4 ms·
Reductionist thinking like this is tempting but not really helpful in the real world, in my experience, and I'm a physicist. More is different, and even though
by phreeza 14y ago
Reductionist thinking like this is tempting but not really helpful in the real world, in my experience, and I'm a physicist. More is different, and even though it might be possible to simulate the emergent properties, this is really not feasible at scale. Calculating the wave function of a mole of unordered matter numerically is not possible for example.
- thronemonkey 14y agoI'm not saying that biologists should have to think about QM, just than biologists should think about chemistry. Our understanding of gene regulatory networks (which are definitely an emergent phenomenon), for example, has, until relatively recently been very qualitative, but we're now reaching the point where they can be simulated with relative accuracy from chemical principles. This is great, as it allows us to ground our assumptions about gene function and ask "Could this system really work the way we think it does?" Sometimes the answer is no and models have to be revised.