Brian Greene: "Nothing supersedes the laws of physics"

I've been needing some cosmic scientific perspective during my morning pre-meditation reading time, given how the coronavirus pandemic dominates the news and peoples' psyches.

Physicist Brian Greene's new book, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe," has been meeting that need nicely. He's an excellent writer, thinker, and popularizer of scientific truth. 

Here's an example of what appealed to me in the first four chapters. I'm sure I'll be sharing more from the book as I get deeper into it.

Nothing supersedes the laws of physics. I love this bold simple statement. It rings true to me. If you disagree, feel free to leave a comment on this post in which you provide specific, detailed, persuasive, demonstrable evidence of something that lies outside the laws of physics.

Here's passages from the Information and Vitality chapter where Greene makes this persuasive claim.

By this point you may have concluded that life's molecules must have aced their studies of organic chemistry. Otherwise, how in the world would they know what they are supposed to do? How does DNA know to split down the middle and attach complementary bases to the ones it has exposed, creating a duplicate molecule?

How does RNA know to make copies of sections of DNA, transport that information to the appropriate cellular structures where yet other distinct but related molecules know how to read the genetic code and link up appropriate sequences of amino acids into functioning proteins?

Of course, the molecules don't know anything. Their behavior is guided by the blind, mindless, unschooled laws of physics. But the question remains: How do they consistently and reliably carry out a stunningly intricate series of complex chemical processes?

It's a question that harks back to my paraphrasing of Schrodinger's primary query in What is Life?: The jostling and careening of molecules within a rock are governed by the laws of physics. The jostling and careening of molecules within a rabbit are also governed by the laws of physics.

How do they differ?

We have now seen that the rabbit's particles are guided by an additional influence -- the rabbit's internal archive of information, its cellular software. Importantly, critically, vitally: This information does not supersede the laws of physics. Nothing does.

Instead, much as a water slide doesn't supersede the laws of gravity but through its shape guides riders along a specific trajectory they would otherwise not follow, the rabbit's cellular software is carried by chemical arrangements that through their shape, structure, and constituents guide various molecules along trajectories that they, too, would otherwise not follow.

...The point, then, is that information in a cell is not abstract. It is not a free-floating set of instructions that molecules need to study, memorize, and execute. 

Instead, the information is encoded in the molecular arrangements themselves, arrangements that coax other molecules to bump or join or interact in a manner that carries out cellular processes like growth, repair, or reproduction. Even though the molecules inhabiting a cell lack intent or purpose, and even though they are thoroughly oblivious, their physical structure allows them to accomplish highly specialized tasks. 

In this sense, the processes of life are molecular meanderings fully described by physical law that simultaneously tell a higher-level, information-based story.

For the rock, there is no higher level story. When you use the laws of physics to describe the bumping and jostling of the rock's molecules, you're done. But when you use the very same laws of physics to describe the bumping and jostling of rabbit molecules, you are not done. Not by a long shot.

Overlaid on the reductionist story is a whole additional story that tells of the rabbit's unique molecular arrangements that choreograph an exquisite spectrum of organized molecular motions. And it is these molecular motions which carry out higher-level processes within the rabbit's cells.

Indeed, for the rabbit, and for us, too, such biological information is also organized on larger scales, guiding processes that act not just within individual cells but across collections of cells, yielding the hallmark quality of coordinated complexity. When you reach for a cup of coffee, the motion of every atom constituting every molecule in your hand, arm, body, and brain is fully governed by the laws of physics.

Again, with gusto: Life does not and cannot contravene physical law. Nothing can.

But the fact that a huge number of your molecules can act in concert, coordinating their overall motion to cause your arm to reach out across a table and your hand to clutch a mug, reflects the wealth of biological information, embodied in atomic and molecular arrangements, directing a profusion of complex molecular processes.

Life is physics orchestrated.

Comments

[David Christopher Lane]

Great book and I really enjoyed his section on thermodynamics and its relation to evolution by natural selection. He also gave a great interview on Joe Rogan podcast.... he is a vegan but has a real phobia about
closed spaces.... including his fear of tunnels.

