'The Myth of Quantum Consciousness.'

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Have you really read the book all the way through and understood it?

The following quote comes from the book's website. http://quantumenigma.com/controversy/

Controversy
For some, this is a controversial book. Why? After all, the experimental results we report are completely undisputed. And the explanations of them with quantum theory are completely standard. It’s the book’s focus on the quantum enigma, the mystery beyond the physics, that’s controversial.

Many physicists dismiss this mystery as irrelevant for all practical purposes, and best not emphasized. It displays physics’ encounter with consciousness. Its discussion can be embarrassing. It’s been called our “skeleton in the closet.”

One concern is that some people, seeing the solid science of physics linked to the mystery of the conscious mind, might become susceptible to all sorts of pseudo-scientific nonsense. We physicists can also be uncomfortable seeing our discipline involved with anything so “unphysical.”

What’s unphysical? From its inception, quantum theory involved the observer. To account for the demonstrated facts, quantum theory has the observation of an object instantaneously influencing the behavior of other distant objects–even if no physical force connects them. Quantum theory also has the existence of an object at the particular place where it is observed become an actuality only upon its observation.

But what constitutes an “observation”? It’s not clear.
Moreover, as quantum phenomena are now being demonstrated with ever-larger objects, this “quantum measurement problem” gets increasing attention, both by physicists and in popular treatments.

“Observation” cannot be separated from “awareness,” and therefore from “consciousness.” These two concepts themselves involve some mystery. We must be careful. Any broad-ranging discussion of physics’ encounter with consciousness walks the edge of a slippery slope. We therefore work to distinguish the demonstrated facts from speculation (and, of course, from pseudo-science).

But the issues raised by the demonstrated facts intrigue and invite speculation beyond the established physics. Several interpretations of what quantum mechanics is telling us about our world (and about us?) currently contend. Some interpretations are wild.

Since quantum mechanics works well for all practical purposes, some physicists vociferously argue that the mysteries are irrelevant. They should therefore not be emphasized to a lay audience–or even to physics students. Remarkably, the demonstrated facts are quite understandable without any background in physics. Non-physicists can decide, and even speculate, for themselves.

…….

Here are some comments by experts in the foundations of quantum mechanics illustrating the controversy. Some, on both sides, have Nobel Prizes in physics.

First, Arguing that here is no problem:

Tom Banks: “I think there have been clear mathematical arguments given, which show that macroscopic objects (including Schrodinger’s poor cat) made of constituents with local interactions, obey the rules of classical probability theory. There is nothing more mysterious in QM than that.”

Murray Gell-Mann: “The universe presumably couldn’t care less whether human beings evolved on some obscure planet to study its history; it goes on obeying the quantum mechanical laws of physics irrespective of observation by physicists.”

N. G. van Kampen: “Quantum mechanics provides a complete and adequate description of the observed physical phenomena on the atomic scale. What else can one wish?…The scandal is that there are still many articles, discussions, and textbooks, which advertise various interpretations and philosophical profundities…Many physicists have not yet learned that they should adjust their ideas to the observed reality rather than the other way round.

Christopher Fuchs and Asher Peres: “Quantum theory needs no ‘interpretation.’”…We need nothing more than the fully consistent theory we already have.”

On the other hand, arguing that there is a problem:


J. M. Jauch: “The interpretation [of quantum mechanics] has remained a source of conflict from its inception. . . . For many thoughtful physicists, it has remained a kind of ’skeleton in the closet.’”

Albert Einstein: “I cannot seriously believe in [quantum theory] because. . . physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky actions at a distance.”

Frank Wilczek: “The relevant literature [on the meaning of quantum theory] is famously contentious and obscure. I believe it will remain so until someone constructs, within the formalism of quantum mechanics, an ‘observer,’ that is, a model entity whose states correspond to a recognizable caricature of conscious awareness.”

John Bell: “It is likely that the new way of seeing things will astonish us.”

Andrei Linde: “Will it not turn out, with the further development of science, that the study of the universe and the study of consciousness will be inseparably linked, and that ultimate progress in the one will be impossible without progress in the other?”


