Many reactionary philosophers have prayed that WE multicellular organisms could not possibly be "macroscopic Schrodinger cats". "You can put a block of wood or a communication network into a quantum mixed state, but not a LIVING CREATURE, not REAL LIFE."
Now they have been proven wrong. But the creature they used in the experiment, a tardigrade, is ALSO very provocative, and I received this news at a time when the Presidential election in Chile seemed close to being in a mixed state too! Here is what I wrote to friends at the time, on the meaning of the experiment and on events in Chile:
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https://www.newscientist.com/
One of you recently posted: "Tardigrade first organism to demonstrate quantum entanglement."
My initial reaction: "TARDIGRADES. I remember them well. But does anyone else know WHY I remember them and why I consider them important in the history of life?" (Suddenly I bcc the one other person, besides my wife, who really knows about them even as much as I do.)
In fact, that post was an incredible exercise in synchronicity, connecting SEVERAL important threads in my early morning meditation today.
The first thread was political. When I first saw the post yesterday, I recalled a great visit to a research outpost in the Atacama desert. A graduate student showed me a box surrounded by endless dry sand desert, and explained that this desert was a great place to look for extreme extremophiles. The most extreme extremophiles we know about (other than places kilometers deep) are tardigrades ("little water bears") and archaea. Tardigrades are the multicellular ones, so big that they are.. insect size, easy to find on the web.
This morning, that reminded me of the very important ELECTIONS in Chile. (https://www.bbc.com/news/
Chile like Virginia? Will the "Republican" candidate there (Bast) defeat the "Democrat" (Boric)?
Actually, in the past decades (after Pinochet was ousted) Chile has had a beautiful balance and dialogue between a rational left and a rational right. Just as many remember great rational Democrats in Virginia (still there, and I even gave them some money), many of us also remember Bachelet's time in Chile, a support for great enlightenment (including great serious deep research in Atacama). So why did Virginians suddenly elect a Republican governor his year, and why is Bast doing so well in the polls despite the friendly things he said about Pinochet and lack of interest in global climate change etc.? Why did the REMNANTS of the center parties (which lost the initial rounds) go to Bast?
Well, I blame it on good old-fashioned overreach, the extremism one gets when people feel too obligated to appeal to the base. Even the national Democrats in the US are suffering seriously in some ways from the same problem.
(Why is Kamala Harris being buried by the wrong kind of staff? What is that recruitment system doing to her?)
A few days ago, I had been thinking of how to build ties to Boric, who has benefitted a lot from honest idealistic graduate students more into cybernetics than into Maduro or BLM stuff. BUT THE TARDIGRADE NEWS, at exactly the right time, crystallized my sight on why revered folks like Bachelet now see it differently. We could HOPE that Boric will do better on networking and recruitment and deal making than Biden and Harris, but how realistic is that, given the evidence we NOW have? I hope I am wrong, and I certainly have my eyes open, but it looks for NOW like Kast,
How Catholic IS Kast? What KIND of Catholic? Could he appreciate Teilhard de Chardin (or even our upgraded version of that) or Pope Francis? Better than Maduro or Trump in any case. I certainly remember when BACHELET had a followers of Teilhard de Chardin in two of her key official futurist networks (and so sad I am that I was violently ill when I had a follow-up meeting with one of the two). Would Bast be open to listening to her (who supports him now) about making plans for that, both for the sake of his administration but also for a nice election headline?
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But can you believe, that is only ONE PART of what cane to me in five minutes of my usual morning meditation?
Another part was a quick memory of the Climate Extinction cause and network which has been my main activity, after all, for several months now, thanks to IEEE and to some of the folks I bcc.
I will resist the temptation to the great draft preface by Ward, Wadhams and Werbos for the IEEE book proposal we have been working on. (I hope it will be releasable in a week or so, after we nail down more of the brain stuff, another topic in my morning meditation. I get long homework assignments these days.) THE NUMBER ONE THREAT to human survival from climate change is due to the growing likelihood that ANOTHER extremophile, the archaea producing H2S, will proliferate suddenly at the deep source of the Humboldt current which now brings oxygen (and lots of fish) to the coast off of Chile. Only this year did we actually combine the relevant numbers and models, and see how close and real it is. Poison enough to kill all humans on dearth, manifesting FIRST as a great stink in that same place where they were looking for tardigrades! It reminded me a little of the "silly" science fiction movie, Pacific Rim, where another form of life changes the oceans in a way which could kill OUR form of life. These extremophiles are actually doing that here and now! But IEEE, not Vancouver, is our best hope of preventing their success in annihilating us. (But I don't blame it on the souls of the tardigrades. And folks in Vancouver COULD help..)
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The other thread... came this morning, AFTER my brain research post, when I looked up the story posted here yesterday on tardigrades.
When I READ the whole article... no it is not a quantum mind kind of post!
Rather, it is... "The world's first demonstrated quantum entanglement of an entire multicellular organism."
The first REAL macroscopic Schrodinger cat was not actually a cat, but a "water bear," but it still is hugely important.
More precisely, it is a hugely important landmark contribution to the large emerging literature on "macroscopic Schrodinger cats." It is the first solid empirical proof (that I know of) of a macroscopic multicellular organism being put into a quantum mixed state. Because WE are macroscopic multicellular organisms, it becomes ever more clear that folks who say "I could not be in a mixed state, that violate all our mainstream philosophies" need to learn that those philosophies are FALSE, proven empirically wrong.
Just FYI, I attach a paper (accepted subject to minor revision, and revised accordingly) which goes on go describe how technology based on macroscopic Schrodinger cats has huge potential applications in technology, such as cybersecurity
issues immediately relevant to global currency issues here and now. (I just hope they start implementing BEFORE certain currencies like bitcoin crash.)
Best of luck,
Paul
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Later, my friend in Chile described their work with Boric, and I am VERY glad he corrected the vague impressions I had before that. Ffrench-Davis knows more about currency and inflation and deficit issues than the Great Authorities we read at Harvard years ago. AGI/IOT it radically changing those systems, but if such technology could be COMBINED with what Ffrench-Davis, maybe the world economy might have a prayer of surviving.
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