Quantum Biology and the Puzzle of Coherence

[longship]

21. Okay, I'm with you on all except the "observer"

That's where many QM conversations go horribly wrong. The observer is just that, one who sees but has no effect. Looking only has an effect when the technology of your looking bridges the gap (make no mistake here, the gap is very real) between the quantum world and the macro world.

Putting it crudely, there is a qualitative difference between baseballs and electrons. Don't expect either to act like the other. No metaphor about quantum mechanics prepares a physics student for the study of quantum mechanics.

Richard Feynman was correct when he said that anybody professing to understand quantum mechanics doesn't understand quantum mechanics. But that doesn't mean that we know nothing about quantum mechanics. After all, Feynman himself said that the accuracy of the the theory was such as measuring the distance from LA to NYC to the diameter of a single hair.

Yes, to a non-physicist QM is mysterious, and there are aspects of it that still puzzle all physicists. But that doesn't give just any wackaloon permission to make up shit like there's top-down causality. Just ain't there, so far as anybody knows.