This argument on whether or not there is a problem brings up an analogy that accords with our own bias. A couple is in marriage counseling. The wife says, “There’s a problem in our marriage.” Her husband disagrees, saying, “There’s no problem in our marriage.” The marriage counselor knows who’s right.
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I will read the book when I can steal it, but I suspect it to be far less controversial than you believe.
 
The book isn't controversial it lays out the theory of quantum mechanics in an easy to understand way and lets the reader come to their own conclusions. The above was mainly directed against the film What the bleep do we know which quickly turned from a discussion about QM into channeling an egyptian spirit and other crazy ideas
 
well I'm stuck on string theory because this whole concept of quantum consciousness reminds me of carlos castenada. who is pretty stringy himself. and I gotta say, I can totally see this relating to consciousness. well, it doesn't sound any different then any other books I've read on the subject.
 
The QM universe is indeed very strange compared to classical mechanics: there really is instantaneous action at a distance (which Einstein could not accept).

But, all theories of quantum consciousness are pure speculation. And many derive from a misunderstanding of "observer" (and in Penrose's case, a misunderstanding of the Halting Problem and Godel's theorems).
 
Nah its because I came to the same conclusion before i read the book and then latter found the book and was surprised that there were top scientist who agreed.
As a young adult I got excited by books that agreed with my view of the world. I soon found that the best books were those that shattered my reality, i.e., taught me something new.
 
There is no doubt that quantum consciousness is speculation but so are other theories of consciousness . I don't think that penrose misunderstands QM maybe you should chat with him…
 
There is no doubt that quantum consciousness is speculation but so are other theories of consciousness . I don't think that penrose misunderstands QM maybe you should chat with him…
Penrose has misapplied the purely mathematical results of the Halting Theorem and Godel's theorems to conclude that the human brain is not algorithmic. Many say this, not just me. Dennet is a famous example.

That is the first "half" of the book.

The second half, proposing a theory of quantum consciousness, is pure speculation.
 
We evolved to live in the classical physics world not the quantum world so its not a surprise that anything non classical is unsettling for us
 
I don't think its possible with the human brain to understand . People have glimpses into true reality, I have had , but I lost it and now the memories are fading.
More mushrooms required?

I feel consciousness is an artifact of language. It's just the high level mental representation of the brain's model of the world. The only reason it gets so much attention is because of religion and mysticism - and because people don't like it being essentially an illusion.

Hence the OP, discussing a kind of mysticism.
 
Have you tried mushrooms, dmt or had a mystical spiritual experience? o_O
I went through the whole Carlos Casteneda experience in the 70s. It was an interesting experience, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone else. I did some things that weren't particularly wise, like a motorcycle ride wile tripping on peyote. It totally created the sensation of connection to the universe, but drugs will do that to you, if it's the right drug.
 
Have you tried mushrooms, dmt or had a mystical spiritual experience? o_O

Yes, yes, and yes, although I have a problem with the words 'mystical' and 'spiritual' because they're largely objectively meaningless and can just as easily be psychosis. It depends on the emotional impact and the consequences in how you interact with the world I guess.
 
(from hamish)

http://esciencenews.com/articles/20...icrotubules.corroborates.theory.consciousness
A review and update of a controversial 20-year-old theory of consciousness published in Physics of Life Reviews claims that consciousness derives from deeper level, finer scale activities inside brain neurons. The recent discovery of quantum vibrations in "microtubules" inside brain neurons corroborates this theory, according to review authors Stuart Hameroff and Sir Roger Penrose. They suggest that EEG rhythms (brain waves) also derive from deeper level microtubule vibrations, and that from a practical standpoint, treating brain microtubule vibrations could benefit a host of mental, neurological, and cognitive conditions. The theory, called "orchestrated objective reduction" ('Orch OR'), was first put forward in the mid-1990s by eminent mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose, FRS, Mathematical Institute and Wadham College, University of Oxford, and prominent anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, MD, Anesthesiology, Psychology and Center for Consciousness Studies, The University of Arizona, Tucson. They suggested that quantum vibrational computations in microtubules were "orchestrated" ("Orch") by synaptic inputs and memory stored in microtubules, and terminated by Penrose "objective reduction" ('OR'), hence "Orch OR." Microtubules are major components of the cell structural skeleton.

