Yesterday
you drove home, Carol washed and dried clothes while you found three new smoke
detectors to replace the aged ones. You want to install them without turning
off the electric. - Amorella
1000 hours. I think it will be an easy challenge but I'll find out this
weekend. Once back at Kim and Paul's we had Smashburgers on Rt. 23 for supper.
They tasted just as good up here. In the evening we watched "The Good
Doctor" one of the best shows on television and NBC News as well as
selections from MSNBC. This morning I found an interesting article from
"Science Alert".
** **
Are We
All Quantum Computers? Scientists Are Conducting Tests to Find Out
It's actually less crazy than it sounds.
DAVID
NIELD
29 MAR
2018
It's possible that our own human
brains are capable of performing advanced quantum computing calculations - and
now scientists are conducting a series of detailed experiments to try and find
out for sure.
It's easy to think of computers
and brains as similar – both process information, and make decisions, and deal
with inputs and outputs. But some scientists think the incredible complexity of the brain
can only be explained by quantum mechanics.
In other words, phenomena like quantum entanglement and superposition, all the knotty stuff of quantum
physics, are actually regular occurrences inside our brains. Not everyone is so
sure, but we might be about to get an answer either way.
"If the question of whether
quantum processes take place in the brain is answered in the affirmative, it
could revolutionise our understanding and treatment of brain function and human
cognition," says one of the team involved in running these tests, Matt
Helgeson from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
If you're new to the world of
quantum computing, it builds on the ideas of quantum
mechanics – ways of
explaining the Universe at the smallest atomic scales, when the rules of
classical physics no longer appear to fit.
The most crucial part of quantum
computing you need to understand is the way that the regular bits or on/off
switches of classical computers – all those 1s and 0s that store data – get
replaced by qubits.
Qubits can be both 1s and 0s
simultaneously, thanks to the idea of superposition we mentioned earlier: the
hypothesis that a quantum object can be in multiple states at once, at least
until it gets measured.
All of which means quantum computing has the potential to create vastly more complex
processing networks than today's computers can manage, helping us to tackle
some of the hardest problems in science.
But back to the human body. The
newly funded research about to get underway will go qubit hunting in the brain
– qubits usually need extremely low temperatures to work, but there might be ways
around that in our warm and wet organs.
One of the upcoming experiments
will try and examine whether qubits could be stored in the nuclear spins at the
core of atoms, rather than the electrons surrounding them. Phosphorus atoms in
particular, which our bodies are packed with, could act as biochemical qubits.
"Extremely well-isolated
nuclear spins can store – and perhaps process – quantum information on human
time scales of hours or longer," says one of the team, Matthew Fisher from
UCSB.
Other experiments will look at
the potential for decoherence, which happens when the links and dependency
between qubits – the idea of quantum entanglement – start to break down. For
our brains to be quantum computers, there must be a built-in way that our
biological qubits are shielded from decoherence.
Yet another experiment is going
to investigate mitochondria,
the cell subunits responsible for our metabolism and sending messages around
the body. It's possible that these organelles also play a significant role in
qubit entanglement.
In other words, the
neurotransmitters and synaptic firing in our brains could be creating quantum
coupled networks, just like a quantum computer. Fisher and his team will
attempt to emulate this in the lab.
Quantum computing processes could
eventually help us explain and understand the brain's most mysterious
functions, like the way we hold on to long-term memories, or where
consciousness, emotion, and awareness actually come from.
All of this is very high-level,
complicated physics, and there's no guarantee we're going to get answers. Even
if it's too soon to say for sure whether the brain is a quantum computer or not
though, the planned research should reveal much more about how this most
complicated of organs works.
"We will explore neuronal
function with state-of-the-art technology from completely new angles and with
enormous potential for discovery," says one of the team, Tobias Fromme from the
Technical University of Munich in Germany.
