Quantum Computing in Life Sciences: A New Force?

On the subject of forces in physics, something important came to my attention when reading Michio Kaku's new book "Quantum Supremacy". He states that life is only possible because it obeys the known laws of physics; that on the quantum level, electrons are taking the path integral (the path of least resistance) in life processes, such as in catalysts, which speed up chemical reactions, and in proteins, which facilitate many biological functions. Richard Feynman won the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the path integral and I am surprised he did not interpret it as a fifth force in physics since it is purely mathematical like the others. It might even explain consciousness itself.

What's happening on the quantum level is that electrons exist in an infinite state of probability, but when we observe them they only appear in one place. The process Of protein folding, catalyzing, photosynthesis, and nitrogen fixation do not involve the most likely path electrons naturally take, but the most efficient; one that builds and creates order out of the chaos of inevitable disorder in any closed thermodynamic system.

Kaku's thesis is that quantum computing can show us all the ways this happens on a molecular level. If it is indeed a force, various patterns should emerge, showing how the path of least resistance when certain atoms are combined obey a fundamental law of physics and not necessarily biology.

Pangea Resurrected

Scientists are predicting that 200 million years from now, the continents will collide, forming a super continent the way it did 200 million years ago when it was called Pangea. Back then it was too hot for large mammals to survive the interior, as such a huge land-force stifled ocean and atmospheric dynamics, stagnating global circulation. It was the Age of Reptiles, allowing the dinosaurs to rule the Earth. Some say it will happen again, that they'll return to their dynastic supremacy at the top of the food chain. They also say all that mammals will die off, for it will be too warm to sustain their body temperatures.

Maybe. But evolution's secret is that body temperature is flexible. As warm-blooded birds evolved from cold-blooded dinosaurs to adapt to the growing distance between continents, cold-blooded mammals may be selected to revolutionize the phylum once the continents clash again. Nature only selects those fit to serve it. The cycle will come full circle as Pangea resurrects in the far future, balancing the power struggle between mammals and reptiles that has taken place since the Permian. And mammals are really just another offshoot of reptiles, so there really isn't a struggle, just an endless experimentation of body plans.

Mammals were first, then birds. Only God knows what comes next.

The Sioux Rejected Buying Their Own Land

  The Sioux rejection of the reparation offer of the Black Hills is a great thing. In the late 19th century, the US took the Black Hills from the Sioux, despite constitutional controversy and the precedence set by treaties, which, to be fair (or not!), had happened all over the country to combat Native Americans. In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled against the US government taking the land, demanding reparations and cash to the amount of $105 million. The Sioux rejected the settlement on the basis that the land was never for sale. What's fair to them is that the land be reinstated, that they may form their own sovereign nation, as they felt they had before it was taken. The monument of Crazy Horse that stands in confrontation of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills demonstrates this symbolic statement more than anything, as the imposing mountain of four domineering presidents who gave license to white settlers pillaging the land and massacring the natives is insulting (but hey at least Jackson is on it). Today the settlement is worth over one billion dollars due to compound interest, yet the Sioux haven't flinched from their stance.

This is a great thing because land has never been overvalued. Land is sacred to all living things; you can't and shouldn't put a price on it. Too many times have the indigenous all over the planet caved into monetary and military pressure, finding themselves in debt due to the financial obligations directed at the very colonizers who exploited them. I would love to see a movement this century calling for the nationalization of various indigenous territories, one for each of the tribes that survived the horrendous genocide of US settlers on Native Americans. Perhaps the Sioux could lead the way, as a prime example of staring down a colossal amount of money, rejecting it on the principle of integrity being more valuable than greed, as the natives have demonstrated for centuries.

Digital Archaeology

Many of the modern poets who publish have studied at universities or have some sort of credential that makes them worthy. That is why I never submit my poetry. I don't want to be seen, I only want to create. If it's bad, it's bad. If it's good, it's good. It doesn't matter to me. All that matters is if it reaches someone; that a piece of me gets imprinted on their soul, that they may carry it through another generation on this interesting chain of thought we are manufacturing. I never found my thoughts important enough to reach a mass audience, though in the past I have tried and wanted to reach many people as a blogger. The desire to be recognized passes as one gets older. Even if one of my entries had gone viral, as it nearly did when I explained Cloud Atlas, it wouldn't have made me feel any more important, only a vessel for those who wish to find an answer. And that's where my writings will be found, either in a dusty attic inside notebooks or in the obsolete boneyards of a buried internet, in a layer of data accumulated through a neat line of sentiment, the way sediments mark geologic ages in the Earth's crust. In the future, paleontology for intelligence will be excavated in mines of data that will get lost for millennia, like the fossils of physical specimens, broken free from the soil to the crisp amber air. Perhaps that is where my soul will rest, until the ink dries out and the digits untangle.