Orch OR was harshly criticized from its inception, as the brain was considered too "warm, wet, and noisy" for seemingly delicate quantum processes.. However, evidence has now shown warm quantum coherence in plant photosynthesis, bird brain navigation, our sense of smell, and brain microtubules.

...

Penrose, Hameroff and Bandyopadhyay will explore their theories during a session on "Microtubules and the Big Consciousness Debate" at the Brainstorm Sessions, a public three-day event at the Brakke Grond in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, January 16-18, 2014. They will engage skeptics in a debate on the nature of consciousness, and Bandyopadhyay and his team will couple microtubule vibrations from active neurons to play Indian musical instruments. "Consciousness depends on anharmonic vibrations of microtubules inside neurons, similar to certain kinds of Indian music, but unlike Western music which is harmonic," Hameroff explains.
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I'm not sure it supports any of the popular 'quantum consciousness' ideas, though I can see it will be used to.

Something very small, being a mechanism that gives rise to consciousness, is not much different to something very small like atoms giving rise to a ferret. It's akin to saying the ferret is inherent in the atoms.
And it's a physical process they've apparently discovered, not an ethereal one, so how does it support the idea that consciousness exists pre-matter?

But any understanding of the mechanism of consciousness is good news.
 
I wonder who wrote that press release. They lay it on a bit thick.


As the world’s leading provider of science and health information, Elsevier serves more than 30 million scientists, students and health and information professionals worldwide. We partner with a global community of 7,000 journal editors, 70,000 editorial board members, 300,000 reviewers and 600,000 authors to help customers advance science and health by providing world-class information and innovative tools that help them make critical decisions, enhance productivity and improve outcomes.

Headquartered in Amsterdam, we are a global company employing more than 7,000 people in 24 countries. We are a founding publisher of global programs that provide free or low-cost access to science and health information in the developing world. Elsevier's roots are in journal and book publishing, where we have fostered the peer-review process for more than 130 years. Today we are driving innovation by delivering authoritative content with cutting-edge technology,
allowing our customers to find the answers they need quickly.
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Maybe they write press releases for scientists who have something interesting they want the public to know about?

This page has links to the commentary and criticisms.

http://www.elsevier.com/about/press...roversial-20-year-old-theory-of-consciousness
 
Maybe they write press releases for scientists who have something interesting they want the public to know about?

Informing the public about something interesting is fine, I just don't think it's appropriate to write a PR that sounds like a woo advert given the history involved. It's also misleading because some of their ideas have been falsified, despite the assertion to the contrary. This isn't the first time Hameroff & Penrose have updated their ideas. If new revisions make their model any more plausible, I'm certainly open to that. I remain skeptical because they've sung this tune already.
 
I feel consciousness is an artifact of language. It's just the high level mental representation of the brain's model of the world. The only reason it gets so much attention is because of religion and mysticism - and because people don't like it being essentially an illusion.

Yes. One could argue that a computer with a camera attached to it is conscient since it has visual perception, analyzes the data gathered and takes action based on this data, very similarly to humans. Given the right instructions, it could also recognize itself, just like us.

Nuerons are made of atoms which are made of quantum fluctuations

Not really. More like: neurons -> cell components -> molecules -> atoms -> particles -> quarks.
 
Yes. One could argue that a computer with a camera attached to it is conscient since it has visual perception, analyzes the data gathered and takes action based on this data, very similarly to humans. Given the right instructions, it could also recognize itself, just like us.



Not really. More like: neurons -> cell components -> molecules -> atoms -> particles -> quarks.
yes its just the scale of how you look at it but if you had a super microscope and saw the world everything in reality is just quarks without an observer looking at a scale greater than that . For example an atom is 99.99 percent space so what are you looking at a solid object?
The microtubule is a conduit for the quantum process between the nueron and the subatomic realm and its likely that all life evolved on the border of classical and quantum physics.
 
yes its just the scale of how you look at it but if you had a super microscope and saw the world everything in reality is just quarks without an observer looking at a scale greater than that . For example an atom is 99.99 percent space so what are you looking at a solid object?
The microtubule is a conduit for the quantum process between the nueron and the subatomic realm and its likely that all life evolved on the border of classical and quantum physics.
So in your opinion what in the quantum realm constitutes life ?
 
yes its just the scale of how you look at it but if you had a super microscope and saw the world everything in reality is just quarks without an observer looking at a scale greater than that .

