Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe

by Brian Greene

Concentrate on a single molecule of water, an atom of hydrogen, or an individual electron, and you will find that none bear any mark delineating whether they are a constituent of something living or dead, of something animate or inanimate. Life is recognizable from the collective behavior, the large-scale organization, the overarching coordination of an enormous number of particulate constituents—even a single cell contains more than a trillion atoms. Seeking insight into life by homing in on fundamental particles is akin to experiencing a Beethoven symphony instrument by instrument, note by single note. Schrödinger himself emphasized a version of this very point in his first lecture. If a body or a brain could be impaired by the errant movement of a single atom or a handful of atoms, the survival prospects of that body or brain would be dim. To avoid such sensitivity, Schrödinger pointed out, bodies and brains are made of large collections of atoms that can maintain their overall highly coordinated functioning even as the individual atoms randomly jitter about. So Schrödinger’s goal was not to reveal life hovering within a single atom but to build upon the understanding of atoms to construct a physicist’s explanation of how a large collection might assemble into something that lives. In his view, this was an expansive quest that would likely require science to broaden its base of conceptual structures. Indeed, in an epilogue to What Is Life? touching on consciousness, Sch...