Reconciling Physics and Biology

Abstract

For his entire life, Einstein retained a steadfast commitment to determinism. He believed that there is an objective reality that can be observed and accurately measured. If there was sufficient understanding and measuring capacity, any of the apparent indeterminacies of quantum mechanics would eventually be shown to be deterministic (Landsman 2009). His contemporary, the brilliant astronomer, mathematician, and physicist, Arthur Eddington, supposed differently. He had concluded that beyond any conceivable measuring, there is both more and less to any physical object. He sensed that the actual natural state always remains hidden within indeterminate variables (Durham 2003). Certainly, quantum theory points toward indeterminism, as it is underpinned by Heisenberg Uncertainty (the exact position and the exact speed of an object cannot be known simultaneously) and the Born Rule (an essential law within quantum mechanics giving the probability that a measurement on a quantum system will yield a given result) (Landsman 2009). Based on these within any quantum system, the outcome of any event is probabilistic and uncertain. When the Nobel Prize winners, Prigogine and Monod, attempted to scale these principles to biological systems, they argued for indeterminism (Prigogine and Stengers 1997; Merlin 2015). It is proposed that when biology is properly considered in the context of informational ambiguity and cell–cell communication across levels, there can be a productive unification of biology and quantum physics.