City of Chess

Through the grid I roam, tarnished business suit enfolding the chances, lost in thought, found in finance, sulking under tall buildings built chess pieces, the foggy rain shrouding their faces, imperialist hierarchy of the mercantile pandemic. Many pawns are we, limited in movement, sacrificed by probability yet capable of slaying an overshadowing superior. The briefcase keeps pace with unhinged knees that stumble down the streets seeking that serene space and a locked studio all my own, bound for another lonely evening amongst all the bustling nightlife the way I sat alone during lunch time at school, which was always the hardest part of being in Hell. Down they look on me, the ivory towers that commerce constructed, Knight to keep me immobile, Bishops to pontificate the moral apparatus, Rooks that attack when any escape from poverty opens on the path. Maneuvering down dusty alleys where the homeless slain keep me company from the possibility of it being worse, of the Queen disowning me or the King evicting me without even realizing they are the ones I've served, and even more oblivious to the player beyond the city, the God who trapped us in our rules for its own amusement. Down the streets I wander, another day another dollar, starless heart that binds my collar, leashed by a posterior skyline, standing taller, unknown forces rendering me smaller, smaller, smaller, until I finally falter, lose the dollar, become a crawler, a disillusioned scholar.

Arthur

 I don't understand either,

 Why people act the way they do.

 I even took a 21st century psychology class,

 But nothing was said about war,

 About why men fight.

 Merlin's adventures blessed you,

 Made you a happy boy

 Instead of a bastardized rebel,

 The way I was,

 The losses tearing down the years.

 You were stronger, and luckier

 To have found a mentor

 And a certificate of divinity,

 Your blood ordained by fate,

 A king worthy of the honor.

 Despite all that they treated you wrong,

 Betrayed you, slandered your name,

 Your son did not love you,

 The pain caught up, took you for a ride

 In later years, the opposite of my path

 (Hopefully),

 Disillusionment settled, a haunting familiarity

 That those who love you will hurt you most,

 Emotional unfairness

 Unexpected after all your service to Justice,

 Their actions unaccounted for,

 Their mercy unavailable

 For you, the noblest knight,

 Far nobler than the hero you supported.

 It finally took your death

 To discover the truth in Merlin's ghost,

 That youth was your only joy,

 Blocked by a moat surrounding

 Your castle of supremacy

 That overshadowed it.

 How hard you worked

 For nothing it seems,

 If no civil rights were gained,

 Only the legend of your honor,

 Generosity, strength, character,

 Aspiring thousands who came after,

 Including me, once blind to perseverance,

 Finally seeing

 How it is the greatest indicator of success,

 More than genius, talent, and even kindness.

 Rest easy, fair king,

 My king, if ever there was one,

 Only in fantasy.

 Where the great wonder that is boyhood

 Shines through both our eyes

 Connects us like a ribboned bookmark,

 Bridging my soul to yours

 Across the great divide of manhood.

The Dome of the Universe

 Anguish of Palestine the desert storm revoked,

 Moving pieces of the chess board to stale rubble,

 Blackened night of warming reflected in the sky

 That teaches philosophers we are all will ever know.

 All that stands is the Rock, knee of cypress

 In a murky swamp, diluted settlement of knowledge

 Dispersed among the foggy remnants displayed,

 Their majesty the green-tiled ornament

 Stripped of decoration to entomb the masses,

 Survivors who once believed in inevitable progress.

 They congregate before the Ascension,

 Whence prophets tickled the telescope,

 Casting beauteous constellations on the thin walls

 Lovelorn frost of destiny to those who remembered,

 Those who looked as far as the eye could see

 And only saw themselves, a star speckled explosion

 Pasted on the borders of Creation.