Selected and edited from https://www dot
sciencealert dot com/are-we-all-quantum-computers-with-quantum-brains?utm_source=ScienceAlert+-+Daily+Email+Updates&utm_campaign=970f7014a7-MAILCHIMP_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fe5632fb09-970f7014a7-365651353
** **
1011 hours. I think there is something to
this concept. In fact, it makes the connections between friends more plausible
as an entanglement of humanity between two people. This could be an approach to
collective unconscious. Anyway, it appears plausible to me. Much better
approach than my hypothesis of the human spirit being broken down to three
(almost always unequal) parts at any given moment -- heart and soul and mind.
You
secretly wonder on the fact that this article was 'just what you were looking
for unconsciously' and how it appeared to you on the day you are needing
it. - Amorella
1021 hours. Why do you continue to do this, Amorella? It was just a
thought that I still feel some events are fated or destined (if you will). I
know better.
You
do not 'know' better. If anything you 'know' less. - Amorella
1024 hours. (Wordless at the moment.)
Presently,
you are at the base of Alum Creek Reservoir which was built in 1973. Tis a
dark, dismal damp to rainy day with a single crow cawing downstream. Carol is
reading last Sunday's Enquirer to catch up on local and national news.
For you BBC is best for national and international news otherwise you would
usually favor the New York Times and/or the Washington Post. -
Amorella
1135 hours. The Times and Post these days is mainly for
their political reporting that generally shows up on the national news and
MSNBC. The Columbus Dispatch was recently voted (by editors) number one
in the state, the Cincinnati Enquirer, number two and the Cleveland Plain
Dealer, number three. Central Ohio is certainly a different cultural region
from southwest Ohio/Northern Kentucky and the more politically liberal
northeastern Ohio, although Warren County and Delaware County contain most of
the conservative Republicans in the entire state. We don't skip that fact
moving here. In some ways this move is somewhat depressing to think on in terms
of "moving back home". I think of Odysseus being greeted by his loyal
dog Argos after twenty years of his master's absence from ten years fighting at
Troy and another ten before finding himself home at Ithaca once again.
Indeed,
you were thinking of that but without most of the proper nouns you had to
promptly look up on Wikipedia. - Amorella
1157 hours. I have trouble remembering proper names and my spelling in
terms of Greek myths has to be continually checked. At least you give me credit
for thinking about Odysseus and his dog's greeting.
Do you see yourself as Odysseus in that you left home on a jet plane
headed to Sao Paulo, Brazil after a year at Bowling Green and this will be your
first time being a local Westerville resident since? Alas, you are not to be
greeted by your long lived pet. - Amorella
1204 hours. You are making it awkward to be honest.
No. I am thinking about how we all make the great adventure of life, some of us
come home others do not . . .. I am thinking more in the line of The Hero
with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell and many who wrote on the
mythologies before him.
Time for a break, boy. - Amorella
You had a delicious lunch at Giordano's off Polaris near First
Watch. Critics rate Giordano's pizza pie the best in Chicago. On the way back
you drove by the house; they were going plumbing and electrical work according
to the parked trucks. - Amorella
1447 hours. Carol and I each had a (small) six inch
deep dish; she had pepperoni and I had sausage and we each had a salad and
drinks (lunch special) also for less than 23 dollars. Well worth it. We'll both be back. Plus, we found a nearby Papa
John's and Mellow Mushroom; all three pizza shops less than four miles from our
soon to be new house. The rain continues. -- Below is an older article on
Quantum Brain Effects.
** **
Could Quantum Brain Effects Explain Consciousness?
By Tanya Lewis, Staff
Writer | June 27, 2013 01:03pm ET
Updated on Monday,
July 1, at 9:25 a.m. ET.
NEW YORK — The idea
that consciousness arises from quantum mechanical phenomena in the brain is
intriguing, yet lacks evidence, scientists say.
Physicist Roger
Penrose, of the University of Oxford, and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, of
the University of Arizona, propose that the brain acts as a quantum computer
— a computational machine that makes use of quantum mechanical phenomena (like
the ability of particles to be in two places at once) to perform complex
calculations. In the brain, fibers inside neurons could form the basic units of
quantum computation, Penrose and Hameroff explained at the Global Future
2045 International Congress, a futuristic conference held here June
15-16.
