[sriku]

All that is assuming that you do know for certain the evolution did NOT exploit it.

There is some extrapolative argument that hints at the contrary. Adrian Thompson's evolved FPGA circuits exploited a single chip's underlying physics in a manner no digital circuit designer would. By that thread, it would seem possible that evolution has already exploited quantum computation ... just that maybe we haven't had the tech eye to see it yet.

After all, all systems are quantum mechanical.

[smilliken]

Rhodopsin, in our retina, exploits a quantun mechanical effect. You could argue that our brains are quantum computers if you consider our retina including rhodopsin to be part of the brain.

[whatshisface]

Apples are red because of quantum mechanical effects, but that doesn't make them computers.

[smilliken]

Anything and everything is because of quantum mechanics, sure. But you could've asked a classical physicist to design an apple "computer" (the fruit)— just arrange the right atoms— but you couldn't have asked a classical physicist to design a retina computer exploiting rhodopsin.