive and what we project.



"Only the soft overcomes the hard,
by yielding, bringing it to peace.
Even where there is no space,
that which has no substance enters in."

Lao Tsu - Stan Rosenthal Translation chapter 43 excerpt

The Quest for Unity

I have recently been reading Lee Smolin's fine book 'The Trouble with Physics'. Smolin is an influential theoretical physicist. In his book Smolin describes the history of physics as a process of unification. Smolin outlines three features that unifications tend to share. The features are (1) surprise, (2) new insights, and (3) new predictions that can be confirmed by experiment.

1) Surprise - Unification brings together things that had previously seemed distinct. The result is an 'aha' moment. What had previously seemed familiar becomes unfamiliar, discovery brings forth new uncertainty.

2) New Insights - When previously distinct assumptions are unified, the unfamiliar eyes through which we peer reveal a new landscape. A new vision of the world emerges, which may often be difficult for many to accept.

3) Novel Predictions (hypotheses)- New insights lead to new predicitions. From a scietific standpoint these new predictions must stand up to the scrutiny of experiment. Many beautiful hypotheses have failed this final hurdle. It is through the validation of experiment that explanatory power is confirmed and our uncertainty of the world can be reduced.

Smolin provides many fascinating examples. In the 16th century Giordan Bruno unified our sun with the distant stars.  His claim was not well recieved.   Smolin describes the dogma at the time:

 'the sun was a great fire created by God to warm the earth, while the stars were pinholes in the celestial sphere that let in the light of heaven'.

If Brunos idea (that our sun was just another star) were true there would be many implications. The stars would have to be much further away than previously thought. This would contradict the prevailing view, 'Heaven cannot be just overhead'. Bruno delivered this chilling qoute:

"I await your sentence with less fear than you pass it. The time will come when all will see what I see."

For his unifying idea Bruno was burned alive by the Catholic Church.

Also in the 16th century Nicolaus Copernicus unified the earth with the planets in our soloar system. This would have implications for understanding how objects move and come to be at rest in contradiction with Aristotle's theory. Earth had been seen as the center of the universe and the new proposal indicated it was just another planet. In the 17th century Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton then unfied motion and rest with the princliple of inertia. Being at rest was now a special case of uniform motion. There was no absolute meaning to motion, it must now be considered relative to an observer. To explain this Galileo invented the principle of relativity. Smolin describes this type of discovery (the absolute instead being found to be relative) as the rarest and highest form of unification.

'When it is achieved it radically alters our view of the world'.

For supporting the views of Copernicus, Galileo was found guilty by the inquisition of heresey. By recanting he was allowed to live out his years under house arrest. Nevertheless the unifications kept coming. After many years of studying the motion of the planets and after several failed attempts Johannes Kepler was able to define three laws describing the manner in which the planets orbited the sun. His theory was able to make predictions that held true for each planet. Smolin describes how Keplers laws set the stage for Newton.

'It was Newton's great insight to see that the force the sun exerted on the planets is the same as the force of gravity that holds us on Earth, and hence to unfiy physics in the heavens with physics on Earth.'

 and

In the Newtonian revolution there were several proposed unifications that triumphed at once: the unification of the earth with the planets, the unification of the sun with the stars, the unification of rest and uniform motion, and the unification of the gravitational force on Earth with the force by which the sun influences a plant's motions.'

 In Smolins view it was the collective supportive force of theses ideas that allowed them to survive. The process of discovery through unification is progressive. Newton himself put it this way:

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

It was not until the 19th century that the next great unfication was achieved. This occurred in the 1860's when James Maxwell Clerk unified electrcicty and magnetism. In the 1840's Michael Faraday had introduced the concept of a field and had worked with electric and magnetic fields. Maxwell was able to show mathematically that electric and magnetic fields transform back and forth between each other. Here is how Smolin describes it:

"These transmutations give rise to waves of shifting patterns, in which first there is an electric field and then a magnetic field, and which move through space"

 These waves carried energy and Maxwell discovered that they moved at the speed of light. The unification of electricity and magnetism had unexpectedly led to another great unification.

"The waves passing through electric and magnetic fields are light"

 With these new insights so rose new unceartanties. For hundreds of years it was accepted that everything was made of matter, as required by Newtons laws. Waves without substance traveling through space did not fit within this picture. In addition Maxwells theory also seemed to oppose the priciple of relativity. One of these accepted theory's would have to fall. Most physicist felt that the theory of a material universe had to stand. Albert Einstein however saw the principle of relativity as more fundamental.

Einstien was able to unfiy Maxwells theory of ectromagnetism with Galileo's principle of relativity.

"one observer might explain a particular phenomenon interms of electricity, while another observer moving relative to the first, would explain the same phenomenon in terms of magnetisim"

This became known as 'special relativity' and it also led to the unfication of space and time. Einstiens theory stood up to experiment where other theorys failed. It could no longer be taken for granted that the world was made up of matter. Einsteins next great unification began with the insight that the:

"effects of acceleration are indistinguishible from the effects of gravity." 