Not sure I understand you here.

For example an atom is 99.99 percent space so what are you looking at a solid object?

Yes. This "99%" empty is space is the orbit of the electrons. Just like a spinning bicycle wheel.

The microtubule is a conduit for the quantum process between the nueron and the subatomic realm

You know that microtubules exist even in plants, right?

and its likely that all life evolved on the border of classical and quantum physics.

Again, not sure I understand you here.
 
The microtubule is a conduit for the quantum process between the nueron and the subatomic realm and its likely that all life evolved on the border of classical and quantum physics.
So then all life has microtubules , that would explain how quantum effects translate to the physical world. IE the life force or Chi, or as in star wars they call it the force… haha
How is it explained exactly?
 
Debunking types don't seem to like change any new idea is very threatening to their world view that is why they aggressively defend it without examining a new idea with an open mind , that is why I suggest you read the book and maybe you will understand it. If you haven't been blown away by quantum mechanics you don't understand it.


I disagree with you here.. debunking types, as you put it, are usually fairly scientific in their approach, which absolutely means they do not fear change. We may not LIKE the change, but we're not afraid of it. If all of this turns out to be provably true, then by all means every one of us will eat our hats and our words.. admit we were wrong and carry on about the glory of discovery. It happened when Columbus proved the world was round, it happened when the Wright brothers proved man could fly, it happened Einsten's Relativity was shown to be testable and true, it happened AGAIN when the atom was split, and yet AGAIN when Chuck Yeager proved that the sound barrier could be broken AND survived, when man went into space, landed on the moon, Black Holes were proven to be more than science fiction ETCETCETC..

Personally, I dont buy in to the theory.. but I could very well be wrong. Im just not a fan of that most common element on Earth called Handwavium.. which is what this appears to be. I felt the same way about M and String theory for the most part until they combined the two and could PROVE that its got merit. The theory's still in the air, but they're getting closer.
 
... It happened when Columbus proved the world was round,..
(sorry to distract from your fine overall point, but that's a common misconception...)

I feel duped! I feel tricked, hood-winked, bamboozled! My “wonderful” public school education taught me that “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue” and he proved to all of Europe that the earth was round. Before that point, everyone thought the earth was flat. Most of you were all taught this too, right? It probably looked something like this:
“Columbus felt he would eventually reach the Indies in the East. Many Europeans still believed that the world was flat. Columbus, they thought, would fall off the earth.” America Past and Present (Scott Foresman, 1983)

Well, our public schools got half of it right. Columbus did set sail for what would end up being the Americas in 1492, but no educated person in 1492 believed the earth was flat. In fact, almost no western educated person believed the earth to be flat past the 3rd Century BC, when Eratosthenes (an Egyptian) calculated the diameter of the earth with only 2% error.

http://passionatepurpose.org/columbus-the-man-the-myth-what-really-happened/
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That's a wide interpretation of 'exactly'. There's a lot of words there.
If you had a particular passage in mind that exactly explains that can you post it?
I'm lost.

The objective factor in OR is an intrinsic feature of spacetime itself (quantum gravity). Penrose begins from general relativity with the notion that mass is equivalent to spacetime curvature. He concludes that quantum superpositionactual separation (displacement) of mass from itselfis equivalent to simultaneous spacetime curvatures in opposite directions, causing "bubbles", or separations in fundamental reality (Figure 1).

Penrose views the bubbles as unstable, with a critical objective degree of separation resulting in instantaneous reduction to classical, unseparated states. Objective reductions are thus events which reconfigure the fine scale of spacetime geometry. As described in Section V, modern panpsychists attribute proto-conscious experience to a fundamental property of physical reality. If so, consciousness might involve self-organizing OR events rippling through an experiential medium.

