This required:-

* Breaking down messages into identifiable packets (quanta of information)
* The ability to re-sequence packets at the destination address. (maintain coherence)
* A system of nodes with the ability to store and forward packets (a pathway)
* A system for interrogating the state of the network and routing packets. (maximise use of pathway)

Such a system evolves quite logically from the initial requirement to make the most efficient use of the network. (principle of least action)
So it’s not hard to see how evolution could have come up with such a result for the chemical pathways used for photosynthesis.

I was going to ask the same question. Anyone want to chance an answer?

Sean, what do you think of a) Penrose’s ideas on quantum consciousness? b) Penrose’s ideas on initial entropy of the universe, c) Penrose’s idea that gravity is responsible for the collapse of the wave function (this last one is just a blog-level simplification of what he actually claims).

http://condensedconcepts.blogspot.com/2010/02/nature-publishes-17-parameter-fit-to-20.html

http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/brain.html

The shortest path through macro spacetime is via curveture, the longest route is straight, it may be that at quantum levels the, straight_laser_path may be causing local loop_holes to appear in spacetime itself?..this may be the added energy that shows up in the data

If Nature really has such an efficient process at molecular level, then why did plants evolve into systems that do NOT actually produce the said effect?..I mean they would only need to convert the photons once, and once only?

Sean’s little thread is excellent! We need to remind ourselves that in quantum mechanical determinisim, a cat is both road pizza and purring on our lap…permanently and really (not a “thought experiment”). I exist both as ashes in an urn and a very much alive person, permanently embedded as both, and eternally being both depending on taking a cerrtain observational frame or sets of frames.

I’m reminded of the work of Fred Hoyle with thermonuclear fusion inside stars. When he discovered that stars produce Carbon in just the quantities necessary to make life possible, and that the thermonuclear processes necessary to bring that combination about were a part of the information stored in the manifold, he exclaimed that life “monkey’s around”…

and “monkey around” life indeed does. Consciousness is entangled right with the rest of the information. There are many kinds of horizons in this universe. We have a light cone. When we experience death we also move over a certain horizon. Any observer, anywhere in the universe…even beyond our light cone, would observe the big bang as having occurred 13.7BY ago. Everything is just there, and works together to create the whole of existence- the Uni-verse…the one song.

Surprising (to me) is the authors’ speculation that the covalent linkage of the bilin chromophores to the proteins facilitates the unexpectedly long state of coherence. I’m sure this is just my ignorance at work, but I would have guessed naively that sharing electrons, instead of “floating” in some pocket or other structure due to electrostatic attractions/repulsions (mediated only by the exchange of virtual photons, I think) would make the chromophores more susceptible to perturbations from the immediate environment, not less.

Anyway, little blurb in SciAm for those who are interested

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=shining-a-light-on-plants-quantum-secret

Yes, atoms in proteins are certainly jiggling around quite a bit due to thermal motions but I suspect such atomic motions are much to slow to cause decoherence in time it takes for the energy to reach it’s destination. Thermal radiation would be fast enough but in this case the wavelength is most likely too long to cause collapse.

For example AFAIR in the electron double slit experiment the photons do not destroy coherence (and interference pattern) if their wavelength is much larger then separation between paths as this makes them unable to identify and carry away “which way” information. Only photons whose wavelength is comparable or shorter then the separation will destroy coherence since this allows them to differentiate between the two cases (electron taking path 1 and electron taking path 2).

I assume the same principle holds also for molecular superpositions and therefore EM radiation would have to have a wavelength comparable to the distance on which energy is transported to threaten coherence of this process. Judging from the structure of chloroplasts this distance in photosynthesis is probably smaller then 100nm (roughly the size of one thylakoid structure within chloroplast) which interestingly enough is comparable to the shortest wavelength of UV C. (Perhaps it is not a coincidence and the shortest UV C wavelength actually determines the maximum size of thylakoids still able to utilize coherent energy transport).

All this leads me to think that thermal radiation or sunlight should not prevent coherent energy transfer on distances of up to a few tens of nanometers, unfortunately as I am a molecular biologist not a physicist my knowledge of QM is insufficient to be sure this makes sense or that I am not missing something obvious which alters this picture.

Perhaps someone with more expertise could clarify what are the primary mechanism responsible for decoherence in such conditions?

There is no cat.

sounds like the Invariant Set Postulate

But.

For my variation, I cannot but help note that cats are also astute observers.

Not quite the same observation as objecting that a cat is a macro object.

Maybe we just need to recognize, philosophically, that the superposition in macroscopic systems is the fact that the macroscopic system consists of the superposition of all its subsystems which in turn are superpositions of further subsystems all the way down to the most highly probabilistic quantum level we are used to talking about. The outermost nested shell doesn’t look like superposition very much because it’s in a perpetually collapsed state from the many ongoing interactions with its subsystems in a kind of Zeno effect.