The idea is
appealing, because neuroscience, so far, has no satisfactory explanation for
consciousness — the state of being self-aware and having sensory experiences
and thoughts. But many scientists are skeptical, citing a lack of experimental
evidence for the idea. [Consciousness to
Sleep: Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind]
The
Orch OR model
Penrose and Hameroff
developed their ideas independently, but collaborated in the early 1990s to
develop what they call the Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch OR) model.
Penrose's work rests
on an interpretation of the mathematician Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorem,
which states that certain results cannot be proven by a computer algorithm.
Penrose argues that human mathematicians are capable of proving so-called
"Godel-unprovable" results, and therefore human brains cannot be
described as typical computers. Instead, he says, to achieve these higher
abilities, brain processes must rely on quantum mechanics.
But Penrose's theory
didn't explain how this quantum computing occurred inside actual brains, just
that the phenomenon would be needed to solve certain mathematical equations.
Hameroff read Penrose's work and suggested small fibrous structures that give
cells their structural support — known as microtubules
— might be capable of carrying out quantum computations.
Microtubules are made
up of units of the protein tubulin, which contains regions where electrons are
swirling around very close to each other. Hameroff proposed that these
electrons could become "quantum
entangled," a state in which two particles retain a connection,
and an action performed on one affects the other, even when the two are
separated by a distance.
In the Orch OR model,
the mathematical probabilities that describe the quantum states of these
entangled electrons in microtubules become unstable in space-time. These
mathematical probabilities are called wave functions, and in this scenario they
collapse, moving from a state of probability to a specific actuality. In this
state, the microtubules in one neuron could be linked to those in other neurons
via electrical connections known as gap junctions. These junctions would allow
the electrons to "tunnel" to other regions of the brain, resulting in
waves of neural activity that are perceived as conscious experience.
"Penrose had a
mechanism for consciousness, and I had a structure," Hameroff told
LiveScience.
Problems
with the model
Interesting as it
sounds, the Orch OR model has not been tested experimentally, and many
scientists reject it.
Quantum computers —
computers that take advantage of quantum mechanical effects to achieve
extremely speedy calculations — have been theorized, but only one (built by the
company D-Wave) is commercially available, and whether it's a true quantum
computer is debated. Such computers would be extremely sensitive to
perturbations in a system, which scientists refer to as "noise." In
order to minimize noise, it's important to isolate the system and keep it very
cold (because heat causes particles to speed up and generate noise).
Building quantum
computers is challenging even under carefully controlled conditions.
"This paints a desolate picture for quantum computation inside the wet and
warm brain,” Christof Koch and Klaus Hepp, of the University of Zurich,
Switzerland, wrote in an essay published in 2006 in the journal Nature.
Another problem with
the model has to do with the timescales involved in the quantum computation.
MIT physicist Max Tegmark has done calculations of quantum effects in the
brain, finding that quantum states in the brain last far too short a time to
lead to meaningful brain processing. Tegmark called the Orch OR model vague,
saying the only numbers he’s seen for more concrete models are way off.
"Many people
seem to feel that consciousness is a mystery and quantum mechanics is a
mystery, so they must be related," Tegmark told LiveScience.
The Orch OR model
draws criticism from neuroscientists as well. The model holds that quantum
fluctuations inside microtubules produce consciousness. But microtubules are
also found in plant cells, said theoretical neuroscientist Bernard Baars, CEO
of the nonprofit Society for Mind-Brain Sciences in Falls Church, VA., who added,
"plants, to the best of our knowledge, are not conscious."
These criticisms do
not rule out quantum consciousness in principle, but without experimental
evidence, many scientists remain unconvinced.
"If somebody
comes up with just one single experiment," to demonstrate quantum
consciousness, Baars said, "I will drop all my skepticism."
Editor's
Note:
This article was updated on June 27, 2013 to amend the statement that "no
quantum computers... have been realized." The company D-Wave claims to
have created one, though some have questioned whether it really performs as a
quantum computer.