[🌜🌞💥💖🦸🦂🐸🤶😈]

Greene says "Life is physics orchestrated."

I say - Life is death in disguise.

[Sonia]

Neil DeGrasse Tyson replying to @MLB:

“We've suspected for some time now that the laws of physics across the universe might not apply to some pitchers -- we have top people looking into this. But what is certain is that he can't do that on the (airless) Moon, a place where nothing curves sideways.”

😂😂😂

[Sonia]

The only thing that could possibly supersede the “known” laws of physics would be further discoveries about the laws of physics.

Nothing can supersede a current scientific fact until it has been scientifically disproven. If and when that may or may not happen. Life is endless discovery.

Here’s one example:
https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2018/02/21/587249333/can-we-change-the-past

We humans LOVE certainty. Science is the closest thing we have to certainty. But science is a growing field and occasionally certain theories and laws are disproven or are incomplete. And that’s cool. We can’t possibly have discovered everything there is to know. How boring would that be?

[Sonia]

I find it oddly ironic that we humans seem to be hardwired for certainty because this is one of the greatest limitations on knowledge and discovery. We seem to have an almost phobic aversion to not knowing. This is especially true when it comes to religion, philosophy and even to some degree, science.

We are also hardwired to want to live, no matter how miserable we may be.

Uncertainty about what happens when we die. Could anything be more terrifying?

[Arjuna]

Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory tips him another one at one of his talks. The book being nonsense off course lol. Classic scene

[Turan]

Lately I am having a re-read of some of my books. In Steve Hagen's book – 'Why the World Doesn't Seem to Make Sense'. To make a valid point he imagines a conversation between a physicist and a philosopher:
Physicist: … and so we conclude an electron is a particle.
Philosopher: But you also claim that an electron is a wave.
Physicist: Yes, it is also a wave.
Philosopher: But surely, not if its a particle.
Physicist: We say it is both wave and particle.
Philosopher: But that's a contradiction, obviously.
Physicist: Are you saying its neither wave or particle?
Philosopher: No, I'm asking what you mean by “it.”

[Meditator]

In all this hullabaloo of science and logics defining and analysing material phenomena and some of us tending to cross over to analyse spirituality - a non material arena beyond senses with same yardstick we miss out badly on one thing I.e. in knowing our consciousness and which is the 'one' we are basically fighting to preserve from a kiss of baby corona ( or death) , a new born in corona family now worldwide.

If the author wishes to discuss physics and physics only well it's good. But applying physics specifically to the phenomena of igniting life and then death in the objects whether in flesh or not naturally is beyond the scope of physics.

[seeker]

Santosh - why do you hate Modi so much? Isn't he spiritual too?
Thank you

[Santosh]

seeker,

I not only hate Modi but all the fuckers who don't follow Dharma(righteousness).

Modi is an exact copy of Hitler. He has killed millions of people which include both Hindus and Muslims-

https://www.uscirf.gov/news-room/press-releases/uscirf-urges-denial-us-visa-gujarat-chief-minister-narendra-modi

A person can only be called spiritual if he follows dharma-

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma

And people should not trust leaders of countries as some saints. All the politicians and leaders are criminals.

Only the supreme God and True Master are worth worshipping.

[An Ordinary Indian]

Santosh - why do you hate Modi so much? Isn't he spiritual too?
Thank you

Posted by: seeker | March 30, 2020 at 02:01 AM

There are many such frustrated Indians. They can't bear to see someone trying to fix the problems that have afflicted the country as a direct consequence of their master - the Gandhi family.

Noise pollution is all they result in.

Anyways I hope this fella hates anyone and everyone Narendra Modi personally engages with.

Thankfully then he would soon be an exer.

Earlier today in India. 👇👇👇

https://youtu.be/hPi0M8z9vOM

It's the PM interacting with the important spiritual heads on Convid. And figuring therein is GSD

[Spence Tepper]

Love supercedes the law of physics.
You could try to marry the law of physics but they won't be good company.

