GENTLE INTRODUCTION TO QUANTUM BIOLOGY

Effects of Static Magnetic Fields

In addition to oscillating fields, as just described, there is a great deal of evidence that organisms respond to static, or constant fields.  For example many organisms are able to orient themselves using the earth’s magnetic field.  A very interesting recent example comes again from Mae-Wan Ho⁹.  She found that when her Drosophila embryos were exposed (at a particular stage in their development) to a magnetic field some 10 times stronger than that of the earth, they grew in a distorted fashion (Fig. 15).  What is particularly significant is that the same distortions could be produced not only by a coil of standard design, but also by a toroidal coil, as described earlier.  Since the magnetic field is entirely enclosed within such a coil, we must assume that the embryos are being affected by a much more subtle field: the magnetic vector potential.

– (a) is the normal embryo, (b), (c) and (d) are distorted.

Fields Produced by Organisms

If organisms are in fact structured by a pattern of fields, then it should be possible to detect these fields from the outside.  The problem is that, over most of the spectrum, our instruments are not yet sensitive enough.  Only at the extremes of low and high frequency can we detect life fields.  At the low frequency end are the gross electrical events in the body, such as are produced by the heart, brain, nerves and muscles.  There are also relatively constant voltages between different parts of the body.  Robert Becker, who has studied these, finds that they play a role in wound healing, helping to ensure that the healed part conforms to the proper shape – for example when a salamander regenerates its leg.  Such a DC potential can also be found in early embryos, where it specifies the antero-posterior axis, which is the first indication of the shape the organisms will later take up.  Intriguingly, Mae-Wan Ho has recently detected irregular low-frequency pulses from her Drosophila embryos.  The function of these pulses is not yet known.

Biophotons

Most study has been directed to the upper end of the frequency scale: visible and ultra-violet light.  Here the photons have the highest energy, and can be detected individually by a photon-detector.  (Yet higher frequencies such as x-rays are assumed not to be involved, since they are destructive to life).  An intensive study of this “ultra-weak luminescence” has been made over many years by Fritz-Albert Popp¹⁰.  He finds that it is universally present in all living cells – only excepting those, like red blood cells, which lack a nucleus.  The intensity seems to be about equally distributed throughout the spectrum: so to make white light.  This is not what you would expect, either from black body radiation, or from any single luminescent chemical reaction.  It accords more with an overall redistribution of grades of stored energy as seen in Fig. 12.

When luminous paint is exposed to light, it stores some of the energy and gives it out later.  In fact almost any object, including living organisms, will do this, but to a much smaller degree.  What is remarkable is that no matter what colour of light is shone onto an organism, it still puts out the same light.  It is as if you struck a tuning fork with a single frequency, and the piano had responded with sound from all of its notes.  Dr Popp finds he can account for this only by assuming that all the frequencies are coupled together, just as in the metaphor of the jazz-band mentioned earlier.

Such a conception would only be possible if the light were coherent, like laser light.  In further support of this, Popp points to a number of other unusual characteristics of biophotons which, however, are not easy to describe simply.  Among these are: Poisson rather than normal photon-count statistics, and hyperbolic rather than exponential decay after brief illumination.  He also advances evidence that much light energy is stored, in the form of electronic excitations, in the DNA.

Some organisms can store light energy for a remarkably long time.  Mae-Wan Ho found that her Drosophila embryos (again only at a particular stage) would re-emit light, in irregular bursts, up to one hour or more after they had been briefly illuminated.  Such irregular (or “non-linear”) behaviour is characteristic of complex processes, and supports the idea that the light stored by organisms, although minute in quantity, is nevertheless fundamental to their very being.

If this is true, then one would expect the quantity of light put out by an organism to be extremely sensitive to its physiological state.  And indeed it is: both internal changes (eg in its life cycle) and changes in its environment – temperature, nutrition etc.  The most dramatic effects are seen when the organism dies, or is in dire trouble.  Then the light output shoots up to ten times or more of the usual level.  When this happens the stores light, instead of performing its organising function in the body, leaks out and goes to waste.

