On Wed, 24 Nov 2010, Ray Harrell wrote: > I know Mike Hollinshead sent this to Keith as well. Has anyone else heard > of this? Pete? Something about an electrical universe without the need > for all of the complicated stuff. Electrical Universe. > > > > A poor dumb artist just wondering. > > > > http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26059/?ref=rss > > Why Life Is Physics, Not Chemistry > The idea that life boils down to chemistry is being usurped by a much more > ambitious idea, says two of the world's leading biophysicists.
No, I haven't heard of this, looks like it's brand new, though these two seem to have been fomenting stuff for a couple of years, according to a quick search. Anyway, reaction to a quick skim of the referred link: This paper is a beast. These guys operate on a level of transcendent mathematics where they casually wield concepts from gauge theory and quantum field theory. One would have to have an immense library of back knowledge in theoretical physics to follow what thy are talking about. The gist of it is roughly "a theoretical model of evolutionary biology, using the tools of gauge theory to establish it as an extension of theoretical physics, would do a much better job of characterizing the behaviour of biological systems". Well, maybe, but I note that they put forward no equations. Another condensed summary of the paper could be "gee, I bet the mathematics of the re-entrant self-referential aspects of evolutionary biology would be really neat stuff. Someone should really develop it". -Pete _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
