Let us take Deepak Chopra’s notion of “quantum healing” and
set it aside as something that is so far unproven, unsubstantiated by evidence,
and a theory and method that remains unconfirmed experimentally. Let’s simply
consider the possible role of quantum physics in the processes of earthly life
and evolution. Subatomic particles behave in different ways than does matter at
the atomic, molecular, and higher levels of complexity. Despite not being well
understand, it is well known that subatomic activity influences and is
influenced by matter at higher levels.
If the details of quantum mechanics ever become known, that
is, it becomes precisely known how subatomic particles relate to higher matter,
then we shall have achieved the next major scientific breakthrough. Solutions
to many if not all the physical and metaphysical questions will have become
possible. Solving the hard problem of consciousness, developing a physics
“theory of everything” that reconciles general relativity and quantum field
theory, and high-probability prediction in the natural and social and
behavioral sciences all might become possible.
The above linked essay discusses the quantum aspects of life
processes in a very stunning way in terms of the early, still primitive
understandings we have, yet entices us to imagine where the research might lead.
“In 1944, a decade before James Watson and Francis Crick,
the physical nature of genes was still mysterious. Even so, it was known that
they must be passed down the generations with an extraordinary high degree of
fidelity: less than one error in a billion. This was a puzzle, because one of
the few other known facts about genes was that they were very small – far too
small, [physicist Erwin] Schrödinger insisted, for the accuracy of their
copying to depend on the order-from-disorder rules of the classical world. He
proposed that they must instead involve a ‘more complicated organic molecule’,
one in which ‘every atom, and every group of atoms, plays an individual role’.
“Schrödinger called these novel structures ‘aperiodic
crystals’. He asserted that they must obey quantum rather than classical laws,
and further suggested that gene mutations might be caused by quantum jumps
within the crystals. He went on to propose that many of life’s characteristics
might be based on a novel physical principle. In the inanimate world, as we
have seen, macroscopic order commonly arises from molecular disorder: order
from disorder. But perhaps, said Schrödinger, the macroscopic order we find in
life reflects something else: the uncanny order of the quantum scale. He called
this speculative new principle ‘order from order’.
“Was he right?
“A decade later, Watson and Crick unveiled the double helix.
Genes turned out to be made from a single molecule of DNA, which is a kind of
molecular string with nucleotide bases (the genetic letters) strung out like
beads. That’s an aperiodic crystal in all but name. And, just as Schrödinger
predicted, ‘every group of atoms’ does indeed play ‘an individual role’, with
the position of even individual protons – a quantum property – determining each
genetic letter. There can be few more prescient predictions in the entire
history of science.”
...
"How, then, does life manage to maintain its molecular
order for long enough to perform its quantum tricks in warm and wet cells? That
remains a profound riddle. Recent research offers a tantalising hint that,
instead of avoiding molecular storms, life embraces them, rather like the
captain of a ship who harnesses turbulent gusts and squalls to maintain his
ship upright and on-course. As Schrödinger predicted, life navigates a narrow
stream between the classical and quantum worlds: the quantum edge."
