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Title: What Is Life?: The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell With Mind and Matter & Autobiographical Sketches by Erwin Schrodinger, Roger Penrose ISBN: 0-521-42708-8 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.69 (13 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Book connects the hard sciences to the life sciences.
Comment: What Is Life?
Erwin Schrodinger
This book is the compilation of a series of lectures by a Nobel Luareate in quantum physics and attempts to reconcile the biological requirements of living cells to the probabalistic nature of the atom as defined by quantum mechanics. These lectures were originally give in the 1940's and 50's prior to the discovery of DNA, RNA, gene mapping, and other techniques taken for granted by today's biologists.
The basic tenant of quantum physics is that all atomic structure can be described only by the mathematics of probability. The exact orbit of an electron or its velocity cannot be determined. One can only state the probability of the location or velocity. Protons and neutrons are thought to change back and forth into one another in a random fashion. The very process of physical measurement introduces errors which preclude accurate measurements. This is modern physics - random events governed by probabilities.
Compare this to the biology of living cells. Genetics reproduce specific inherited characteristic for generations. Why does the random atomic behavior not interrupt or change genetic traits? How does humanity think logically using randomly behaving atoms and hence molecules and compounds?
This little book attempts and succeeds in theoretically reconciling these two worlds. The author predicts the structure of DNA. He anticipates current studies in how small numbers of randomly acting atoms are constrained to be deterministic. In the latter lectures, he enters the world of metaphysics to discuss "Mind and Matter, Determinism and Free Will, Ethics, and Science and Religion."
This book is less than 300 pages long, but encylopic in scope. Be warned that it must be savored to be understood. It cannot be speed read nor can it be read only once to be understood.
Finally, two much later in time companion books are "The Quantum Self" and "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" expand the concepts presented by this book. Both are available from Amazon.
Joseph I. Schwartz,
April 23, 1997
Rating: 4
Summary: Scaled up quantum theory that tries...
Comment: ...and almost succeeds in uniting the dissimilar worlds of Biochemistry/cellular mechanics with the subatomic and atomic worlds. Undoubtedly if this book (series of essays/thoughts/lectures) had been written twenty years later, it would be quite different, but as is, it makes some startlingly accurate predictions about the nature of heredity in biological systems. This book is NOT 'quantum mechanics explains life', it is however, the masterwork of one of quantum theories brightest stars, relating the abstract world of subatomic particles to, well, DNA, before anyone knew what it did. Alas, for poor Schrodinger, probabalistic interpretation is much less useful at such a macroscopic level, and the mathematics behind even 'good approximations' of VERY SMALL macromolecules are nearly infinitely more complex than those for, say helium, which cannot be solved exactly (too many variables) itself. But he knew that already, and shows it here. But regardless of any 'after-the-fact' criticism, Schrodinger built something palpable and incredible out of scaling and deduction from the quantum level up. The fact that he struck so close to the mark speaks volumes for the man and for quantum theory in general. Biology is rather more difficult to quantify with wave equations than an alpha particle...not that Schrodinger attempts such an undertaking here, but the point should be understood as pertaining to his background, at least. At any rate, this book is probably not the most pedestrian work one could find on the subject, nor the easiest read. It is however, some awfully foresighted ideas about nature, and is heartily recomended reading for anyone with an in-depth knowledge of biology and chemistry (quantum chemistry/physics would be a good *background* course here), and should be required reading for any molecular biology/biochemistry regimen. This book deserves five stars, and if it wasn't for that article in the late fifties that used quantum tunneling theory to dispute the fact that DNA could be the genetic material of the cell, (not authored by Schrodinger, but using an extension of his ideas, as in most quantum computation) it would have gotten them. Barring that, this is, to my knowledge, the best book about life ever written by a physicist, and contains philosophical insight befitting the greatest sages and philosophers. Or Dr. Schrodinger.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Classic
Comment: What is Life? is an absolute classic. Schrodinger felt that life must be explainable by physics and chemistry, yet seemed to violate the normal behavior of entropy-- and he understood further that this was a remarkable wedge point to explore. He figured out the explanation: life is the result of evolution of genetic information, which selects for complex processes that by ordinary considerations would be very unlikely. He predicted that there must be a molecule capable of carrying the genetic information (incorrectly thinking it would be a protein.) His beautifully-written book was influential and timely. Within 4 years, Von Neumann elucidated the mechanisms involved in self-reproducing automata (illustrating his abstract discussion with a picture looking remarkably like DNA to the eyes of readers today); and within a decade, Watson and Crick grasped the structure of DNA. You should not read Schrodinger's book today as one of your first sources to understand life-- there has been remarkable progress in the 50 years since Watson and Crick-- but you should read it to gain appreciation for how science can be advanced when the time is ready and a wedge point, an apparent conflict between fundamental ideas, is analyzed.
The volume also includes another lecture by Schrodinger, Mind and Matter, which is historically interesting in another way. In Schrodinger's day, the state of understanding had not advanced to the point where it was possible to make as useful conjectures about the structure of mind as of life, and he accordingly felt "[mind] may well be beyond human understanding."
Readers interested in Schrodinger's book will also enjoy What is Thought?, published 2004. What is Thought? argues that mind must be explainable by computer science, that the fundamental issues are computational, and that there is again a wedge point: the question of how the workings of a computer, which are always purely syntactical, can correspond to meaning and understanding. The situation is parallel to the one that faced Schrodinger with respect to life in two respects: first, mind is the outcome of evolution, which has built thought processes that seem inconsistent with our standard science, and second, scientific research has advanced to the point where, if we focus on the wedge point, significant understanding is obtainable. What is Thought? brings to bear on the problem of mind core ideas from computational learning theory, complexity theory, and evolutionary computing, as well as molecular and evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and other areas. The result is a principled and concrete explanation, consistent with the vast array of available data, of how meaning, understanding, language, consciousness, and all the various aspects of mind arise from execution of an evolved computer program.
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Title: Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science by Werner Heisenberg, F. S. C. Northrop ISBN: 1573926949 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Nature and the Greeks: And Science and Humanism by Erwin Schrodinger, Roger Penrose ISBN: 0521575508 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1996 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: The Large, the Small and the Human Mind by Roger Penrose, Abner Shomony, Nancy Cartwright, Stephen Hawking, Malcolm Longair ISBN: 0521785723 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 15 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics by Roger Penrose, Martin Gardner ISBN: 0192861980 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Encounters with Einstein by Werner Heisenberg ISBN: 0691024332 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1989 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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