Addendum: (July 1,
2013)
In response to the
criticisms of the Orch OR model cited in this article, Stuart Hameroff offers
several pieces of evidence. In reply to the objection that the brain is too
warm for quantum computations, Hameroff cites a 2013 study led by Anirban
Bandyopadhyay at the National Institute of Material Sciences (NIMS) in Tsukuba,
Japan, which found that “microtubules become essentially quantum conductive
when stimulated at specific resonant frequencies,” Hameroff said.
In reply to the
criticism that microtubules are found in (unconscious) plant cells too, Hameroff
said that plants have only a small number of microtubules, likely too few to
reach the threshold needed for consciousness. But he also noted that Gregory
Engel of the University of Chicago and colleagues have observed quantum effects
in plant photosynthesis. “If a tomato or rutabaga can utilize quantum coherence
at warm temperature, why can't our brains?” Hameroff said.
In response to
general objections to a lack of evidence for his theory, Hameroff cited a 2013
study led Rod Eckenhoff at the University of Pennsylvania that suggests that
anesthetics – which stop only conscious brain activity – act via microtubules.
These studies lend
some support to the Orch OR model. But as with all scientific hypotheses, the
model must accumulate significant evidence in order to earn widespread
acceptance among the scientific community.
Selected and edited
from - https://www dot livescience.com/37807-brain-is-not-quantum-computer dot
html
** **
1512 hours. This article leads me on to one I had
not discovered in Wikipedia before. Or, at least I don't remember it, the
quantum mind.
** **
Quantum
mind
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not
to be confused with Quantum cognition.
The quantum mind or quantum consciousness group of hypotheses propose that classical mechanics cannot explain consciousness. It posits that quantum mechanical phenomena, such as quantum entanglement and superposition,
may play an important part in the brain's function and could form the basis of
an explanation of consciousness.
Hypotheses have been proposed about ways
for quantum effects to be involved in the process of consciousness, but even
those who advocate them admit that the hypotheses remain unproven, and possibly
unprovable. Some of the proponents propose experiments that could demonstrate
quantum consciousness, but the experiments have not yet been possible to
perform.
Terms used in the theory of quantum mechanics
can be misinterpreted by laymen in ways that are not valid but that sound
mystical or religious, and therefore may seem to be related to consciousness.
These misinterpretations of the terms are not justified in the theory of
quantum mechanics. According to Sean Carroll, "No theory in the history of
science has been more misused and abused by cranks and charlatans—and
misunderstood by people struggling in good faith with difficult ideas—than
quantum mechanics." Lawrence Krauss says, "No area of physics
stimulates more nonsense in the public arena than quantum mechanics. Some proponents of pseudoscience use quantum mechanical
terms in an effort to justify their statements, but this effort is misleading,
and it is a false interpretation of the physical theory. Quantum mind theories
of consciousness that are based on this kind of misinterpretations of terms are
not valid by scientific methods or from empirical experiments.
History
Eugene Wigner developed the idea that quantum mechanics has something
to do with the workings of the mind. He proposed that the wave function
collapses due to its
interaction with consciousness. Freeman Dyson argued that "mind, as manifested by the capacity to
make choices, is to some extent inherent in every electron."
Other contemporary physicists and
philosophers considered these arguments to be unconvincing. Victor Stenger characterized quantum consciousness as a "myth"
having "no scientific basis" that "should take its place along
with gods, unicorns and dragons.
David Chalmers argued against quantum consciousness. He instead
discussed how quantum mechanics may relate to dualistic consciousness.Chalmers is skeptical of the ability of any new physics
to resolve the hard problem
of consciousness.
Quantum mind approaches
Bohm
David Bohm viewed quantum theory and relativity as contradictory, which implied a more fundamental level
in the universe. He claimed
both quantum theory and relativity pointed towards this deeper theory, which he
formulated as a quantum field theory. This more fundamental level was proposed
to represent an undivided wholeness and an implicate order,
from which arises the explicate order of the universe as we experience it.
Bohm's proposed implicate order applies
both to matter and consciousness. He suggested that it could explain the
relationship between them. He saw mind and matter as projections into our
explicate order from the underlying implicate order. Bohm claimed that when we
look at matter, we see nothing that helps us to understand consciousness.
