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Rosen 2009

1) Quantum theory plays an important role in biology as organisms are made of matter which quantum theory describes. However, quantum theory is more than just quantum chemistry and allows other modes of analysis relevant to biology. 2) While quantum chemistry can provide molecular properties, it is up to biological theory to determine how this information relates to biological questions. The view that biology is reducible to physics via quantum chemistry alone is untenable. 3) Quantum theory allows broader analysis of systems into subsystems beyond just molecules, including biologically important entities like catalytic sites, and these more general analyses are needed to understand the physical basis of life.

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Rosen 2009

1) Quantum theory plays an important role in biology as organisms are made of matter which quantum theory describes. However, quantum theory is more than just quantum chemistry and allows other modes of analysis relevant to biology. 2) While quantum chemistry can provide molecular properties, it is up to biological theory to determine how this information relates to biological questions. The view that biology is reducible to physics via quantum chemistry alone is untenable. 3) Quantum theory allows broader analysis of systems into subsystems beyond just molecules, including biologically important entities like catalytic sites, and these more general analyses are needed to understand the physical basis of life.

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INT. J. QUANTUM CHEM.: QUANTUM BIOLOGY SYMP. NO. 1.

229-232 (1974)

The Role of Quantum Theory


in Biology
ROBERT ROSEN
Center.fbr Theoretical Biologr, State University o f New York at Buffalo. Buffalo, New York

Abstract
The computation o f the properties of biological molecules has long been the most visible part of
“quantum biology.” However. there is good reason to believe that these data cannot. by themselves. allow
us to understand the deep properties of biological organization. It is pointed out that the quantum theory
itself allows many modes of analysis which are distinct from those employed in quantum chemistry, and
that these other modes are in fact implicated in basic biological interactions. Thus there is nothing “un-
physical” about them. even though they differ from those conventionally employed in quantum-theoretical
approaches to biology.

It is obvious that quantum theory must play an important role in biology, if for
no other reason than because organisms, like everything else, are made of matter,
and it is one of the functions of quantum theory t o describe matter. In attempting to
assess the impact of quantum theory as a whole upon biology, however, the following
complementary observations should be kept in mind.
(1) Quantum theory, while it provides the conceptual foundation which allows
the computations of molecular quantum mechanics and quantum chemistry to be
pursued, it is in fact far more than this. Quantum theory should be recognized as a
general theory of microphysical systems and microphysical events. As will be seen, it
remains far from a settled question whether the particular microphysical systems
studied in molecular quantum mechanics exhaust the applications of quantum theory
even within physics. It remains a still more open question whether the small number
of observables with which most of quantum chemistry has concerned itself to date
are adequate to describe all the interactions, even of molecular systems.
(2) There are certainly many questions of biological interest which can be an-
swered by the computation of electron densities, ionization potentials, dipole mo-
ments, and other properties of biological molecules. However, it is clearly the role of
biological theory to determine the extent to which such information actually bears
upon any particular biological question. Indeed, the more general question implicit in
the narrowest version of the reductionistic view, that every question which can be asked
about biological organisms must find its answer in the quantum chemistry of biologi-
cal molecules, belongs at least as much to theoretical biology as it does to quantum
theory.
Historically, physics and biology remained conceptually separate until the advent
of the quantum theory. During the 1930’s quantum physicists undertook a number

@ 1974 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


229
230 ROSEN

of initiatives in the direction of biology, at first in the direction of radiation biology


(treffertheorie. for instance) and then, in the hands of such individuals as Bohr [l].
Schrodinger [2]. and Delbriick [3]. aiming at the fundamental problems of life and
consciousness. There were no comparable initiatives from the biological side, due
no doubt to the fact that few biologists were familiar with the difficult conceptual
apparatus of quantum theory. (However, it is of some interest that those individuals
concerned with the theoretical basis of biological activity and who were in fact
familiar with quantum theory (e.g., Rashevsky) made no assertions about the relation
of quantum theory to biology.) Not surprisingly, the most receptive group were the
biochemists. who were already concerned with molecules isolated from organisms.
With the availability of new experimental techniques, allowing the isolation and
characterization of extremely small quantities of materials, and the subsequent
development of molecular biology, the reductionistic viewpoint has been widely
regarded as proved. One therefore commonly hears the assertion that “life has been
reduced to physics,” by which is meant that all meaningful biological questions find
their answer in that part of quantum theory dealing with the energetics of molecules
and their interactions.
Basically. the dissection of a biological system like a cell into a series of fractions
of molecular constituents represents a process of abstraction. in which information
is irreversibly lost and cannot in general be recovered [4]. The assertion that. from a
set ofsuch fractions. it is possible to answer all questions about the system from which
the fractions are taken (i.e., essentially to reconstruct the system) is the essence of
the reductionist hypothesis. The reductionistic hypothesis in this form makes contact
with the general theory ofsystems. which studies the relationships which exist between
any system and its subsystems. When cast in this form. the reductionistic hypothesis
can be shown t o be untenable. That is. the modes of system decomposition by which
a biological system like a cell is broken into physically characterizable molecular
fractions are in principle inadequate to allow us to reconstruct the totality of proper-
ties of the cell from which the fractions were abstracted.
This means that we must enlarge our modes of analysis. i.e.. find new ways of
decomposing a cellular system into subsystems. Quantum theory can be of great
help here. for as noted above. quantum theory itself is far richer than appears from
simply considering its applications to molecular systems. On the formal side, quantum
theory tells us that a microphysical system is a collection of observables (which pos-
sesses a definite ‘algebraic and topological structure) together with the real-valued
functions (“states”) on the observables. The further hypotheses are made that (a)
the only physically real events are the evaluations of observables on states, and (b)
given any observable, there exists in principle a measuring apparatus which can
evaluate it on states. When cast in this form, it is seen clearly that the class of micro-
physical systems, which is the subject matter of quantum theory. is far wider than the
class of molecular systems. Indeed, such biologically important entities as catalytic
sites. recognition sites. and compartments fall within the framework of quantum
theory while sitting outside the class of molecular systems.
Thus quantum theory allows a far broader approach to the analysis of systems
into subsystems than is comprehended in the molecular approach. There is nothing
QUANTUM THEORY A N D BIOLOGY 23 1

