The Perils of SF

[swestrup]

One of the problems of writing in SF is that new scientific advances can ruin your main premise. This article points to two new papers that claim you cannot produce a pure quantum mechanical replicator. So much for the major villain in the NaNoWriMo novel I've been working on for the last two years.

Comments

[hendrikboom.livejournal.com]

It says, "the possibility of indeterministic replicators"

Like biology. This makes evolution possible, too. Basically the paper says you can't have unbounded replication without evolution. Who would have thought evolution was built into the QM laws of physics? I don't think you have to give up your novel just yet. Or did it require truly identical copies?

[swestrup]

Actually, I'm not sure if this information helps or hinders my novel. On one hand it provides possible motivations for some of the actions of the villain which (although alien) should make some sort of sense from an evolutionary perspective.

On the other hand, it means that the complexities of being a pure QM lifeform just got much harder for me to think about. I must admit that I have trouble imagining evolution based on non-identical copying, although to a large extent this is due to me not understanding the limitations of the mechanisms. (I shall have to give those papers a very careful read at some point in the hopes it helps.)

So, I don't know if its possible to have a reproducing QM 'cell' that consists of A+R where A must be copied exactly and R is random and may change arbitrarily, or if these findings also hold piecewise. That is, if cell A consists of sub-parts B, C, D..., then the copy must consist of non-identical sub-parts B', C', D'... and that this hold no matter how one identifies the sub-parts.

[noteris.livejournal.com]

thanks for the interesting links!

see my comments that life must evolve