Bohm discussed the experience of listening
to music. He believed the feeling of movement and change that make up our
experience of music derive from holding the immediate past and the present in
the brain together. The musical notes from the past are transformations rather
than memories. The notes that were implicate in the immediate past become
explicate in the present. Bohm viewed this as consciousness emerging from the
implicate order.
Bohm saw the movement, change or flow, and
the coherence of experiences, such as listening to music, as a manifestation of
the implicate order. He claimed to derive evidence for this from Jean Piaget's work on infants. He held these studies to show that young
children learn about time and space because they have a "hard-wired"
understanding of movement as part of the implicate order. He compared this
"hard-wiring" to Chomsky's theory that grammar is "hard-wired" into human
brains.
Bohm never proposed a specific means by
which his proposal could be falsified, nor a neural mechanism through which his
"implicate order" could emerge in a way relevant to consciousness. Bohm later collaborated on Karl Pribram's holonomic brain
theory as a model
of quantum consciousness.
According to philosopher Paavo Pylkkänen,
Bohm's suggestion "leads naturally to the assumption that the physical
correlate of the logical thinking process is at the classically describable level of the
brain, while the basic thinking process is at the quantum-theoretically
describable level."
Penrose and Hameroff
Theoretical physicist Roger Penrose and anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff collaborated to produce the theory known as Orchestrated
Objective Reduction (Orch-OR). Penrose and
Hameroff initially developed their ideas separately and later collaborated to
produce Orch-OR in the early 1990s. The theory was reviewed and updated by the
authors in late 2013.
Penrose's argument stemmed from Gödel's
incompleteness theorems. In Penrose's first book on consciousness, The Emperor's New Mind (1989), he argued that while a formal system cannot prove
its own consistency, Gödel’s unprovable results are provable by human
mathematicians. He took this
disparity to mean that human mathematicians are not formal proof systems and
are not running a computable algorithm. According to Bringsjorg and Xiao, this
line of reasoning is based on fallacious equivocation on the meaning of computation.
In the same book, Penrose wrote, "One
might speculate, however, that somewhere deep in the brain, cells are to be
found of single quantum sensitivity. If this proves to be the case, then
quantum mechanics will be significantly involved in brain activity."
Penrose determined wave function
collapse was the only
possible physical basis for a non-computable process. Dissatisfied with its
randomness, Penrose proposed a new form of wave function collapse that occurred
in isolation and called it objective
reduction. He suggested each quantum superposition
has its own piece of spacetime curvature and that when these become separated
by more than one Planck length they become unstable and collapse. Penrose suggested that objective reduction represented neither randomness nor algorithmic processing
but instead a non-computable influence in spacetime geometry from which mathematical understanding and, by
later extension, consciousness derived.
Hameroff provided a hypothesis that microtubules would be suitable hosts for quantum behavior. Microtubules are composed of tubulin protein dimer subunits. The dimers each have hydrophobic pockets that are 8 nm apart and that may contain
delocalized pi electrons. Tubulins have other smaller
non-polar regions that contain pi electron-rich indole rings separated by only
about 2 nm. Hameroff proposed that these electrons are close enough to
become entangled.] Hameroff originally suggested the tubulin-subunit
electrons would form a Bose–Einstein condensate,
but this was discredited. He then
proposed a Frohlich condensate, a hypothetical coherent oscillation of dipolar
molecules. However, this too was experimentally discredited.
However, Orch-OR made numerous false
biological predictions, and is not an accepted model of brain physiology. In other words, there is a missing link between physics
and neuroscience, for
instance, the proposed predominance of 'A' lattice microtubules, more suitable
for information processing, was falsified by Kikkawa et al., who showed all in vivo microtubules have a 'B' lattice
and a seam. The proposed existence of gap junctions between neurons and glial cells was also falsified Orch-OR predicted that microtubule coherence reaches the
synapses via dendritic lamellar bodies (DLBs), however De Zeeuw et al. proved this
impossible,by showing that DLBs are located micrometers away from
gap junctions.
In January 2014, Hameroff and Penrose
claimed that the discovery of quantum vibrations in microtubules by Anirban
Bandyopadhyay of the National
Institute for Materials Science in Japan in March 2013 corroborates the Orch-OR theory.