Uniform motion had previously been unfied but the motion of acceleration had remained separate. Now Einstein had unfied all of motion. What followed was Einsteins unification of space, time and gravity which became known as 'general relativity'. This was a dramatic change in how the physical world came to be seen. Space and time were no longer a fixed background. Space and time themselves are changing and evolving together. According to Smolin:

"Our whole notion of cosmology was turned on it's head"

Einsteins discoveries also helped bring forward the next great revolution in physics. This was quantum mechanics which Einstein could never fully accept. Quantum mechanics unified (sort of) waves and particles, energy and matter. The questions raised by this theory are still very much open for interpretation to this day. Quantum mechanics, although it is not fully understood makes un-erring predictions and led to the current standard model of particle physics. This model exlpains our world in terms of forces and particles on the smallest of scales. On this level it is unfied, yet it is contradicted by the gravity of Einsteins general theory of relativity. The two great theories of modern physics (general relativity and quantum physics) are thus in conflict.

This contradiction describes the biggest unkown question that physicists have been trying to unify for many years. String theory has been the dominant approach, but Smolins book describes this emphasis as a big misstep of physics.

Despite all the progress there remain other important physical unkowns in wait of unification which Smolin outlines five in his book.

Even if a theory of everything in physics were found there would be many other unifications to be bridged. How did life emerge from matter, and consciousness from life? Is there a way to connect physics to chemistry to biology to neuroscience, psychology, philosophy and the arts and humanities?

Ofcourse Bruno didn't really unify the sun and the stars and Einstein didn't really unify space, time and gravity. The sun shared it's properities with other stars long before Bruno, and ever since the big bang time space and gravity have been evolving together. What these men were able to do was to see the non-separability in what appeared to be separate. We stand on thier shoulders because what is familiar and accessible to us took curiosity, imagination, humility, perseverance, and special insight at the time of their discoveries.

In the centuries since the Newtonian revolution the disciplines of science and the humanities have become more specialized and separated from each other. Perhaps it is time to place more focus on synthesis across disciplines. This is not to denigrate the benefits of reductionism. It is my position that reductionsim and synthesis should complement each other.

What is it that may seem common and familiar  to us today, butt could become unfamiliar through a new unifiaction? What is it that may hold constant across the sciences and the humanities implying the promise to connect them?

There are some very interesting attempts at unification across  disciplines which I hope to post about soon.

Quantum Biology

If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet. 

-Neils Bohr

There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe there ever was such a time. There might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot of people understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than twelve. On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.

-Richard Feynman

 The quotes above are more reflective of the nature of the quantum world than of any fundamental disagreement between the two great physicists. The quantum world does not conform to classical logic, but instead resembles some Buddhist teachings as suggested below: (if this interests you check out this fascinating post)

Anything is either true,

Or not true,
Or both true and not true,
Or neither true nor not true;
This is the Buddha's teaching.

--Nagarjuna (second century Buddhist monk and philosopher), the Mulamadhyamakakarika, Chapter XVIII, verse 8

In my last post (Complementarity and Wave/Particle Duality ) I attempted to describe the strangeness of quantum mechanics. Until recently it was thought that quantum effects could only occur at extreme (cold) temperatures and therefore would not play a role in living systems. In this article for Nature, Phillip Ball describes how this assumption is changing.

"Or so everyone thought. But discoveries in recent years suggest that nature knows a few tricks that physicists don't: coherent quantum processes may well be ubiquitous in the natural world. Known or suspected examples range from the ability of birds to navigate using Earth's magnetic field to the inner workings of photosynthesis — the process by which plants and bacteria turn sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into organic matter, and arguably the most important biochemical reaction on Earth"

"Biology has a knack for using what works, says Seth Lloyd, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "

 In 2007 Graham Fleming reported on direct evidence of quantum effects in biology leading to near 100% efficiency in the photosynthesis process.

"Our results suggested that correlated protein environments surrounding pigment molecules (such as chlorophyll) preserve quantum coherence in photosynthetic complexes, allowing the excitation energy to move coherently in space, which in turn enables highly efficient energy harvesting and trapping in photosynthesis,"

A more recent study has identified entanglement as a natural feature in this quantum process.

"This is the first study to show that entanglement, perhaps the most distinctive property of quantum mechanical systems, is present across an entire light harvesting complex," (Mohan Sarovar).

There are potentially great implications for this research especially in the area of renewable non-polluting energy.

 "We hope to be able to learn from the quantum proficiency of these biological systems," says Lloyd. A better understanding of how quantum effects are maintained in living organisms could help researchers to achieve the elusive goal of quantum computation, he says. "Or perhaps we can make better energy-storage devices or better organic solar cells."

"These effects, in turn, suggest practical uses. Perhaps most obviously, says Scholes, a better understanding of how biological systems achieve quantum coherence in ambient conditions will "change the way we think about design of light-harvesting structures". This could allow scientists to build technology such as solar cells with improved energy-conversion efficiencies. Seth Lloyd considers this "a reasonable expectation"

 To see a short video that explains some birds may make use quantum effects in flight navigation click here ( The Quantum Robin video ).

Here is a longer video -Jim Al-Khalili - Quantum Life: How Physics Can Revolutionise Biology

And another excellent video by the above mentioned Seth Loyd - Quantum Life

Lee H, Cheng YC, Fleming GR(2007) Coherence dynamics in photosynthesis: Protein protection of excitonic coherence. Science 316:1462–1465

Sarovar M, Ishizaki A, Fleming GR, Whaley KB(2010) Quantum entanglement in photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes. Nat Phys 6:462–467.