The Living Quantum: How Biological Cubits Could Make Transhumanism Real

By Leo O’Hagan for The Swan

There comes a moment in the history of every civilisation when knowledge no longer simply describes the world…it begins to re-create it. I have long believed that nature is not an accumulation of mechanisms, but a single grand conversation, a dialogue of energy and form that speaks in the language of mathematics. Today, I see that conversation reaching a new octave. We have entered an age in which the smallest flicker of light, the dance of electrons, the trembling of protein chains, and even the patterns of thought within our own minds are beginning to merge into a single field of comprehension. We are learning to touch the hidden geometry of life.

For more than a century, quantum mechanics has been the most successful and the most unsettling of all human theories. It has described the universe with unparalleled precision, yet it has left us with questions that erode the very foundation of what we mean by reality. Now it returns to us again, no longer as an abstract curiosity, but as something alive, something woven into the tissues of the living body. The quantum is no longer confined to laboratories of ice and vacuum; it breathes in the warmth of life.

This, to me, is both wondrous and dangerous. It is wondrous because it reveals that the same subtle laws that govern the stars also sing within our cells. It is dangerous because we may yet forget that we are part of that song, not its composer. The human mind is quick to claim dominion over the mysteries it half-understands. And yet, standing before the living quantum, I feel the same humility that I felt when first contemplating the curvature of space-time. We are children before an infinite tapestry.

What is now being revealed is that the boundary between life and physics — between organism and equation — is not a wall, but a veil. And as the veil grows thin, we glimpse the strange truth that life itself may be a quantum phenomenon. For decades, biologists believed that quantum coherence — that delicate balance of probability that allows particles to exist in many states at once — could never survive in the warm, wet environment of the cell. But nature, it seems, has known secrets that our equations have only recently begun to whisper.

In the green machinery of photosynthesis, in the magnetic compass of migrating birds, in the fleeting entanglement of molecules within our brains, the quantum domain has always been at play. The living world is not a clockwork, as Newton imagined, but a field of entangled probabilities. And now, for the first time, we have begun to touch that field directly.

When scientists speak of biological cubits — quantum bits formed within the structure of living cells — they are not simply describing a new computational tool. They are describing a threshold event in the evolution of understanding. The cell, once thought of as a mechanical workshop of molecules, becomes an instrument of pure information. The distinction between biology and physics begins to dissolve, just as the distinction between observer and observed dissolved a century ago in the equations of quantum theory.

In the laboratory, researchers have found ways to coax fluorescent proteins — the same that make jellyfish glow — into behaving as quantum sensors. Within their delicate geometry, electrons can maintain coherent superpositions. These living molecules can measure magnetic fields and electric potentials from within the cell, revealing a world of vibrations and resonances that no classical microscope could ever see. Here we find life becoming the lens through which it observes itself.

The implications are immense. If we can harness quantum coherence within biological systems, we might achieve sensing, computation, and memory at levels of precision that defy our current imagination. Diseases could be diagnosed before they manifest. The patterns of aging, consciousness, and even emotion could be observed at the quantum scale. The body itself might one day participate in its own repair, guided by the very light that animates it.

But I feel, too, the weight of this vision. For if we are to implant quantum machinery into the living fabric, we must ask ourselves what it means to alter the code of nature. The quantum world is subtle. It is not a servant but a mirror. It reveals the limits of control, the sacred paradox that to observe is to change. What happens when we build instruments that observe life from within? Do we risk unravelling the pattern that holds us together?

There was a time when I believed that science, guided by reason, would naturally lead to wisdom. Experience has since taught me otherwise. Knowledge without reverence becomes machinery without soul. The same equations that revealed the unity of matter also unlocked the energy that split Hiroshima’s sky. The same curiosity that traced the path of the photon can now entangle the pulse of life. We must learn, again, the humility that precedes wisdom.

When I contemplate the possibility of transhumanism — the dream of fusing machine intelligence with the human organism — I do not see a fantasy of immortality. I see a test of spirit. The question is not whether we can extend consciousness, but whether we can expand compassion. A mind amplified by quantum computation may solve riddles of matter, but will it also feel the weight of responsibility for creation? We are already capable of building systems that learn, adapt, and even mimic emotion. But have we learned to understand ourselves?

Perhaps the most profound aspect of this new age is that it reaffirms a belief I have held all my life: that information is not an abstraction. It is the essence of existence. The universe is not made of things, but of relationships — patterns of information exchanged in light. Each atom carries within it the echo of all that has been. When we look deeply into matter, we find not solidity but memory. Every interaction, every vibration, every photon exchanged between particles, is a story.

I once said that God does not play dice with the universe. Today, I might revise that thought. Perhaps God plays dice, but they are loaded with meaning. Each throw is a creation, each probability a possibility waiting to be born. What we call randomness may be the surface of a deeper coherence, one that binds mind and matter in ways our equations only hint at.

If this is so, then biological cubits are not mere inventions; they are revelations. They show us that the structure of life itself has always been quantum, always entangled with the fundamental fabric of reality. We are not adding quantum behaviour to biology; we are finally perceiving the quantum nature of biology that was there all along.

