6 ms·

What is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger (1944) [pdf]

121 points by headalgorithm 8y ago

8bitsrule 8y ago
Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_Life%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_Life%3F "In the book, Schrödinger introduced the idea of an "aperiodic crystal" that contained genetic information in its configuration of covalent chemical bonds." Good to see it available (a classic; not so easy to lay hands on)
- yesenadam 8y ago
  https://archive.org/search.php?query=what%20is%20life%20schrödinger https://archive.org/search.php?query=what%20is%20life%20schr... http://libgen.io/search.php?req=what%20is%20life%20schrödinger http://libgen.io/search.php?req=what%20is%20life%20schröding...
- bookofjoe 8y ago
  https://www.amazon.com/What-Life-Autobiographical-Sketches-Classics/dp/1107604664/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1547522578&sr=8-1&keywords=what+is+life+schrodinger https://www.amazon.com/What-Life-Autobiographical-Sketches-C...
- headalgorithm 8y ago
  It is also being released as an audiobook. Release date: 22 Jan 2019. https://www.amazon.com/What-Life-Matter-Autobiographical-Sketches-dp-B07M6ZSYS2/dp/B07M6ZSYS2/ https://www.amazon.com/What-Life-Matter-Autobiographical-Ske...
anton_tarasenko 8y ago
Freeman Dyson reviews and extends "What is Life?" in his "Origins of Life," both a lecture[1] and a book. [1] http://inspirehep.net/record/1268726/files/978-4-431-77056-5_5.pdf http://inspirehep.net/record/1268726/files/978-4-431-77056-5...
bobbylox 8y ago
A miserable pile of organic molecules. But enough talk...Have at you!
erreJulian 8y ago
I took a course on History of Science and I was pretty shocked to learn that Watson, Crick and Wilkins were deeply impacted by this book. That type of cross pollination between disciplines and generations of scientists is fascinating.
atschantz 8y ago
It's remarkable how much this still rings true today. The idea that we should try and understand life as a battle against the second law of thermodynamics has had a significant influence on many of today's great thinkers - such as Friston [1] and Dennett [2], as well as countless others. [1] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsif.2013.0475 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsif.201... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ1YxR8qNpY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ1YxR8qNpY
- antidesitter 8y ago
  Thermodynamics and heat dissipation also play a central role in Jeremy England’s work on abiogenesis.
- jhallenworld 8y ago
  I've heard this called the "every refrigerator is a miracle" theory.
  - throwawaylolx 8y ago
    I don't see anything on this phrase on Google Search
- GuiA 8y ago
  Would phenomena like rocks crystallizing or stars forming also be a battle against the second law of thermodynamics?
  - mpweiher 8y ago
    Not sure. Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, in his Aufbau der Physik argues/shows that the 2nd law is often misunderstood as leading to "goo". His take is that this is not so, rather it leads to skeletons. So rocks crystallising and stars forming would actually be going with the flow of the 2nd law, rather than battling against it.
    - 8y ago
ta1234567890 8y ago
Our definition of life is very narrow, mostly self-referential. Life is everything. Just because we can't consciously communicate with something it doesn't mean it's not alive. Why wouldn't Earth be alive? How about the sun, the stars and the universe? We love separating things by arbitrarily naming and defining them, but the universe is completely connected, we can't exist outside of it or disconnected from it. If anything, the only life that exists is the entire universe and we are just tiny tiny pieces of it with a very limited view and awareness of the whole. Pretty much the same way we are made up of billions of cells that likely have no way of perceiving the human body they are a part of (or "having a conversation" with it).
- Koshkin 8y ago
  Conflating life with the ability to communicate is like conflating computing with browsing the web.
- vokep 8y ago
  This is so true, and key. So many people think about themselves and systems in general as being separate when logically there isn't even such a thing, at least not in the relevant context. You're looking at a a system and how it interacts with a larger system its a part of, how does that interaction take place? Well, either both systems are actually one, or there is absolutely no interaction, and looking at both systems at once is only interesting maybe to see what is similar or different between them. Basically, its always all or nothing, part of the whole, or not.
- wlib 8y ago
  Exactly. The definition of life that is taught in school and widely cited is very limited to simply what we traditionally consider alive. But where are fr he lines drawn? Must life be conscious, or at least experience qualia? Does conciousness get more "real" in more complex organisms? (Is a fly just as alive as a horse is?) Why do we consider viruses to be not alive? Are our own bodies' cells alive? In what way? The system is very complicated and we answer is with a hand-waving simple definition.
  - 8y ago
captaincrowbar 8y ago
What is life? A forkbomb implemented in hardware.
chipotle_coyote 8y ago
Tell me I'm not the only one who read "What is Life?" and, despite it not being the correct lyric, immediately heard "baby don't hurt me / don't hurt me / no more" in their head.
- nategri 8y ago
  what is life by er win schro dinger schro ding er no more
- ralf07 8y ago
  :) the same happened to me!
- prateekj 8y ago
  I thought I was the only one :) To be honest, the main reason I started scrolling through the comments is because I wanted to check if someone else heard it in their head too.
defnotarobot 8y ago
I remember finding a first edition of this in my university library during undergrad after reading the likes of Watson/Crick describe it as fundamental in their path. What bowled me over was that each paragraph in that edition - and so very likely the ones they read as well - was marked with a section symbol (§), itself closely resembling a double helix. At the time it felt profound that their conclusion was likely implied by the circumstances of their beginning.
goldenkey 8y ago
Structure is opportunistic in the sense that it results from energy bleeding out from the big bang into other fields, not only quantum fields but things like position - thus we get large scale isotropy. I followed Shrodinger's ethos to its limits and all I got was perfectly isotropic relativistic spacetime foam. I suppose that's what our universe will eventually decay into - and then what happens is up to anyones interpretation (conformal cyclic cosmology or what have you..) I need to implement gravity, some type of coupling that can prevent equipartition of states from happening so quickly. In any case, nothing interesting happens in small universes by the process of evolution. Evolution requires a balance between specifity of search/selectivity and magnitude. Less specificity will require more brute force magnitude. Just like any search of a space or data struct. Silicon just doesn't have the magnitude that even a mole of molecules does. Not even in the same ballpark. The source is up here and easily portable to platform other than Windows https://github.com/churchofthought/ScatterLife https://github.com/churchofthought/ScatterLife I need to update the video - the video is before I added a projection matrix to fix the hexagonal skew. Another framework but using complex valued cells: https://github.com/churchofthought/HexagonalComplexAutomata https://github.com/churchofthought/HexagonalComplexAutomata