Could OR events be occurring in the brain? If so, they would be expected to coincide with known neurophysiological processes with recognized time scales. The critical degree of spacetime separation causing Penrose's objective reduction is related to quantum gravity by the uncertainty principle:

E = hbar/T


where E is the gravitational selfenergy of the superposed mass (displaced from itself by e.g. the diameter of its atomic nuclei), is Planck's constant over 2, and T is the coherence time until OR selfcollapse. The size of an isolated superposed system is thus inversely related to the length of time until selfcollapse. Large superposed systems (e.g. Schrödinger's mythical 1 kg cat) would selfcollapse (OR) in only 1037 sec; an isolated superposed atom would OR only after 106 years! If OR events occur in the brain coupled to known neurophysiology, then we can estimate that T for conscious OR events may be in a range from 10 to 500 milliseconds (msec). This range covers neurophysiological activities such as 25 msec "coherent 40 Hz," 100 msec EEG rhythms, and Libet's (1979) 500 msec sensory perceptions). OR events coupled to roughly 100 msec activities would require a few nanograms of superposed mass.

Biological materials best suited for quantum computation and objective reduciton are proteins, particularly assemblies of proteins called microtubules.
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The great Oxford mathematician Roger Penrose is ultimately responsible for much of this nonsense.

In his pop-science book The Emperor's New Mind he argues (falsely in my opinion) that our minds are non-algorithmic (i.e., not a computer, i.e., not a Turing machine), and then hypothesizes that quantum processes must be at play (quantum computers can perform operations that a Turing machine cannot).

[... I see the above post goes the other way around, the mind has a special role in the quantum universe]

The idea was also put forward in The Quantum Self by physicist Danah Zohar, which was published the following year. In that book Zohar argued that consciousness could well be a feature of a Bose–Einstein condensate within the brain.
 
Thank you for bringing up this topic. I have been surprised at the viral nature of this story and it warrants attention.

I read the essay at the beginning of the thread and I noted that neither Hameroff nor Penrose was mentioned. You see, I missed their papers from 20 years ago and have ignored pretty much all the new age stuff that seemed to draw from it.

After doing some reading and watching a recent interview with Dr. Hameroff, I can say that I am more than engaged in the debate at this point.

In my view, he is a legitimate scientist with some important perspectives on the brain that we should listen to and try to understand. The logic of learning about consciousness from a lifetime of "turning it off" is hard to dismiss.

There is, however, a serious problem of cultural interpretation and apparently a desire to run away with his ideas and essentially make stuff up.

I would rather focus on some of the direct material consequences of his research. For example, he reports that due to the discovery of resonant frequencies in microtubules, application of ultrasound may result in mood improvement or other beneficial psychological effects.

I think the desire to be immortal clouds all judgement, even his. However, good science is good science and I am humbly paying attention to his peer reviewed publications. One of the things about him that I truly admire is his willingness to debate. Speaking of that... did anyone happen to attend the Brainstorm Sessions debate in Amsterdam last week?
 
I would rather focus on some of the direct material consequences of his research. For example, he reports that due to the discovery of resonant frequencies in microtubules, application of ultrasound may result in mood improvement or other beneficial psychological effects.
Sound Therapy has been around for years. Although im having some trouble finding any specific research. But I would imagine if ultrasound did those things we'd see a lot of dancing fetuses in prenatal care. ; ) just kidding. http://www.biowaves.com/
 
The issue is the association of quantum structures and actions with the idea of an ethereal 'observer mind' existing prior to physical processes, which seems to be a pop misinterpretation of the observer effect that has been a run-away idea that cannot be turned back.
Now any time quantum actions are scientifically investigated and proposed it seems to be licence to insert one's personal mysticism into the gap, when such conclusions are unwarranted.
People always use the fuzzy edges of science to project onto a view they have a personal preference for, so we need to be wary.
 
Penrose refers to this as proto consciousness a sort of self evolving field of the observer effect, I don't think the atom is actually conscious like humans are but rather like a soup that consciousness evolves from .
 
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