Quantum Biology and the Puzzle of Coherence
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27628/
One of the more exciting discoveries in biology in the last few years is the role that quantum effects seem to play in many living systems.
The two most famous examples are in bird navigation, where the quantum zeno effect seems to help determine the direction of the Earth's magnetic field, and in photosynthesis, where the way energy passes across giant protein matrices seems to depend on long-lasting quantum coherence.
Despite the growing evidence in these cases, many physicists are uneasy, however. The problem is the issue of decoherence, how quickly quantum states can survive before they are overwhelmed by the hot, wet environment inside living things.
According to conventional quantum calculations, these states should decay in the blink of an eye, so fast that they should not be able to play any role in biology.
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of what is at stake: standard notions of causality and reductionism in terms of classical physics. Thanks for that! 
Of course those are just certain philosophical/metaphysical premisses of theory-building (and in many cases belief systems of "scientism" with various degrees of emotional attachment), and ideals of rational inquiry and empirical method demand that also premisses need to be questioned and restated along the scientific progress.
There is no a priori reason to presuppose only linear unidirectional causality and/or arrow of time. And there are many good reasons not to, for example and especially 'self-reflection', a form that seems unexplainable by mathematical models that reductionistic determinism is based on. And, as allready Hume said, linear causality cannot be proven empirically or logically. It is just one notion of basic order among many possible. And, given the long tradition of dialectics in various cultures and philosophical schools, there is no reason to presuppose that dialectical relation between both "bottom-up" and "top-down"* couldn't be a more coherent foundation of notions of causality and theory building.
So the question is, why do you claim that it would be a "big mistake for anybody to assign any top-down causality."? That is a very strong claim and you back it up with nothing, except perhaps the classic ad hoc word salad woo-word of "emergentism".
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Presumed reference for 'top-down':
*http://humbleapproach.templeton.org/Top_Down_Causation/
The question about evolution and quantum biology need to be looked from the wider context of quantum cosmology, observer participation - and nature of time and self-reference aka "consciousness". See post 7.
One of the primary consequences of Bohm's hypothesis was the entanglement of all particles in the universe (possibly from his Buddhist philosophy). But in experiments these entanglements of "non-local" effects, the EPR experiments (Einstein, Poldasky, Rosen --- after an gedanken experiment proposed by Einstein). Needless to say the non-local effects posited by Bohm and others (i.e., faster than light) were shown to be falsified.
But don't believe me. I'm only a physics BS (and you know what those initials mean 
). Rather, I'd encourage you to look beyond 1950's speculation (Bohm et al) and look at what the data since these hypotheses have been put forward.
Decoherence is rather simple. Quantum states are extremely fragile. Heisenberg showed that complementary variables (velocity vs. position, energy vs. time) are simultaneously unknowable. And it's not a problem of measurement accuracy, it's that the measurement of one restricts the accuracy of the other at the physical level. It's the second, energy/time, relation which blows Bohm's putative non-locality out of the water.
Decoherence strongly implies that the universe observes itself without any requirement for intelligence. It's just the way the universe works. It's all bottom-up emergent behavior. Complexity comes from something as simple as the uncertainty of the energy times the uncertainty of the time (that the value of the energy is known) is limited by a constant, Planck's constant (divided by 2 times Pi). Likewise, the momentum/position relationship.
If you disagree with these basic quantum principles and can demonstrate it you may be on the way to a Nobel prize.
Go for it.
In the meantime all macro behavior is emergent (bottom-up) from a basis of quantum mechanics, and all quantum behavior is random (the probability of which is given by the square of the wave equation).
There's no woo-woo in quantum physics, no matter what Chopra and other loonies, like JZ Knight, think. Bohm's hypotheses have been substantially falsified.
I like the way Steve Novella (of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe says it. He pronounces it "newage" (rhymes with "sewage"
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Perfect, eh?
a post with content.
I don't have a degree from physics and my interest in these matters originates to a close relative who was a friend and coworker of Bohm. So I know quite well that Bohm didn't intend his theory for the final answer but rather as an ice-breaker between Einstein and Bohr collapse of dialogue, and to participate in scientific progress. And so I know also that Bohm was not entirely satisfied with his quantum theory, but not for reasons you claim, but because he was unable to find the chalice of math to put it all nicely together.
And I must say that I'm astonished at your BS (in both senses) about EPR, as the thought experiment was related to Einstein's dislike of "spooky action at distance" which later "experiments appear to show that the local realism idea is false,[3] thereby supporting the position of Bohr et al., against the challenge from Einstein and his group." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_paradox).
NOT Bohm's non-locality but that of Bohr et alii, and NOT putative. Your lack of basics in your academic field seems to be well matched with your blown up ego.
To really start to understand quantum theory and it's implications I feel that it ismportant to start from "top-down" notions like wave function the size of universe, that are standard notions in contemporary cosmology, regardless of reductionistic or holistic preferences.
In (at least inflationary) cosmologies actualized physical complexity comes from cooling down of the hot-hot-hot singularity/quantum superposition of possible universes.