121 points by headalgorithm 8y ago

Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_Life%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_Life%3F "In the book, Schrödinger introduced the idea of an "aperiodic crystal" that contained genetic information in its configuration of covalent chemical bonds." Good to see it available (a classic; not so easy to lay hands on)

yesenadam 8y ago
https://archive.org/search.php?query=what%20is%20life%20schrödinger https://archive.org/search.php?query=what%20is%20life%20schr... http://libgen.io/search.php?req=what%20is%20life%20schrödinger http://libgen.io/search.php?req=what%20is%20life%20schröding...
bookofjoe 8y ago
https://www.amazon.com/What-Life-Autobiographical-Sketches-Classics/dp/1107604664/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1547522578&sr=8-1&keywords=what+is+life+schrodinger https://www.amazon.com/What-Life-Autobiographical-Sketches-C...
headalgorithm 8y ago
It is also being released as an audiobook. Release date: 22 Jan 2019. https://www.amazon.com/What-Life-Matter-Autobiographical-Sketches-dp-B07M6ZSYS2/dp/B07M6ZSYS2/ https://www.amazon.com/What-Life-Matter-Autobiographical-Ske...

anton_tarasenko 8y ago

Freeman Dyson reviews and extends "What is Life?" in his "Origins of Life," both a lecture[1] and a book. [1] http://inspirehep.net/record/1268726/files/978-4-431-77056-5_5.pdf http://inspirehep.net/record/1268726/files/978-4-431-77056-5...

bobbylox 8y ago

A miserable pile of organic molecules. But enough talk...Have at you!

erreJulian 8y ago

I took a course on History of Science and I was pretty shocked to learn that Watson, Crick and Wilkins were deeply impacted by this book. That type of cross pollination between disciplines and generations of scientists is fascinating.

