Whilst I did enjoy the quoted article and thought it made some good points, I wish people would stop using "quantum" as some sort of magical invocation.
I've no idea why QM should be accused of ushering in a "post-materialistic" worldview. Quite the opposite in my view.
Yes, quantum mechanics is weird - and physicists argue about what it 'means' - and there are several interpretations (Copenhagen, Many Worlds, Bohmian, Transactional, etc) but all of these various 'interpretations', when used correctly, yield the same predictions for experiments. It would appear that at an 'atomic' level nature cannot be described by any locally realistic theory. This is not to posit any degree of 'unreality' but technically means that we cannot ascribe definite properties to things in the absence of measurement (properties like position or momentum, for example). It does not say that the 'things' themselves don't *exist*.
We must also distinguish between the rarefied lab world, where single particles can be isolated, and the real world - and so the question becomes one of how the 'real' world of experience gets 'locked' in from all this apparent quantum gloopiness.
Quantum effects at a single particle level can be quite extraordinary and significant - but can biology exploit those effects in an environment where billions of atoms and molecules are interacting?
What we find is that quantum effects rapidly get suppressed in any typical environment - and this is *extremely* rapid. So to posit that, somehow, the supposed quantum 'magic' persists in a biological system such that we need to re-write our understanding of disease and health is going to require a bit more explanation.
Having said that, it does appear that photosynthesis might make use of quantum entanglement - and so the idea that quantum effects can play some role is not entirely ruled out either.
Nowadays we accept the existence of something we call a 'photon' - often thought of as a 'particle' of light - but that's really just a colloquial descriptor for what is an occupied state of a field mode. And even there the necessity of treating the electromagnetic field quantum mechanically was not fully proven until Mandel's experiments on photon 'anti-bunching' around 1980. Even Einstein's photon explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1905, which won him the Nobel prize, was not a proof because it can be entirely explained by treating the field classically and the atoms quantum mechanically.
The point here is that finding evidence of quantum 'effects' in the big bad real world is not as straightforward as one might think.
Yes, of course, it's all quantum - in the sense that this is our current best theory of what's happening at a molecular level - but that doesn't mean that we need to go all quantum 'mystical' because the quantum 'mystery' gets washed out, by and large.
I would love - no, let's rewrite this as LOVE - for Montagnier to be right about this 'water memory' thing - but I don't think there's a plausible mechanism for it. I think it's nonsense. The idea that you can put some stuff in water, then dilute it so that with high probability not a single molecule of the solute remains - and yet it has some measurable effect on health, does not seem remotely plausible. I'm going to need a *huge* amount of convincing on that score. It's weird that it remembers only the 'good' healing molecules, but not any of the other crap that might have been dissolved in it beforehand. I mean if there is a significant 'memory' effect then be very, very suspicious of that Evian - you have no idea what that water remembers.
Although I am mostly retired now, most of my career has been in theoretical quantum mechanics research - mostly focused on the quantum properties of light and fundamental quantum mechanics (stuff like entanglement and correlation). There is weirdness aplenty in QM - but let's not run away with ourselves and invoke this 'magic' where we don't need to (probably).
Thanks for your comments Rudolph - good to hear from someone with extensive experience in theoretical physics. I've had a bit of exposure with researchers attached to The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems - mostly around the practical lab experiments, not the theoretical stuff (which, for someone in the biological sciences is completely over my head lol).
Anyway, taking your advice not to wave the esoteric quantum wand over what we do not know ;-)
Biggest Lie in World History: There Never Was A Pandemic. The Data Base is Flawed. The Covid Mandates including the Vaccine are Invalid.....https://www.globalresearch.ca/biggest-lie-in-world-history-the-data-base-is-flawed-there-never-was-a-pandemic-the-covid-mandates-including-the-vaccine-are-invalid/5772008
Dr Gary null evidence
Whilst I did enjoy the quoted article and thought it made some good points, I wish people would stop using "quantum" as some sort of magical invocation.
I've no idea why QM should be accused of ushering in a "post-materialistic" worldview. Quite the opposite in my view.
Yes, quantum mechanics is weird - and physicists argue about what it 'means' - and there are several interpretations (Copenhagen, Many Worlds, Bohmian, Transactional, etc) but all of these various 'interpretations', when used correctly, yield the same predictions for experiments. It would appear that at an 'atomic' level nature cannot be described by any locally realistic theory. This is not to posit any degree of 'unreality' but technically means that we cannot ascribe definite properties to things in the absence of measurement (properties like position or momentum, for example). It does not say that the 'things' themselves don't *exist*.
We must also distinguish between the rarefied lab world, where single particles can be isolated, and the real world - and so the question becomes one of how the 'real' world of experience gets 'locked' in from all this apparent quantum gloopiness.
Quantum effects at a single particle level can be quite extraordinary and significant - but can biology exploit those effects in an environment where billions of atoms and molecules are interacting?
What we find is that quantum effects rapidly get suppressed in any typical environment - and this is *extremely* rapid. So to posit that, somehow, the supposed quantum 'magic' persists in a biological system such that we need to re-write our understanding of disease and health is going to require a bit more explanation.
Having said that, it does appear that photosynthesis might make use of quantum entanglement - and so the idea that quantum effects can play some role is not entirely ruled out either.
Nowadays we accept the existence of something we call a 'photon' - often thought of as a 'particle' of light - but that's really just a colloquial descriptor for what is an occupied state of a field mode. And even there the necessity of treating the electromagnetic field quantum mechanically was not fully proven until Mandel's experiments on photon 'anti-bunching' around 1980. Even Einstein's photon explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1905, which won him the Nobel prize, was not a proof because it can be entirely explained by treating the field classically and the atoms quantum mechanically.
The point here is that finding evidence of quantum 'effects' in the big bad real world is not as straightforward as one might think.
Yes, of course, it's all quantum - in the sense that this is our current best theory of what's happening at a molecular level - but that doesn't mean that we need to go all quantum 'mystical' because the quantum 'mystery' gets washed out, by and large.
I would love - no, let's rewrite this as LOVE - for Montagnier to be right about this 'water memory' thing - but I don't think there's a plausible mechanism for it. I think it's nonsense. The idea that you can put some stuff in water, then dilute it so that with high probability not a single molecule of the solute remains - and yet it has some measurable effect on health, does not seem remotely plausible. I'm going to need a *huge* amount of convincing on that score. It's weird that it remembers only the 'good' healing molecules, but not any of the other crap that might have been dissolved in it beforehand. I mean if there is a significant 'memory' effect then be very, very suspicious of that Evian - you have no idea what that water remembers.
Although I am mostly retired now, most of my career has been in theoretical quantum mechanics research - mostly focused on the quantum properties of light and fundamental quantum mechanics (stuff like entanglement and correlation). There is weirdness aplenty in QM - but let's not run away with ourselves and invoke this 'magic' where we don't need to (probably).
Thanks for your comments Rudolph - good to hear from someone with extensive experience in theoretical physics. I've had a bit of exposure with researchers attached to The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems - mostly around the practical lab experiments, not the theoretical stuff (which, for someone in the biological sciences is completely over my head lol).
Anyway, taking your advice not to wave the esoteric quantum wand over what we do not know ;-)