From: Walter Hicks (wallyshoes@mindspring.com)
Date: Mon Jul 28 2003 - 20:26:29 EDT
Richard McGough wrote:
> snip
>
> >>
> >> ---Quote ----
> >> I think the difference is that Life does not evolve in the same way as the heavy elements. These are two completely different kinds of "evolution." In
> >> physics we talk about the "time evolution operator" which is simply exp(-iHt) where H is the Hamilonian. This describes how a physical system
> >> changes (evolves) over time. This is radically different than the idea of Darwinian evolution through mutation and natural selection.
> >> ---End Quote ---
> >
> >I may be wrong, but I do not believe that a chemical reaction (such as hydrogen and oxygen combining to make water) can be described in this manner. In fact, it seems as though chemical reactions fall into the realm of "observations", or "collapse of the state vector" (as when a photon strikes a photographic place). I could be wrong, but (if so) would like see an example. Do you have one?
>
> >
> >
> >Walt
> >
>
> Hi Walt,
>
> Interesting take on this question. It may well be that chemical reactions are entangled with the problem of measurement in QM. But if this were the case, then I suspect our conversation would quickly move into abstractions with no consensus solution, and prove rather unfruitful
I see no reason why we should constrain discussion into areas where they would be "fruitful" -- if that does not conform to real physics.
I would maintain that just about all chemical reactions fall into the the non-linear region of QM where LINEAR Hamiltonian representations do not apply --- even in principle!.
>
>
> I must admit that I don't really know if anyone has worked out the QM equations describing the actual process of going from H + H + O to H2O. I do know that we can analyse the resultant molecule and show it is a lower enegry configuration and so from mere energetical calculations assert that the process would occur, but I don't know if the actual time evolution with the appropriate hamiltonian has ever been solved. But the real point to me is that we do have an abstract formulation = exp(-iHt) that describes the time evolution, so in principle it is solvable. And as I stated to Glen, that is what is important to the argument, not whether we can actually solve the equation or even write the exact equation, but if the equation exists in principle.
Again!, I would maintain that just about all chemical reactions fall into the the non-linear region of QM where LINEAR Hamiltonian representations do apply --- even in principle!.
> This is true for chemical evolution, but not the evolution of life. We have no true scientific theory that describes the mechanism of Abiogensis and Evolution of Life.
>
> >
> >Also, why is DNA not a chemical?
> >
>
> Of course DNA is chemical. But that doesn't mean the whole DNA coding, reading, and replicating machine is the product of mere chemical evolution. Think again of your car. Everything going on in the engine is describable by exact mathematical equations, but those equations did not describe the process which resulted in the existence of the engine, unless you believe the humans who designed it to be fully describable by QM.
I have a lot of trouble with that analogy.
Think about the earth. If you just did an analysis of the probability of the occurrence of such an object, you would give it an impossibility factor of 1.0. It is only because we have become scientifically wiser in the last few hundred years that we now "know better".
Since DNA really is just a chemical, then we may just not know the chemical rules by which it can happen.
So what do we know? -- actually not much. We debate only because we have different philosophical notions about what God might do and what He might not do --- or rather, HOW He would do it.
Walt
-- =================================== Walt Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>In any consistent theory, there must exist true but not provable statements. (Godel's Theorem)
You can only find the truth with logic If you have already found the truth without it. (G.K. Chesterton) ===================================
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