Although these theories are stated in a
scientific framework, it is difficult to separate them from the personal
opinions of the scientist. The opinions are often based on intuition or
subjective ideas about the nature of consciousness.
For example, Penrose wrote, my own point of
view asserts that you can't even simulate conscious activity. What's going on
in conscious thinking is something you couldn't properly imitate at all by
computer.... If something behaves as though it's conscious, do you say it is
conscious? People argue endlessly about that. Some people would say, 'Well,
you've got to take the operational viewpoint; we don't know what consciousness
is. How do you judge whether a person is conscious or not? Only by the way they
act. You apply the same criterion to a computer or a computer-controlled
robot.' Other people would say, 'No, you can't say it feels something merely
because it behaves as though it feels something.' My view is different from
both those views. The robot wouldn't even behave convincingly as though it was
conscious unless it really was — which I say it couldn't be, if it's entirely
computationally controlled.
Penrose continues,
A lot of what the brain does you could do
on a computer. I'm not saying that all the brain's action is completely
different from what you do on a computer. I am claiming that the actions of
consciousness are something different. I'm not saying that consciousness is
beyond physics, either — although I'm saying that it's beyond the physics we
know now.... My claim is that there has to be something in physics that we
don't yet understand, which is very important, and which is of a non-computational
character. It's not specific to our brains; it's out there, in the physical
world. But it usually plays a totally insignificant role. It would have to be
in the bridge between quantum and classical levels of behavior — that is, where
quantum measurement comes in.
In response, W. Daniel Hillis replied, "Penrose has committed the classical
mistake of putting humans at the center of the universe. His argument is
essentially that he can't imagine how the mind could be as complicated as it is
without having some magic elixir brought in from some new principle of physics,
so therefore it must involve that. It's a failure of Penrose's imagination....
It's true that there are unexplainable, uncomputable things, but there's no
reason whatsoever to believe that the complex behavior we see in humans is in
any way related to uncomputable, unexplainable things."
Lawrence Krauss is also blunt in
criticizing Penrose's ideas. He said, "Well, Roger Penrose has given lots
of new-age crackpots ammunition by suggesting that at some fundamental scale,
quantum mechanics might be relevant for consciousness. When you hear the term
'quantum consciousness,' you should be suspicious.... Many people are
dubious that Penrose's suggestions are reasonable, because the brain is not an
isolated quantum-mechanical system."
Umezawa, Vitiello, Freeman
Hiroomi Umezawa and collaborators proposed a quantum field theory of
memory storage. Giuseppe
Vitiello and Walter Freeman proposed a dialog model of the mind. This dialog takes
place between the classical and the quantum parts of the brain. Their quantum field theory models of brain dynamics are
fundamentally different from the Penrose-Hameroff theory.
Pribram, Bohm, Kak
Karl Pribram's holonomic brain
theory (quantum
holography) invoked quantum mechanics to explain higher order processing by the
mind. He argued that his holonomic model solved the binding problem. Pribram collaborated with Bohm in his work on the quantum
approaches to mind and he provided evidence on how much of the processing in
the brain was done in wholes. He proposed
that ordered water at dendritic membrane surfaces might operate by structuring
Bose-Einstein condensation supporting quantum dynamics.
Although Subhash Kak's work
is not directly related to that of Pribram, he likewise proposed that the
physical substrate to neural networks has a quantum basis, but asserted that
the quantum mind has machine-like limitations. He points to a role for quantum theory in the distinction
between machine intelligence and biological intelligence, but that in itself
cannot explain all aspects of consciousness. He has proposed that the mind remains oblivious of its
quantum nature due to the principle of veiled nonlocality.
Stapp
Henry Stapp proposed that quantum waves are reduced only when they
interact with consciousness. He argues from the Orthodox Quantum Mechanics of John von Neumann that the quantum state collapses when the observer
selects one among the alternative quantum possibilities as a basis for future
action. The collapse, therefore, takes place in the expectation that the observer
associated with the state. Stapp's work drew criticism from scientists such as
David Bourget and Danko Georgiev. Georgiev criticized Stapp's model in two respects:
·
Stapp's mind
does not have its own wavefunction or density matrix, but nevertheless can act upon
the brain using projection
operators. Such usage is not compatible with standard quantum
mechanics because one can attach any number of ghostly minds to any point in
space that act upon physical quantum systems with any projection operators.
