Quantum biology and the Comorosan effect

Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 19:26:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: Matti Pitkanen <matpitkanen@phcu.helsinki.fi>
To: quantum-d@teleport.com
Subject: Quantum biology and the Comorosan effect

The message of Caroline Lewis

"Quantum Biology,"
http://www.teleport.com/~rhett/quantum-d/posts/clewis_8-30-96.html

initiated a very interesting thread of discussion about experimental
tests for quantum brain idea.  Here are my own comments. My Topological
GeometroDynamics (TGD) inspired  proposal for the HARDWARE of quantum
brain is briefly the following:

a) Biosystems  are superconductors [TGD,padTGD,Super]. For instance, EEG
   is related to the Josephson currents flowing between the lipid layers
   of the  cell membrane. Superconductivity is possible also at the level
   of organic molecules, such as DNA.

b) Microtubules and perhaps also other linear structures (as suggested
   to me by Mariela Szirko) involving ordered water act as quantum
   antennas generating Bose Einstein condensate of coherent light
   [Antenna]. The most useful wavelength range is between 10^-5 - 10^-7
   meters (note the constraint from thermal IR radiation).

c) The so called vacuum quantum numbers (purely TGD:eish effect), which
   are frequencies and angular momentum like integers characterizing the
   spacetime dependence of the phases of complex CP2 coordinates (spacetime
   is surface in 8-dimensional space M4+ x CP2) store bio-information.

   This information storage mechanism works at all length scales, even
   at the level of organic molecules.

All these assumptions are well motivated in TGD context but more or
less ill founded on the 'standard model': this is basically due to
the new spacetime concept forced by TGD.

The Comorosan effect...

The problem is to test this picture.  One promising direction is the
so called Comorosan effect discovered by Sorin Comorosan [Comorosan1,
Comorosan2] about which (among very many other things) I learned from
Mariela Szirko. Consider substrate molecules interacting with enzyme E.
The irradiation of substrate molecules with visible laser light of wave-
length 546 nm has an effect on the enzyme substrate interaction. What is
peculiar is that enhancement of enzyme-substrate interaction occurs for
certain discrete series of interaction times, which are integer multiples
of form t_k =(m(E)+ (k-1)n(E))t_1 of basic interaction time t1= 5 seconds.
m(E) and n(E)  are enzyme specific integers and k can vary from 1 to 6.
This suggests that something very specific occurs just for these inter-
action times.

TGD provides a model predicting the Comorosan formula and also the many
peculiarities related to the Comorosan effect not listed here.

i)   The quantum antenna hypothesis encourages the hypothesis that
     organic molecules can serve as detectors of quantum coherent light
     and store information on vacuum quantum numbers associated with the
     phases of two  CP2 complex coordinates (spacetime is surface in
     8-dimensional  space M4_+ xCP2), which in turn determine the phases
     of supra currents. The phase of the  super conducting order parameter
     are in turn simply related to these phases (see last parts of [TGD]
     and [padTGD]).

ii)  Assume that irradiation opens a closed loop in substrate molecule
     and induces CP2 coordinate phase change proportional to the
     irradiation time t:

     Delta Phi= B(I)tL

     to a linear section of substrate of length L.

iii) B(I) is the response function, which for large intensities
     suffers saturation and becomes constant. Laser light should have
     large intensity as compared to the intensities of BE condensate of
     biophotons and therefore B(I) should not depend on I much and the
     observed INTENSITY INDEPENDENT  quantization of the effective
     irradiation time results.

iv)  If the interaction time is multiple of t_1=5 seconds  the induced
     Delta Phi is multiple of 2*pi and this means that the closed loop
     opened by irradiation can close again.

     In fact here a quantum jump selecting one of two different topologies
     in the quantum  superposition of open and closed loops could occur.
     This would be in accordance with TGD:eish idea that the analogs of
     Penrose-Hameroff quantum jumps select between several degenerate minima
     of effective action determining classical spacetime. This would mean
     that some kind of quantum switch able to be in superposition of on
     and off states is in question.

v)   Enzyme and substrate contain closed loops carrying supra current.
     The interaction of  enzyme and substrate  involves the formation of
     Josephson junctions between identical loops.  The integer m(E) can
     be  interpreted as integer valued angular momentum like vacuum
     quantum number characterizing the  supra current flowing in enzyme
     loop. n(E) is identified as  the number of Josephson junctions
     connecting enzyme and substrate loops, when they interact. The
     requirement that the n(E) identical Josephson currents interfere
     constructively gives Comorosan condition!! If constructive
     interference enhances enzyme-substrate interaction, an explanation
     of Comorosan effect follows.

Further details can be found on my homepage[Comorosan]. Suffice it to say
that this  mechanism involves in a crucial manner ALL basic hardware
assumptions of TGD inspired model of brain as macroscopic quantum system.

Finally, some  comments on the testing of quantum brain (a la TGD)
hypothesis.

a) A further experimental work could be done with Comorosan effect:
   for instance, one could try find how sensitively the effect depends
   on the intensity of laser light and whether there are  favoured
   wavelengths corresponding to the lengths of microtubules.

b) One could study for the effect of coherent light at the
   frequencies of microtubule lengths on some simple systems. Of
   course, even the effect on brain could perhaps be looked: does
   conscious experience result from  nondestructive irradiation on
   some preferred wavelengths.

c) One could study the effect of magnetic fields on simple
   monocellular organisms and even organic molecules  to find whether
   there is a critical magnetic field so that  the loss of
   superconductivity above critical magnetic field affects the
   behaviour of organism.

d) One could look whether sufficiently strong  magnetic field removes
   the enhanced  enzyme substrate interaction associated  with the
   Comorosan effect.



With Best Regards

Matti Pitkanen

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For more information see my homepage:

http://blues.helsinki.fi/~matpitka

where also explanation of Comorosan effect will be found.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
References

[Comorosan1]
S. Comorosan(1975),  On a possible biological spectroscopy, Bull. of
Math. Biol., Vol 37, p. 419

[Comorosan2]
S. Comorosan,M.Hristea,P. Murogoki (1980),  On a new symmetry in
biological systems, Bull. of Math. Biol., Vol 42, p. 107

{TGD} M. Pitkanen (1990) Topological Geometrodynamics} Internal
Report HU-TFT-IR-90-4 (Helsinki University).  Summary  of
Topological Geometrodynamics in book form. Book contains
construction of Quantum TGD, 'classical' TGD and  applications to
various branches of physics. Last part is especially interesting as
far as this paper is considered.

[padTGD] M. Pitkanen (1995)  Topological Geometrodynamics and p-Adic
Numbers}. Internal Report HU-TFT-IR-95-5 (Helsinki University).
Report on application of p-adic numbers in attempts to understand
quantum field theory limit of TGD. Last part is especially
interesting  for bioapplications.

[Consc]
M. Pitkanen (1996),  TGD inspired theory of consciousness, article
in my homepage.

[Antenna]
M. Pitkanen (1996),   A mechanism generating macroscopic quantum
coherence in brain, article in my homepage.

[Super]
M. Pitkanen (1996), Possible mechanism for superconductivity in
brain, article in my homepage.

[Comorosan]
M. Pitkanen (1996), TGD:eish explanation of Comorosan effect,
article in my homepage.