If it turns out that protein folding really use a quantum computation, I'll move quantum computers from the "too good to be true" category to the "probably revolutionary stuff that I will see in my lifetime" alongside with nuclear fusion and strong AI.
I know that it's fashionable to simply declare quantum computing is impossible, and there are some strong arguments in this direction, but this particular argument isn't one.
The general reason people believe quantum computing is possible is that it describes just about all the things I mentioned above absolutely perfectly, along with literally thousands of other phenomena, with no deviations ever measured. This gives us good reason to assume quantum mechanics actually works, and if it does, then it's possible for quantum computing to work. (Also, of course you need to account for quantum mechanics to account for protein folding. You literally can't have chemical bonds at all without quantum mechanics.)
1. Life may not have a use for it
2. It may be impossible to achieve with proteins and cells
3. It may not actually be possible
For quantum computer I (weakly) believe that 1 and 2 are wrong: evolution and cognition would hugely benefit from quantum acceleration and biology operates at a scale where quantum effects are visible. I thought 3. slightly more likely but I'll readily admit that I am nowhere near the knowledge to be categorical about 2.
And note that of the list of things you are giving, there are many that uses the same physical principles that are used by life: steam engine (expansion of heated gases), rockets (ignition of gas), jets (propulsion), helicopters (a rotating wing is a wing), radio waves/X-rays (the RF spectrum, which visible light is part of), etc... The rest, IMO, falls either under 1. or 2. For instance I doubt long-distance communication really offers a substantive advantage when you know whales can already contact each other at 100s of kilometers through shouts, and superfluidity may require conditions and materials that are impossible to reach for organic material.
Note however that this last one is actually a kinda good (if weak) argument: if superfluidity was achievable through organic material and conditions close to the temperature and pressure average on earth, life would probably have found it, as it is clearly a useful property. If tomorrow we find that you can get room-temperature superfluids that are made out of C,H and O atoms, wondering why it is not found in nature will be a very good question.
There are a lot of seeds that are aerodynamic so that they get spread more widely for example. Even seeds that have controlled falls due to "autorotation"
But of course on planet earth at least it is hard for nature to use things requiring too high or low temperatures. Nature doesn't need the Haber process, but it does fixate nitrogen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...
For pretty much every thing you list, nature has something pretty close to it in it. Even nuclear fission.
That seems reasonable as long as you're consistent in applying the same skepticism to other inventions, such as the internal combustion engine and the wheel.
It is, however, reasonable to expect evolution to find a way to exploit quantum algorithms as it is very useful to several fitness advantages and is something that you would expect to be achievable through protein manipulations.
As for wheels, hip joints are a more efficient design of a rotatory system (multiple degrees of freedom). Wheels are much too simple a design to see much use in nature.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/0906.3725.pdf
I suspect we’re just really bad at identifying quantum processes in living things.
The physical principles behind refrigeration are witnessed in several places in nature.
https://www.livescience.com/39577-insects-with-leg-gears-dis...
I continue to believe that it's very likely that brains somehow leverage quantum computing.
The human brain is able to accomplish computational tasks on only around 40 watts of power that destroy what we can accomplish using pretty much any known machine learning algorithm using tens or even hundreds of thousands of watts of power. Maybe our algorithms are primitive or wrong, or maybe the brain just is not a classical computer.
The power of brains is so "unreasonable" that I've long suspected that there are only three possibilities:
(1) Brains are quantum computers.
(2) P=NP, or for a weaker form perhaps there exist large numbers of undiscovered algorithms that offer massive speed improvements over any currently known algorithm.
(3) Brains or intelligence are "supernatural" or at least tap into something about nature that we fundamentally do not understand.
I think option #1 is by far the most likely, especially given that brains excel most of all at search and quantum computing seems to really be able to speed up search.
There is just no way classical computation can do what the human brain does on 40 watts. To me that strains credulity much more than any of the three options above. It just cannot possibly be so.
In a way, your argument makes the same mistakes that it claims these scientists are making.
> strong AI
I'm not sure what you're arguing here; evolution has achieved this in the form of the human mind. I strongly doubt we are as close as some believe to creating SAI, certainly not in the lifetime of any living human being, but arguments that hinge on natural demonstrations require that this is eventually possible.
There are 22 proteinogenic amino acids (admittedly two are rare, selenocysteine and pyrrolysine, but with rarity comes importance when they do occur).
The search for the correct amino acid is not class balanced, e.g. the aromatics are much less common.
The tRNAs are also not equally distributed, neither in the codon-anticodon pairing, the aromatics are coded for by only one or two, I suppose this is somewhat reflected in the frequency (see above).
Even within one amino acids possible tRNA the ratio's are species dependant to a remarkable degree (see codon optimisation in genetic engineering. You can also tell by sequence analysis if horizontal transfer has occurred if the frequencies are all wrong) and is used to regulate synthesis. e.g. if a species has tRNA UUU : tRNA UUC of 3 : 1 then (classically) one would expect a protein incorporating phenylalanine as UUC to take 3 times longer than UUU to incorporate.
Speaking as an MIT alumnus, some of the school's promotional material is glitzy on the outside and hollow on the inside. The MIT Tech Review's "Emerging Technologies" column is particularly bad. I've written numerous rants over the years rebutting incredibly misleading viral articles from it. It's a shame that people automatically trust it because of the MIT name.
Now imagine primitive organisms that has distributed/scattered sensory system like plants( don't start an argument that plant isn't an organism. instead start the right argument with most flawed system please)
We cannot create anything new which we haven't learnt in the past.
WE CANNOT CREATE ANYTHING NEW WHICH WE HAVENT LEANRT IN THE PAST.
Great people are not great in finding relation in surroundings. They are only good at finding what's inside their brain.
What goes inside the brain ? millions of years of nature's influence.
This is an example that anything that feels flawless is from within ourselves!
20 is the number of amino acids, but this is ignoring stop codons (and specialized amino acids used for initiation).
It’s not super clear to me at what level of abstraction the search is taking place - it can’t be the tRNA space because that’s not just 20 options.
The point that electrons seem to follow a Grover search is cool. I’m just unclear on whether the biological part holds up.
If proteins were created by the cells by selecting proteins out of quantum superpositions of all the possible amino acids, sure. But that doesn't seem to remotely describe how that process works.