Therefore, Stapp's model negates "the prevailing principles of
physics".
·
Stapp's
claim that quantum Zeno effect is robust against environmental decoherence
directly contradicts a basic theorem in quantum
information theory that acting
with projection operators upon the density matrix of a quantum system can only
increase the system's Von Neumann entropy.
Stapp has responded to both of Georgiev's
objections.
David Pearce
British philosopher David Pearce defends what he calls physicalistic idealism
(""Physicalistic idealism" is the non-materialist physicalist
claim that reality is fundamentally experiential and that the natural world is
exhaustively described by the equations of physics and their solutions
[...]," and has conjectured that unitary conscious minds are physical states
of quantum coherence (neuronal superpositions). This conjecture is, according to Pearce, amenable to
falsification unlike most theories of consciousness, and Pearce has outlined an
experimental protocol describing how the hypothesis could be tested Pearce admits that his ideas are "highly
speculative," "counterintuitive," and "incredible."
Criticism
These hypotheses of the quantum mind remain
hypothetical speculation, as Penrose and Pearce admitted in their discussion.
Until they make a prediction that is tested by experiment, the hypotheses aren't
based in empirical evidence. According
to Lawrence Krauss, "It is true that quantum mechanics is extremely
strange, and on extremely small scales for short times, all sorts of weird
things happen. And in fact we can make weird quantum phenomena happen. But what
quantum mechanics doesn't change about the universe is, if you want to change
things, you still have to do something. You can't change the world by thinking
about it."
The process of testing the hypotheses with
experiments is fraught with problems, including conceptual/theoretical,
practical, and ethical issues.
Conceptual
problems
The idea that a quantum effect is necessary
for consciousness to function is still in the realm of philosophy. Penrose
proposes that it is necessary. But other theories of consciousness do not indicate
that it is needed. For example, Daniel Dennett proposed a theory called multiple drafts model that doesn't indicate that quantum effects are needed.
The theory is described in Dennett's book, Consciousness
Explained, published
in 1991. A
philosophical argument on either side isn't scientific proof, although the
philosophical analysis can indicate key differences in the types of models, and
they can show what type of experimental differences might be observed. But since there isn't a clear consensus among
philosophers, it isn't conceptual support that a quantum mind theory is needed.
There are computers that are specifically
designed to compute using quantum mechanical effects. Quantum computing is computing using quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement. They are different from binary digital
electronic computers based on transistors. Whereas
common digital computing requires that the data be encoded into binary digits (bits),
each of which is always in one of two definite states (0 or 1), quantum
computation uses quantum
bits, which can be in superpositions of states.
One of the greatest challenges is
controlling or removing quantum decoherence.
This usually means isolating the system from its environment as interactions
with the external world cause the system to decohere. Currently, some quantum
computers require their qubits to be cooled to 20 millikelvins in order to
prevent significant decoherence. As a result,
time consuming tasks may render some quantum algorithms inoperable, as
maintaining the state of qubits for a long enough duration will eventually
corrupt the superpositions. There aren't
any obvious analogies between the functioning of quantum computers and the
human brain. Some of the hypothetical models of quantum mind have proposed
mechanisms for maintaining quantum coherence in the brain, but they have not
been shown to operate.
Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon often invoked for quantum mind
models. This effect occurs when pairs or groups of particles interact so that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently of the
other(s), even when the particles are separated by a large distance. Instead, a
quantum state has to be described for the whole system. Measurements of physical properties such as position, momentum, spin, and polarization,
performed on entangled particles are found to be correlated. If one of
the particles is measured, the same property of the other particle immediately
adjusts to maintain the conservation of the physical phenomenon. According
to the formalism of quantum theory, the effect of measurement happens
instantly, no matter how far apart the particles are. It is not possible to use this effect to transmit classical
information at faster-than-light speeds] (see Faster-than-light § Quantum
mechanics).
