- #1
nightflyer
- 12
- 0
I recently read a couple of books by Paul Davies, in which one of the main themes was that biology is characterized by emergent properties that can not be reduced to mere physics (self organization, consciousness and so on). I would like to hear what physicists have to say about this important topic? Why is it that we can not understand biology based on physical models today? Is it because biology is ultimately too complex to be described by mathematics (and will therefore never be understood in mathematical terms) or is it a matter of developing mathematical models that are complex enough? What I mean by the second alternative is that biology will ultimately be reduced to the more fundamental sciences of mathematics and physics once we know enough about how it works, by means of better technology to observe it.