Joseph Selbie
Originally published Dec 21, 2017 In an adult human body, there are fifty-quadrillion coordinated
biochemical events taking place each and every second. Every second,
each of our fifty trillion cells generates fifty thousand biochemical
events in a near-perfectly coordinated dance of atoms and molecules that
make possible everything from voluntary movement to the continuous
complex processes of circulation, digestion, assimilation, elimination,
respiration, growth, and healing.
If you aren’t staggered by this you should read that paragraph
again—fifty-quadrillion coordinated biochemical events take place in
your body each and every second.
How does our body know what to do?
The DNA Model
The conventional biochemical model considers the body to be an
amazing self-organizing and self-sustaining biochemical machine. This
model maintains that our bodily processes are influenced by the brain to
some extent through the agency of electrochemical signals running
through our nervous system and by biochemical messengers, such as
neuropeptides, flowing through our circulatory system, but that the
fundamental self-organizing life-processes, the heavy lifting, so to
speak, is achieved by preprogrammed instructions coded into our DNA. In
the conventional model, the DNA in the nucleus of the cell is that
cell’s brain, and collectively, the brains of fifty trillion cells work
together astonishingly seamlessly to keep us alive and healthy.
Fine as far as it goes. But how does our DNA do this?
Most microbiologists and geneticists still hold the belief that not
only are all the blueprints for all the proteins the body needs
contained in our DNA, but that all the information our body needs to
grow and maintain itself (i.e., all the information that determines when
and in what combinations to build specific proteins) is also contained
in our DNA. According to this belief, the DNA in every cell is hard
coded like a computer to regulate what and when proteins are needed
within the cell and in response to outside instructions: From the
beginning of life in the womb to the passing from life in death, every
infinitesimally small biochemical interaction is preset by and
preprogrammed in our DNA.
Unfortunately for the conventional DNA model this preset programming has yet to be found.
You can imagine that geneticists who held this belief eagerly looked
forward to the revelations surely to come from the Human Genome Project.
Once the entire human genome was sequenced in 2003, geneticists thought
they would be able to understand all the unexplained mysteries of how
the encoded information in our DNA coordinates and controls the life of
every cell and thus the life of every organism.
Alas for the geneticists, the Human Genome Project did not solve the last mysteries. In fact, those mysteries were compounded:
“When the human genome was sequenced, some scientists were
saying, “That’s the end. We’re going to understand every disease. We’re
going to understand every behavior.” And it turns out, we didn’t,
because the sequence of the DNA isn’t enough to explain behavior. It
isn’t enough to explain diseases.”
— Denise Chow, LiveScience: Why Your DNA May Not Be Your Destiny
In a commentary on the surprising results of the Human Genome
Project, David Baltimore, one of the world’s preeminent geneticists and a
Nobel Prize winner, addressed the issue of human complexity: “But
unless the human genome contains a lot of genes that are opaque to our
computers, it is clear that we do not gain our undoubted complexity over
worms and plants by using more genes.”
Not finding the preprogramming for all of life encoded in our genes
has forced geneticists into a fundamental reassessment of how our genes
function. This reassessment has been strongly influenced by relatively
recent discoveries that have led to the establishment of a new
discipline in genetics known as epigenetics—literally, “above the gene.”
These discoveries indicate that our genes are not fixed—that what were
previously considered permanently dormant genes can become active and
active genes can become deactivated.
Twins who begin their lives with identical portions of their DNA
activated can end their lives with very different portions of their DNA
activated. There is no inevitable, preprogrammed, hard-coded destiny in
our genes; outside influences, such as diet and exercise, and even our
thoughts and feelings, can substantially alter gene activation and gene
expression.
It is impossible to reconcile the new evidence of such flexible gene
expression with the idea that DNA is the preprogrammed brain of the
cell. Our DNA turning on and turning off genes by itself would be rather
like Escher’s hand drawing the hand drawing the hand or a computer that
can independently decide what programs to run.
These discoveries cast significant doubt on the long-held belief that
DNA is the brain of the cell. It looks more and more likely that our
DNA is a collection of protein blueprints and that the controlling
information that decides which protein is created when comes from
outside the cell—in fact from outside the physical world.
Quantum Coherence
How, then, can such controlling information that comes from outside
the cell turn genes on and off or alter the gene expression of the same
gene—something that according to the conventional model is impossible?