Any good friend exceeds the law of physics.

And sometimes physics smells funny.

But a good friend will always be polite, bathe and wear Deodorant before a date.

Physics can be too loud and too harsh.

But a good friend won't be either.

A good friend definitely supercedes physics in most things that matter.

A good friend will help you get through COVID 19, and anything else you have no control over.

Physics will help find a cure. Physics is a good tool. Physics is inexorable and inevitable.

But it will never supercede love.

[Spence Tepper]

So why do physicists want to explain love in physical terms?

Why do they need to describe Spirituality in physical terms?

All that you will conclude is that there is no real love or Spirituality within physics.

I challenge anyone to explain physics in terms of love. Be prepared to offer real evidence, not just formulas, theories and other scientific mythology. Prove that physics isn't just love.

All that you will find is that physics doesn't actually exist, from the very real world of love.

In the world of love, lovers fly. Lovers can be thousands of miles apart but in a single word on a single piece of paper they have intimacy. In a single word spoken with love on the phone thousands of miles apart, there is love in one place, and both lovers are transported there.

Does the physical world even exist? Well, not so much for lovers.

You've got to be willing to let it go, to find love. But more often than not it is love that will pull you in.

Is love a mistake? To a lover of physics, could be.

But to a physicist in love, never.

[Spence Tepper]

If a cure is ever found for COVID-19, physics (biochemistry, biology, genetics, pharmacology...) will surely hold the answer. Necessity will be the vehicle. But neither will take us there. Only love, pure compassion, will ever be the fuel to carry us there through all challenges. . Love is the force driving life forward.

[Spence Tepper]

The ventilators are composed of physics.

But physics didn't design, manufacture and ship the ventilators.

Love did that.

[Karim W. Rahmaan]

"Nothing supersedes the laws of physics."

As Brian Greene is a theoretical physicist:

In theory,
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metaphysics
would supersede.

"For the rock, there is no higher level story. When you use the laws of physics to describe the bumping and jostling of the rock's molecules, you're done."

According to the University of Oregon:
"rocks

-- which are made of --

minerals

-- which are made of --

elements

-- which are made of --

atoms

-- which are made of --

protons, neutrons, & electrons

-- which are made of --

subatomic particles

-- which are made of --

who knows what"
http://jersey.uoregon.edu/~mstrick/MinRockID/MinRockGloss.html

Hence mostly everything is made up of subatomic particles, studies have shown:

"For both large and small wavelengths, both matter and radiation have both particle and wave aspects. The particle aspects are emphasized when their emission or absorption is studied, and the wave aspects are emphasized when their behavior in moving through a system is studied. But the wave aspects of their motion become more difficult to observe as their wavelengths become shorter. ...For ordinary macroscopic particles the mass is so large that the momentum is always sufficiently large to make the de Broglie wavelength small enough to be beyond the range of experimental detection, and classical mechanics reigns supreme." –by Eisberg & Resnick (1923)
https://archive.org/details/quantumphysicsof00eisb/page/59
(Through)
https://archive.org/details/quantumphysicsof00eisb/page/60

Conclusion:
Since we have no more physics or studies that go beyond the subatomic, metaphysics or a firm belief in something greater thus becomes a sounder theory. Physicists like Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, & even Brain Greene held on to belief in some religious sect of Christianity, Zionism, Vedic, or traditional Judaism:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Max-Planck

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Albert-Einstein/General-relativity-and-teaching-career

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Erwin-Schrodinger

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/06/brian-greene-theoretical-physicist-interview-until-the-end-of-time (Question to D. Greene: In your book, you talk about the “majesty of religion”. What do you mean by that?)

So postulate why such great physicists, such like minds, all have faith in something outside and beyond physics; a God, Jehovah or Yahweh, Christ, Brahman or a Higher Supreme Being!

Their source of genius perhaps?

[Big Daddy WarBucks]

1. Laws of nature
2. Love
3. Consciousness