What is Life?: With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches (Canto Classics) Reprint Edition

In the preface Roger Penrose writes: “It makes point that . . . have the ring of truth; yet they are still blindly ignored by a disconcertingly large proportion of people who should know better.” I suppose the reader can decide which points these are.Schrödinger’s opinions about life were far less mechanical than I expected. I am one of the few scientists who believe that life and consciousness are intrinsic qualities of the universe. While the “rationalist” dismiss this as “irrefutable and unprovable, and thus of no value for knowledge,” though he ignores the fact the this is just as true of the assumption that life arose haphazardly, Schrödinger points out “what an uncanny gap he thereby allows to remain in his picture of the world.” Had consciousness not appeared, existence would “otherwise have remained a play before empty benches, not existing for anybody, thus quite properly speaking not existing.” Since consciousness exists, it necessarily had potential existence from the instant of the Big Bang. If existence had no consciousness of existing, how would that be different from nonexistence? But materialists mock those who suggest that this potential might be intrinsic rather than acquired accidentally. It is amusing to see how angry materialists get at the suggestion that their existence is not accidental and that life might have meaning. So instead we should believe that molecules just happen to exist that just happened to assume a form, in a cell nucleus too small to see with the naked eye, capable of developing into human beings capable of building computers, writing symphonies, and doubting validity of existence? Really?I also especially appreciated what Schrödinger had to say about ethics. “The ethical law in its simplest general form (be unselfish!) is plainly a fact . . . agreed upon by the vast majority of those who do not very often keep it. I regard its puzzling existence as an indication of our being in the beginning of a biological transformation from an egoistic to an altruistic general attitude, of man being about to become an animal social.” “Egoism is a destructive vice in any kind of community.” Since “consciousness is a phenomenon in the zone of evolution,” then it follows “that consciousness and discord with one’s own self are inseparably linked up.” Nietzsche frenetically disagrees with this, but his philosophy was based upon the premise that the universe is fundamentally immoral, rather than merely amoral as materialists believe, so perpetual war, and exploitation of the defeated, is the supreme virtue. Ayn Rand’s “The Virtue of Selfishness” was based upon a blatantly dishonest and shallow definition of the word. It does make sense that if consciousness has intrinsic existence, then it would also possess certain qualities. Perhaps the wise men of the ages have an inkling of those qualities. Religious experiences are overwhelming, not easily, or at least not convincingly, explained from the materialist model of reality; and these experiences, however superstitiously interpreted, have not only shaped human history but also determined how people think about themselves. However hypocritically.Schrödinger also has fascinating speculations about how behavior altered by traits acquired by natural selection may mimic Lamarckian evolution. He also points out that natural selection is not like artificial selection, because the former relies upon mutations. He likens mutations to quantum jumps in the gene molecule. Mutations are rare, most of them are harmful, yet these mutations must harmonize in order for an organism to develop something such as an eye. The eye is useless without a skull socket able to contain it, and a brain capable of interpreting the information it gathers. This all relies upon DNA producing the correct proteins, which are often hundreds of units long and require very specific sequencing. Calculations easily show how improbable it is that even one of them could be produced haphazardly within the lifetime of the universe. Yet there they are. Why is it considered irrational to suppose there might be a natural harmony at work here?

CLEARLY IMPORTANTIn his 1991 foreword Roger Penrose ranks the small booklet of Schrödinger 'among the most influential of scientific writings in this century' and mentions --besides others-- especially J.B.S.Haldane and Francis Cricks as examples of young men, which have been strongly influenced by Schrödinger's ideas, and Ernst Peter Fischer gives 1987 in his introduction of a German translation of Schrödinger's booklet a good readable historical account of the situation before Schrödinger's lectures 1943 and the development since that time until1987. This places Schrödinger very well in the center of the encounter between modern physics and biology.HOW IS LIFE POSSIBLE AGAINST ENTROPY?The many reviewers until now have pointed out many important aspects related to this book. Thus I have not to repeat this here. My personal interest in this booklet was caused by my own questions while trying to understand the phenomenon of life against the background of physics. Being myself a computer scientist and philosopher as well I was puzzled by the fact that even at the beginning of the 21.century 'everyday knowledge' regarding the question why life is possible in a physical world is not easily available (and you will not find any answer to this question in the modern books about genetics with 900 and more pages!). While I have learned from Boltzmann something about entropy and the general tendency of a physical system to increase the entropy, this introduced the riddle why living organisms seem to work 'against' entropy by increasing order.FROM DISORDER TO ORDERIn his lectures Schrödinger follows the nice strategy to show why and how genetic information is rooted in the chromosome molecules and illustrates then step by step why such a molecule from the point of physics seems to be highly exceptional. While the general laws of thermodynamic would lend a structure to dissolve it's bindings to increase the atomistic disorder (and thereby to increase entropy) the biological systems demonstrate a strong 'resistance' instead; they keep the order of the molecules and even more they are able to increase these orders steadily. Not only generates disorder here order, but order even generates more order (p.80). From the point of physics does this mean that biological systems are 'consuming' order (which can be called 'negative entropy' or 'free entropy' or the like) from their environment (a concept which leads back to Josiah Willard Gibbs). Thus to 'keep order' in the physical universe presupposes the availability of already existing order (some form of energy).NON-PHYSICAL LAWSSchrödinger recognizes that the 'explanation' with the consumption of available order (energy, neg-entropy...) gives a minimal account of the phenomenon of biological systems, but this does not 'really explain', why there is this tendency of a continuous increase of order against disorder. The availability of order (energy) is necessary, but not sufficient to explain these phenomena. While Schrödinger allowed himself the question whether physics has to accept 'new kinds of laws' --'non-physical' or 'super-physical' (p.80)-- he did not answer this question. I do not know any text who gives a sufficient answer to this question. I remember some texts from Eigen and Prigogine years ago which dealt with the special principle of biological systems, but I have to read these again whether they really offered some useful arguments.This story is not finished at all......I recommend everybody to read this wonderful booklet of Schrödinger.