Electromagnetic Communication

Biophotons can play a role in exchange of information not only within a single cell, but between cells, or even separate organisms.  In a typical experiment, Fritz Popp kept adding more and more Daphnia (water fleas) to the same volume of water (Fig. 16).

                        (from 1 to 90) of Daphnia.

If each animal continued to put out the same amount of light, independent of its neighbours, then you would expect the light to increase more or less in proportion to the numbers, according to the upper line.  But in fact it went up very sharply at first (lower line) and then levelled off to a constant value.  It is as if all the cells had agreed on the amount of light they would put out collectively.  The same thing has been seen (by a number of researchers including Popp) with mammalian cells in tissue culture (Fig. 17a).

What is very interesting (and may ultimately be very significant for medicine) is that the cancer cells do not seem to respond to their neighbours, but continue to do their own thing however many other cells are present (Fig. 17b).  It is as if they are “out of touch”: just as one would expect from their uncontrolled behaviour.

Is this communication to be thought of along the lines of classical physics: like radio, or a message sent in light down a fibre-optic cable?  Or can a quantum wavefunction extend between cells, or even between organisms?  Some evidence that two or more human beings may link in to the same wavefunction is mentioned below, in relation to quantum consciousness.

According to a theory recently put forward by Popp, the organisms might adjust the phase of their electromagnetic output so as to more or less cancel each other out.  (They could only do this if the waveforms were sufficiently similar – as one would expect them to be among cells of the same type, or organisms or the same species).  Perhaps this is why the amount of light put out by a group of normal cells is sometimes so very low, compared to that from the cancer cells (Fig. 17a).  Against this low background then, the organisms will be exquisitely sensitive to the slightest deviation, either in frequency or phase, by any one of them.  Likewise, any deviant organism will be enabled immediately to correct itself by reference to the group signal.

Quantum  Consciousness

The relation between subjective experience and the objective world has been discussed by philosophers since time began.  Science, on the other hand, has been able to cope with this problem only by excluding subjective experience from its realm of discourse.  But things are changing.  Recently there has been intense interest among scientists in consciousness; an interest reflected in the appearance of several books, and a prestigious new journal¹¹.  We have seen how quantum theory can account for the way small units (eg atoms) become organised into larger wholes, which are unified by sharing a common wavefunction.  The larger wholes now possess new holistic properties which could not have been predicted from knowledge of the small units in their separated state.  If a living being is indeed unified by an overall wavefunction, some argue, then consciousness would be such a holistic property which would never be guessed from any knowledge of its parts.  Quantum theory might thus account for that puzzling fact of experience: the unitary nature of the self¹².

Here a remarkable recent discovery in physics may be relevant.  It was Einstein who first saw a very puzzling implication of quantum theory.  When two particles have once interacted, then their subsequent behaviour should remain correlated, no matter how far they may separate from each other.  This seemed to him so unbelievable that at first he tried to use it to discredit quantum physics.  However, the reality of this strange prediction has now been proved experimentally.  The phenomenon is termed quantum entanglement: as a result of their interaction the two particles become entangled in the same wavefunction.  It then becomes as if the space between them no longer existed.

Now that quantum entanglement (or non-locality) is an accepted fact, some scientists have seen that it can open the way to an understanding of so-called paranormal phenomena, such as extrasensory perception (ESP).  Thus one might suppose that, when two individuals have interacted significantly (eg mother and child, lover, identical twins) they may remain in touch with each other in a way that it independent of normal signals.

While most of the scientific work on ESP, as occurring in the conscious mind, has proved hard to repeat, it now seems that subconscious events may provide more robust and repeatable indicators of ESP.  Here I just want to quote one result showing evidence of paranormal (presumably quantum) correlation between the brain waves of individuals who have interacted significantly¹³.  It shows the brain wave traces of two individuals in love and how at times they actually mirror each other quite closely (Fig. 18).