atschantz 8y ago

It's remarkable how much this still rings true today. The idea that we should try and understand life as a battle against the second law of thermodynamics has had a significant influence on many of today's great thinkers - such as Friston [1] and Dennett [2], as well as countless others. [1] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsif.2013.0475 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsif.201... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ1YxR8qNpY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ1YxR8qNpY

antidesitter 8y ago
Thermodynamics and heat dissipation also play a central role in Jeremy England’s work on abiogenesis.
jhallenworld 8y ago
I've heard this called the "every refrigerator is a miracle" theory.
- throwawaylolx 8y ago
  I don't see anything on this phrase on Google Search
GuiA 8y ago
Would phenomena like rocks crystallizing or stars forming also be a battle against the second law of thermodynamics?
- mpweiher 8y ago
  Not sure. Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, in his Aufbau der Physik argues/shows that the 2nd law is often misunderstood as leading to "goo". His take is that this is not so, rather it leads to skeletons. So rocks crystallising and stars forming would actually be going with the flow of the 2nd law, rather than battling against it.
  - 8y ago

ta1234567890 8y ago

Our definition of life is very narrow, mostly self-referential. Life is everything. Just because we can't consciously communicate with something it doesn't mean it's not alive. Why wouldn't Earth be alive? How about the sun, the stars and the universe? We love separating things by arbitrarily naming and defining them, but the universe is completely connected, we can't exist outside of it or disconnected from it. If anything, the only life that exists is the entire universe and we are just tiny tiny pieces of it with a very limited view and awareness of the whole. Pretty much the same way we are made up of billions of cells that likely have no way of perceiving the human body they are a part of (or "having a conversation" with it).

Koshkin 8y ago
Conflating life with the ability to communicate is like conflating computing with browsing the web.
vokep 8y ago
This is so true, and key. So many people think about themselves and systems in general as being separate when logically there isn't even such a thing, at least not in the relevant context. You're looking at a a system and how it interacts with a larger system its a part of, how does that interaction take place? Well, either both systems are actually one, or there is absolutely no interaction, and looking at both systems at once is only interesting maybe to see what is similar or different between them. Basically, its always all or nothing, part of the whole, or not.
wlib 8y ago
Exactly. The definition of life that is taught in school and widely cited is very limited to simply what we traditionally consider alive. But where are fr he lines drawn? Must life be conscious, or at least experience qualia? Does conciousness get more "real" in more complex organisms? (Is a fly just as alive as a horse is?) Why do we consider viruses to be not alive? Are our own bodies' cells alive? In what way? The system is very complicated and we answer is with a hand-waving simple definition.
- 8y ago

captaincrowbar 8y ago

What is life? A forkbomb implemented in hardware.

chipotle_coyote 8y ago

Tell me I'm not the only one who read "What is Life?" and, despite it not being the correct lyric, immediately heard "baby don't hurt me / don't hurt me / no more" in their head.

nategri 8y ago
what is life by er win schro dinger schro ding er no more
ralf07 8y ago
:) the same happened to me!
prateekj 8y ago
I thought I was the only one :) To be honest, the main reason I started scrolling through the comments is because I wanted to check if someone else heard it in their head too.

defnotarobot 8y ago

I remember finding a first edition of this in my university library during undergrad after reading the likes of Watson/Crick describe it as fundamental in their path. What bowled me over was that each paragraph in that edition - and so very likely the ones they read as well - was marked with a section symbol (§), itself closely resembling a double helix. At the time it felt profound that their conclusion was likely implied by the circumstances of their beginning.

goldenkey 8y ago

Structure is opportunistic in the sense that it results from energy bleeding out from the big bang into other fields, not only quantum fields but things like position - thus we get large scale isotropy. I followed Shrodinger's ethos to its limits and all I got was perfectly isotropic relativistic spacetime foam. I suppose that's what our universe will eventually decay into - and then what happens is up to anyones interpretation (conformal cyclic cosmology or what have you..) I need to implement gravity, some type of coupling that can prevent equipartition of states from happening so quickly. In any case, nothing interesting happens in small universes by the process of evolution. Evolution requires a balance between specifity of search/selectivity and magnitude. Less specificity will require more brute force magnitude. Just like any search of a space or data struct. Silicon just doesn't have the magnitude that even a mole of molecules does. Not even in the same ballpark. The source is up here and easily portable to platform other than Windows https://github.com/churchofthought/ScatterLife https://github.com/churchofthought/ScatterLife I need to update the video - the video is before I added a projection matrix to fix the hexagonal skew. Another framework but using complex valued cells: https://github.com/churchofthought/HexagonalComplexAutomata https://github.com/churchofthought/HexagonalComplexAutomata