The key is found in the emerging field of quantum biology.
Quantum biology, as the name implies, is the study of quantum
effects, specifically nonlocal quantum effects, in living systems. Until
recently, nonlocal quantum effects were believed to be impossible in
the warm, moist environment of living systems. However, fascinating new
discoveries have shown that belief was mistaken.
The first and most well-established discovery of quantum biology is
its explanation for the amazing efficiency of photosynthesis.
Scientists have long known that photosynthesis in plants is far more
efficient at capturing the energy of the sun than any nonliving chemical
processes can duplicate. It turns out that the cause of
photosynthesis’s amazing efficiency is quantum coherence.
The chlorophyll molecule’s job is to transfer the sun’s energy to a
photoreaction center where the sun’s electromagnetic energy is converted
to chemical energy. Quantum biologists discovered that hundreds, even
thousands, of chlorophyll molecules, when transferring the sun’s energy,
vibrate in perfect synchronization with one another. They do so by
forming a liquid crystal—i.e. they align in exactly the same way, in
exactly the same phase (like rowers stroking in perfect rhythm), and in
exactly the same frequency. This perfectly coordinated and sustained
liquid crystal structure turns all the chlorophyll molecules into a kind
of biological superconductor, thereby enabling the super-efficient
transfer of sunlight quanta from one chlorophyll molecule to the next.
The phenomenon is called resonant energy transfer and can only happen
when all those molecules are in a state of quantum coherence.
This may sound like just another wonder of science, but such
coordinated molecular coherence does not occur naturally in nonliving
systems. In fact, according to conventional thinking in quantum
mechanics, every chlorophyll molecule should be dancing to its own
tune—out of alignment, out of frequency, and out of phase with all the
other chlorophyll molecules. In the language of quantum physics, every
chlorophyll molecule should behave decoherently.
Nonlocality and the Holographic Principle
Weirdness Alert: You are about to learn more about one of the cast
members, nonlocality, that has a starring role in the long running play
called Quantum Weirdness.
If thousands of chlorophyll molecules are being held in a coherent
state, then the coordinating information that maintains the coherent
state must originate nonlocally. Nonlocal is an awkward term physicists
use to describe a realm in which distance does not exist. An object or
an event is considered to be local if it is subject to the effects of
distance. On the other hand, and counterintuitively, objects or events
in a nonlocal realm are unaffected by distance—because in that nonlocal
realm there is no time, space, or matter.
If you can’t get your head around this you are not alone: Even
physicists who accept the inescapable need for nonlocality in the
workings of quantum physics have a hard time with it:
“Despite the unrivalled empirical success of quantum theory, the
very suggestion that it may be literally true as a description of nature
is still greeted with cynicism, incomprehension, and even anger.”
— Dr. David Deutsch, Oxford University
Quantum weirdness is compounded when the concept of nonlocality is
combined with M-theory (the most accepted branch of string theory). One
of the weird results of this combination is the holographic principle.
The holographic principle states that the information that determines
the behavior of the entire three-dimensional volume of space we call the
universe is “pasted on” the “boundary” between our three-dimensional
universe and a two-dimensional, nonlocal, pure energy realm. Put another
way, the way the universe works—from the Big Bang to the present—is the
result of information existing outside the universe itself. Put yet
another way, light energy, interacting with holographic information in a
nonlocal two-dimensional realm, results in the continuous holographic
projection of the colossal three-dimensional world that we call the
universe.
There is another logical leap that can be taken from M-theory’s
holographic principle that few physicists make: our physical bodies are
also continuously created holographic projections and the information
that controls our projection exists nonlocally outside the physical
universe.
“We must liberate man from the cosmos created by the genius of
physicists and astronomers, that cosmos in which, since the renaissance,
he has been imprisoned. We now know that we . . . extend outside the
physical continuum. . . . In time, as well as in space, the individual
stretches out beyond the frontiers of his body. . . . He also belongs to
another world.”
—Dr. Alexis Carrel, Nobel Prize winner
According to M-theory, the information that coordinates the
continuous manifestation of our physical body cannot reside in our DNA
or any other physical form, but must reside in a nonlocal
two-dimensional pure energy realm from which the physical body is
projected.