As for Uncertainty Principle, the question of understanding it as part of a bigger whole logically and mathematically leads naturally to fundamental principle of self-referentiality of which Gödel's incompleteness theorem is a groundbraking example.
If you were more interested in learning and understanding science instead of making it into just another authoritarian religion, I could go on about my pet Theory Of Everything that has scalable hbar, new quantum math of Hilbert spaces inside each point of Hilbert space that allow mathematical modelling self-referentiality with new understanding of also transcendentals (e.g. pi) and much much else and not excluding theory of consciousness... well maybe some day...
You wrote, "My argument is solely on the principle that any macro event like throwing a baseball, or thinking about throwing a baseball can have any causal effect other than what can be calculated classically."
If the baseball and bat are made out of uranium, then throwing a baseball certainly can have a causal effect which can't be calculated classically.
BOOM!
proved that any formal logical system containing number theory has propositions that are unprovable within a finite set of axioms. That is highly relevant for all mathematical physics based on logic and especially so for approaches of physics as generalized number theory.
The philosophical problems of the relation of mathematics and physics is not an invitation to push them aside and stop thinking about them. Especially if you are looking for a TOE that does not exclude consciousness.
But if you have allready settled for a materialistic belief system, then thinking further can be dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.
... interesting synopsis that doesn't advance any position that I can discern, as it is full of contradictory positions. I'm aware of these debates, but again assert that they are completely secondary and only interesting from a philosophy of science POV. Naturally, they're quite interesting to mathematicians, who regularly deal with both the unimaginable and the physically impossible. (Just try visualizing an N-dimensional sphere.) But physicists are constrained by additional considerations that are uninteresting to most mathematicians. Things like the boring ole laws of physics. I mean, really. I have no desire to whip out some maths so astronauts can poo in space. Often, we don't even understand each other's notation on the same exact subject (just look in Lie groups by math ppl vs. physicists). And, of course, there is a famous historical animosity between pure and applied math, even within the single department.
For math, Godel's thm is great because it's job security. We'll always have interesting problems to work on.
But only a tiny percentage of those will be found to be useful in the sense that they somehow model behavior of observables. For instance, string-theory asserts that nature has a minimum size -- that means that if we want to apply that model, we can no longer assume (as we normally do in the analysis underlying almost all physics) the Archimedean Principle holds in nature. That's pretty big, and that's why string theory math is hairy. If you start shrinking down to Planck scale, you will just start getting bigger, again. That's completely unintuitive when we're used to assuming that we can always find another point between any two points. So here's an example of a really really fundamental mathematical principle that physicists assume all the time, but which physicists cavalierly tossed aside to even begin to reconcile QM and relativity at the Planck scale.
So insofar as Godel's says there's an infinite pools of math problems (of a certain sort), then yeah, there's plenty of maths for physicists to exploit. Doesn't mean any of it accurately models nature.
... "has inspired many mathematical developments"
... "the development of quantum mechanics and some aspects of functional analysis parallel each other in many ways"
... "Use of geometry and topology plays an important role in string theory."
Yeah. That's what I said. I'm sorry if you're embarrassed, but I'm not wrong. Physical theories are comprised of models, which use math that is proven in theorems. But pure mathematics is NOT an empirical science. What physicists do with math is up to them, and I've already said that some cool physics has inspired some groovy math (calculus springs to mind), but we write proofs. When we want to prove Pythagoras' Theorem (triangle inequality), we don't measure the sides of the triangle and compare the numbers. That doesn't prove squat. We resort to abstract logic, completely divorced from 'reality' or empirical data.
If physicists then use the triangle inequality in their effort to explain, i.e., elliptical orbits, and need some sort of method to sum infinitesimal areas, inventing calculus in the process, it doesn't obviate the need to prove the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus mathematically -- that is, without recourse to empirical data or specific examples.
Even the definition of "mathematical physics" hints at the long-simmering animosity between pure and applied mathematics, and modern efforts to bridge that gap. My pure math profs still complain about all the "hand-waving" that applied math & physics profs use to make short cuts. My applied & physics profs don't disagree. I think most physicists would like to "put physical theories on a mathematically rigorous footing", but when you're trying to keep a rocket in space, it's less important to understand FTC than it is to be an equation monkey.
It still doesn't change the fact that it's a mistake to suggest that math is 'real' in nature, or that mathematics is a science. All my pure math profs call it the art of writing elegant logical proofs. Or as my number theory prof exclaimed, "I HATE numerals!"
I'm not a big fan of the "million flies can't be wrong" argument (though as a gardener I agree that shit is good ). String theorists and with them much of the "very picky physics community" are also IMO "not even wrong", as the famous and often used quote from Pauli says.
Also, I'm not a proponent of Chopra and J Z Knight I don't know and don't bother to google up.
And no, the point was not the many-world-interpretation by Everett, DeWitt and Deutch et alii, which IMO is just a poor attempt to hold on to deterministic linear causality in its most crude form.
The point was the content of the quote - relations between change and time and observer participation. Very basic and simple. And that the million flies that claim that we live in lifeless universe devoid of consciousness keep (actively?) forgetting a very simple fact. Which is...?
