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concept:erwin-schrodinger

Erwin Schrödinger

Authored
2
Introduces
4
Studies
1
Affiliations
1
Cited by
1

Authored papers (2)

  • What is life?1944
    referenced-only
  • 2021-11-09_dorian_schrodinger-life.pdf_c3c4f5

    Quantum mechanics, not Newtonian or statistical mechanics, is the necessary and sufficient physical foundation for the structural stability and heritable variability that make biological life possible — this is the core claim Schrödinger advanced in his 1944 Cambridge University Press monograph *What is Life?*, and Aaron Sloman's annotated extraction (University of Birmingham, School of Computer Science) extends it toward a theory of layered biological and cognitive construction kits. Schrödinger's argument turns on the fact that gene structures involving on the order of 1,000 atoms can persist across centuries at 98°F through quantum-mechanical energy barriers between isomeric states — barriers that classical physics cannot explain — while still admitting rare, discrete, discontinuous mutations when sufficient energy crosses the threshold, a mechanism Watson and Crick (roughly 6 years after the 1944 publication) confirmed is implemented via the aperiodic DNA double helix. Sloman introduces the Fundamental Construction Kit / Derived Construction Kit (FCK/DCK) framework as the organising instrument for reading Schrödinger's implications forward: the FCK is the quantum-chemical substrate enabling all biological DCKs, which in turn underwrite the enormously varied physical forms from microbes to giant redwoods to human brains. Schrödinger's Chapter V demonstrates that aperiodic molecular sequences with even a modest alphabet of 5 signs in groups up to 25 can generate 372,529,029,846,191,405 distinct specifications, anticipating Shannon's 1948 information theory. The document argues this implies that neural models of cognition relying solely on synaptic weight changes are explanatorily inadequate, and that current AI systems cannot reproduce the kinds of spatial and topological mathematical discoveries — such as the neusis trisection construction — that ancient mathematicians achieved, pointing toward unknown layers of biological virtual machinery irreducible to either fundamental physics or contemporary computational architectures.

More papers — OpenAlex / S2

Originates (4)

concept
"The obvious inability of present-day physics and chemistry to account for such events is no reason at all for doubting that they can be accounted for by those sciences.""Quantum mechanics is the first theoretical aspect which accounts from first principles for all kinds of aggregates of atoms actually encountered in Nature."Aperiodic Solid (Aperiodic Crystal)
hypothesis
The hereditary substance is a single huge aperiodic molecule capable of discrete configuration changes (mutations) via quantum jumps.

Studies (1)

Life

Affiliations (1)

Their work is cited by (1)

Other inbound relations (6)

Recent mentions (8)