“unphysical” about such analyses. even though the subsystems considered by them
cannot be physically fractionated from the larger system in which they are contained
(any more than a catalytic site can be isolated physicallq from the entire molecule in
which it is embedded). Several different lines of investigation, ranging from problems
involved in the origin of life [ 5 ] through primary genetic mechanisms [6.7] through
general system-theoretic analyses of biological activity [8] have indicated that such
more general quantum-theoretic analyses are necessary if we are ever to have a
good understanding of the physical basis of life. Considerations of this kind. which
are not generally pursued by physicists. will clearly also have an important impact
in the future on how the physicists sees the systems with which he himself deals.
The same conclusion as to the inadequacy of the quantum theory of molecules
for answering the basic questions of biology was reached, on quite different grounds.
already by Elsasser [9] as early as 1958. For him it was a physical ,fiict that life con-
tinued to evade understanding in traditional quantum-theoretic terms, and therefore
there must be a quantum-theoretic explanation for this fact. He postulated the exis-
tence of“biotonic” laws governing the behavior of organisms, compatible with quan-
tum theory, but not in principle derivable from it. Considerations of the kind we have
been discussing. in which new kinds of microphysical systems and new observables
play the central role, allow us to circumvent this kind of difficulty. This fact alone
would indicate that such considerations are worth a more detailed investigation.
We have already noted that the set of observables which defines a microphysical
system possesses a definite algebraic structure. Exactly which structure is most useful
is a matter of debate. which belongs exactly to quantum theory. For instance. Primas
[lo] has suggested that we must in biology consider systems with a mixture of classical
and quantum properties. An observable corresponding to a classical property must
commute with all observables ; therefore the appropriate algebra for observables
must allow a nontrivial center. Such questions will form an important part of the
interface between quantum theory and biology, though they d o not appear in the
quantum mechanics of molecular systems, especially since in Primas’ examples it
turns out that the Hamiltonian (the most important observable in molecular theory)
need not itself be an observable (i.e.. a bounded self-adjoint operator).
If the essence of quantum theory lies in the observables which characterize a
microphysical system, then the essence of the interactions between microphysical
systems lies in the measuring process itself. The basic phenomena of biology revolve
around recognition and specificity. in which measurement is intimately concerned.
Investigation of the biological requirements of a microphysical measuring process
will provide an important class of examples to those physicists interested in micro-
physical measurement. a subject on which. as we have noted, all of quantum theory
itself rests.
If we must pay attention to all the observables of a system, and not just some of
them. we can approach another vexing problem manifesting itself primarily in biology.
namely. the phenomena of emergence. How is it possible for a system to begin to
manifest entirely new properties, not in principle predictable from descriptions we
have used previously? In any particular description, most observables of a system are
set at zero and kept there. In reality. such observables are subject to perturbation,
232 ROSEN

due to the interrelationships (which we have called “linkage”) between the different
observables of the same system, as a result of system interactions which do not directly
affect these observables.
In the above sketch we have tried to draw attention to those aspects of quantum
theory, in its broadest sense, which enter into an attempt to understand the basis of
biological phenomena. All of these fall under the heading of “quantum biology,”
and in this effort the biological meaning of the energetic properties of molecular
systems comprises only a part. The quantum theory of molecular systems has long
been the most visible part of “quantum biology” in this sense, but it is indeed only a
part. We have not even mentioned such matters as the existence of collective modes,
or the role of van der Waals forces in biological processes, which also form a legitimate
part of what we should understand as “quantum biology.” The future will decide
on the relative significance of these various parts. But no one part should be mistaken
for the whole.

Bibliography
[I] N . Bohr, Nature 131,421,457 (1933).
[2] E. Schrodinger, Whar is Lye (Cambridge University Press, New York. 1944).
[3] M. Delbriick, Trans. Connecticut Acad. Arts and Sciences 38, 175 (1949).
[4] R. Rosen, J. Theoret. Biol. 18. 380 (1968).
(51 H. H. Pattee, in C. H. Waddington, Ed., Tonwrdsa TheoreticalBiology,vol. 1 (Edinburgh University
Press, Scotland, 1967), p. 69.
[6] R. Rosen, Bull. Math. Biophys. 22, 227 (1960).
[7] R. Rosen, Foundations of Maihemaiicul Biology, vol. 1 (Academic Press, New York, 1972). ch. 3.
[8] R. Rosen. Int. J. Neurosci. 3, 107 (1972).
[9] W. E. Elsdsser. Aioms and Organisms (Princeton University Press. Princeton. N.J.. 1967).
[I01 H. Primas. Lecture Notes on Quantum Theory (1971). to be published.

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