                        Compare upper and lower traces of each pair.

Quantum Medicine

If we are to accept the quantum account of biology, then it would provide support, at the most basic scientific level, for a holistic approach to medicine.  It explains how every part of the body seems to know what every other part is doing, and thus supports the basic principle of treating the whole person and not just the affected organ or the disease.

Quantum biology opens the way to a more scientific approach to many aspects of holistic, or complementary medicine.  In particular, the use of a variety of waves, or vibrations, in treatment.  These include sound, electromagnetic (including light), and homoeopathy – in which the vibrations are encoded in water.  Together these are now becoming known as Vibrational Medicine¹⁴.

Another term widely used is Energy Medicine.  The energy in this case is what is known as subtle energy.  Although not recognised by mainstream science or medicine, subtle energy is a daily experience of many therapists who have hands-on contact with clients: acupuncturists, osteopaths, masseurs, etc.  They can obtain information on the client’s condition by means of sensations which do not seem to have any material cause.  Subtle energy also forms the basis of the faculty of dowsing.  In addition the activity of healing (the reality of which is attested by an impressive body of research¹⁵) is not explicable by psychological effects alone, and so requires some as yet unknown influence.  Since the existence of fields more subtle than electromagnetism is now accepted in physics, and there are a few experiments (described above) demonstrating the activity of such a field on water and on biological systems, we have the beginnings of a scientific account of subtle energy.  Much more on these lines should be expected in the next few years.  With the addition of a scientific understanding the traditional complementary practices have already been greatly extended.  New diagnostic methods are now widely used which employ instruments to measure the body’s response to subtle energy.  New therapeutic instruments are being rapidly developed.  These can deliver either conventional electromagnetic fields, or more subtle fields, and may even transmit the information from homoeopathic remedies directly to the patient by means of fields.

Finally, new ideas of consciousness, and its role in the creation of reality, will radically change our perception of the role of mind in health and disease: both the mind of the patient, and the mind of the doctor/therapist.

Epilogue – Does Quantum Physics Mean Anything?

In common with many ancient cultures, the Greeks had a strong feeling for the harmony of nature.  This feeling was given formal support by Pythagoras and his followers, who pointed out the fundamental relationship between music and number.  It is an idea which resonates with meaning for us at a deep level, since the feelings engendered by music can go way beyond ego needs, whether physical or psychological.  Great music brings intimations of our ultimate connectedness, so that we see ourselves as participants in a grander universe.  And, seeing ourselves thus reflected in other beings, and in our surroundings, we may appreciate that these also bear the same intrinsic value which we unhesitatingly allot to ourselves.

As a result, however, of the development of science over the centuries since Greek times, the concept of intrinsic value has lost its meaning, so that the value of anything, animal, vegetable or mineral, has been reduced to its material value for us as material beings – ultimately its monetary value.

Established ideas die hard.  Although there have been many attempts to assign meaning to quantum physics, the most influential voice has come from Niels Bohr, who advised us not to bother with the meaning of quantum physics, but just to follow wherever its peculiar logic led.  For most scientists who followed him it has been enough that it works, and they have devoted their energies into finding what technological goodies can be got out of it.  A sad reflection on how science has become reduced, so that it is now hardly distinguishable from technology.

We have seen how quantum physics gives us a picture of the world as made of energy, existing in the form of vibrations of different frequencies.  The organised structures we see: particles, atoms, molecules, and living organisms, cohere as lasting entities by virtue of frequency-coupling, or harmony, in the vibrations.  Thus it is that quantum physics is leading us to a re-appraisal of Pythagorean ideas of the world as based on music.  I hope this assay will play some small part to re-awaken our perceptions of harmony in nature, and so encourage the transformation of science into its next paradigm.

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3.        Mae-Wan Ho.  The Rainbow and the Worm.  World Scientific, Singapore, 1994.

 4.        Yakir Aharonov and David Bohm.  Phys.Rev.Lett.115,485. 1959.

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