The saints and sages, masters and mystics, have been telling us
essentially this for millennia: we have a subtle energy body, or astral
body, or spirit body, or any of many other names given to it, and it is a
luminous, Intelligently coordinated, perfect template for our physical
body. According to the esoteric spiritual teachings of many traditions,
without our astral body, the physical body would simply disappear.
“A subtle spiritual mechanism is hidden just behind the bodily structure.”
—Sri Yukteswar
M-theory’s holographic principle and quantum physics’ nonlocality
lends support to this millennial spiritual belief that our physical body
is controlled by information that originates outside the body
itself—our subtle energy body. Quantum biology identifies the mechanism,
the bridge that enables information to go from nonlocal to local:
quantum coherence.
M-Theory (2010) in studioPaintings L-R: Introspection, The Dream, Multiverse
Quantum Coherence and Liquid Crystal Behavior
Chlorophyll’s magic dance in a liquid crystal state isn’t the only
evidence that quantum coherence occurs in living systems. Experiments
suggest that the tissues of all living organisms are frequently found in
coherent states—possibly even most of the time. In a 1998 study,
geneticist and quantum biologist Mae-Wan Ho and her team were amazed to
find liquid crystalline domains virtually everywhere in living tissues.
Another confirmation of sustained states of quantum coherence in the
physical body is based on the 1920s discovery that our bodies emit very
weak photons, called biophotons. In the 1970s, Fritz-Albert Popp
extensively measured biophoton emission from human bodies. Popp’s team
expected to find, based on the conventional biochemical model, that
every biophoton emission would be emitted at random times and at random
frequencies. Instead, they found that almost all biophoton emissions
were emitted in phase—same timing, same frequency. Their findings
suggest that, just as chlorophyll molecules are aligned and synchronized
during photosynthesis, most tissues in the human body exist
indefinitely in quantum coherent states.
Significantly, it has also been discovered that DNA, too, behaves as a liquid crystal.
Putting It All Together
From these and other discoveries, we see that a new quantum
biological model is emerging. While well-known conventional biochemical
processes are unquestionably taking place continuously in living
organisms, there is another, subtler process taking place as well: the
liquid crystal structures within our tissues, including DNA, phase in
and out of quantum coherence—thus allowing the information from our
subtle energy body to Intelligently coordinate the life processes taking
place in our physical body.
“It is the failure to transcend the [biochemical] mechanistic
framework that makes people persist in enquiring which parts [of the
body] are in control, or issuing instructions or information. These
questions are meaningless when one understands what it is to be a
[quantumly] coherent, organic whole. An organic whole is an entangled
whole, where part and whole, global and local are so thoroughly
implicated as to be indistinguishable, and where each part is as much in
control as it is sensitive and responsive. The challenge for us all is
to rethink information processing in the context of the [quantumly]
coherent organic whole.”—Mae-Wan Ho, geneticist and quantum biologist
Quantum biology strongly suggests that life did not arise from the
atoms in a cosmic accident. Instead, it appears that physical life was
created by the intelligent coordination of physical matter at the
direction of Intelligent information originating beyond our physical
realm. Quantum coherence is the hidden bridge by which that Intelligence
coordinated the trillions of atoms necessary for even the veriest
beginning of life—that elusive magic moment when life was born and which
has and will continue to elude biologists as long as they remain
convinced life arose from inert matter. Quantum coherence is also the
bridge by which our Intelligently coordinated subtle energy body
coordinates the fifty-quadrillion biochemical events taking place in our
bodies every second. The emerging evidence of quantum coherence in
living systems has given us a glimpse of the lawful mechanism, the
hidden secret, by which Intelligence creates, evolves, and sustains
biological life.
Joseph Selbie makes the complex and obscure simple and clear. On a
personal mission to make esoteric spiritual teachings understandable
and attractive to everyone, he is adept at translating science fact into
spiritual experience and spiritual experience into scientific fact.
Joseph is a yogi, meditator, author of The Physics of God, blogger,
entrepreneur, buyer of too many books, proud father of four, and lucky
husband. He remains deeply inspired by Paramhansa Yogananda (author of
Autobiography of a Yogi) and was fortunate to be trained by his direct
disciple Swami Kriyananda. Over forty years a resident of Ananda
Village, Joseph lives the change he wants to see in the world.
Quantum Biology | Genetic Memory
Source: https://scienceandnonduality.com/article/quantum-coherence-and-the-hidden-secret-behind-our-bodies/
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