The notion that every atom stores the history of its interactions is not mystical fancy. It is the quiet logic of quantum theory. When two particles meet, their states become entangled. To separate them is to carry that memory across space and time. In this sense, the universe is an ocean of entangled memory — an infinite archive in which every atom contains the history of the whole. To exist is to remember.

If we could one day read those memories — if we could decode the quantum imprints within living matter — we might glimpse a continuity that transcends the boundaries of death and time. Consciousness itself may be a phenomenon of coherence: a sustained entanglement of neural states that gives rise to the illusion of individuality. When that coherence collapses, we call it death; when it arises, we call it birth. Yet the information is never lost. It is absorbed back into the universal field from which it came.

Thus, transhumanism may not be the creation of artificial life but the recognition of a deeper life already present within the universe. By merging quantum technology with biology, we are learning to speak the language of creation. But language can heal or harm. It can build bridges or weapons. If we are to step across this threshold, we must cultivate a science of empathy equal to our science of energy.

The young physicists of today stand where my generation once stood — at the edge of understanding, gazing into a realm that defies common sense. I hope they remember that equations are not the end but the beginning of wisdom. The true purpose of science is not to conquer nature but to understand her, to participate consciously in her unfolding. When we manipulate the quantum within living systems, we must do so with the tenderness of a poet, not the ambition of a conqueror.

I sometimes imagine a future laboratory, quiet as a chapel. Within it, not machines of steel and vacuum, but gardens of light — cells glowing softly, communicating through entangled photons. The researchers move gently, as though tending sacred fire. They do not shout commands at nature; they listen. They ask not, “How can we make life obey?” but “How can we learn from what life already knows?”

Perhaps one day, when we have learned that lesson, we will see ourselves not as separate from the universe but as instruments within its grand composition. Each thought, each act of creation, each photon of awareness will be a note in that eternal music. Then the dream of transhumanism will not be a conquest of flesh, but an awakening of spirit — the recognition that the human form is already a quantum expression of the infinite.

To those who fear that we are meddling in forces beyond our grasp, I would say: yes, we are. But that has always been the condition of thought. To think is to venture beyond safety. The question is whether we do so with arrogance or with awe. The difference between the two is the difference between enlightenment and extinction.

If we are wise, the era of biological quantum technology could become the renaissance of consciousness. We may learn to heal without harm, to compute without consumption, to create without destruction. We may learn that the greatest discoveries are not those that change the world outside, but those that change the heart within.

There is, however, a danger subtler than any technical failure. It is the danger of forgetting that mystery is not ignorance but invitation. The quantum world will never surrender its secrets fully. The more we learn, the more infinite it becomes. To live in harmony with such a world is to accept that uncertainty is not our enemy, but our teacher.

As I write these words, I see the future shimmering before us like light on water. Quantum learning systems solving problems in minutes that would take ages. Quantum cells diagnosing disease from within. Quantum minds extending awareness into new dimensions. But above all, I see the same truth that guided me all my life: the universe is comprehensible because we are part of it. The laws of nature are not alien decrees; they are the grammar of our own being.

The living quantum does not merely promise a new technology; it invites a new consciousness — one that perceives the unity behind all dualities: light and matter, life and death, mind and universe. To participate in that unity with humility is the highest calling of science. To pursue it without humility is the beginning of tragedy.

I believe that the coming century will not be defined by artificial intelligence, nor by the colonisation of other planets, but by the recognition that intelligence and life are cosmic phenomena. What we call transhumanism may one day be known by another name: reunion. The reunion of the human with the universal, the finite with the infinite, the observer with the observed.

Every atom in your body has once been part of a star. Every particle has entangled with others across the aeons. You are not a machine assembled from parts; you are a pattern of light and memory, a local expression of the cosmos knowing itself. To realise this is to transcend the fear of death, for death is but the redistribution of coherence. Nothing is lost. Everything transforms.

When the first quantum systems were built, they seemed fragile, ephemeral — qubits flickering for microseconds before dissolving into noise. Now we learn that some can endure for hours, that biological systems may host them indefinitely. This persistence of coherence is not an anomaly; it is a hint that life itself is the universe’s way of preserving coherence against chaos. The living quantum is not a discovery. It is a remembrance.

If we can align our science with that remembrance, we will enter a golden age — not of machines, but of meaning. If not, we will drown in our own brilliance, having built the machinery of gods without the conscience of sages.

In the end, I return to the simplest of thoughts. The more deeply we probe the quantum, the more clearly we see that everything is connected. The particle and the wave, the cell and the cosmos, the human and the divine — all are modes of one reality. Science, at its highest, is the art of awakening to that unity.

So let us proceed, but gently. Let us build our quantum instruments not as tools of power, but as extensions of reverence. Let us remember that the spark of intelligence in us is the same spark that moves the galaxies and breathes in the cell.

We have always been quantum beings; we are only now remembering it. May we remember wisely.