Entanglement is broken when the entangled
particles decohere through interaction with the environment; for example,
when a measurement is made or the
particles undergo random collisions or interactions. According to David Pearce,
"In neuronal networks, ion-ion scattering, ion-water collisions, and
long-range Coulomb interactions from nearby ions all contribute to rapid
decoherence times; but thermally-induced decoherence is even harder
experimentally to control than collisional decoherence." He anticipated
that quantum effects would have to be measured in femtoseconds, a trillion
times faster than the rate at which neurons function (milliseconds).
Another possible conceptual approach is to
use quantum mechanics as an analogy to understand a different field of study
like consciousness, without expecting that the laws of quantum physics will
apply. An example of this approach is the idea of Schrödinger's cat. Erwin Schrödinger described how one could, in principle, create
entanglement of a large-scale system by making it dependent on an elementary
particle in a superposition. He proposed a scenario with a cat in a locked
steel chamber, wherein the cat's life or death depended on the state of a radioactive atom, whether it had decayed and emitted radiation or
not. According to Schrödinger, the Copenhagen interpretation implies that the cat remains both alive and dead until the state has been observed. Schrödinger did not
wish to promote the idea of dead-and-alive cats as a serious possibility; on
the contrary, he intended the example to illustrate the absurdity of the
existing view of quantum mechanics.
However, since Schrödinger's time, other interpretations
of the mathematics of quantum mechanics have been advanced by physicists, some of which regard
the "alive and dead" cat superposition as quite real.
Schrödinger's famous thought experiment poses the question, "when does a quantum system stop existing as a superposition of
states and become one or the other?"
In the same way, it is possible to ask whether the brain's act of making a
decision is analogous to having a superposition of states of two decision
outcomes, so that making a decision means "opening the box" to reduce
the brain from a combination of states to one state.
But even Schrödinger didn't think this
really happened to the cat; he didn't think the cat was literally alive and
dead at the same time. This analogy about making a decision uses a formalism
that is derived from quantum mechanics, but it doesn't indicate the actual
mechanism by which the decision is made. In this way, the idea is similar to quantum cognition.
This field clearly distinguishes itself
from the quantum mind as it is not reliant on the hypothesis that there is
something micro-physical quantum mechanical about the brain.
Quantum cognition is based on the
quantum-like paradigm, generalized
quantum paradigm, or quantum
structure paradigm that information processing by complex systems such as the
brain can be mathematically described in the framework of quantum information
and quantum probability theory.
This model uses quantum mechanics only as
an analogy, but doesn't propose that quantum mechanics is the physical
mechanism by which it operates. For example, quantum cognition proposes that
some decisions can be analyzed as if there are interference between two
alternatives, but it is not a physical quantum interference effect.
Practical
problems
The demonstration of a quantum mind effect
by experiment is necessary. Is there a way to show that consciousness is
impossible without a quantum effect?
Can a sufficiently complex digital,
non-quantum computer be shown to be incapable of consciousness?
Perhaps a quantum computer will show that
quantum effects are needed. In any case, complex computers that are either
digital or quantum computers may be built. These could demonstrate which type
of computer is capable of conscious, intentional thought. But they don't exist
yet, and no experimental test has been demonstrated.
Quantum mechanics is a mathematical model
that can provide some extremely accurate numerical predictions. Richard Feynman called quantum electrodynamics, based on the quantum mechanics
formalism, "the jewel of physics" for its extremely accurate
predictions of
quantities like the anomalous
magnetic moment of the
electron and the Lamb shift of the energy levels of hydrogen.
So it is not impossible that the model
could provide an accurate prediction about consciousness that would confirm
that a quantum effect is involved. If the mind depends on quantum mechanical
effects, the true proof is to find an experiment that provides a calculation
that can be compared to an experimental measurement. It has to show a
measurable difference between a classical computation result in a brain and one
that involves quantum effects.
The main theoretical argument against the
quantum mind hypothesis is the assertion that quantum states in the brain would
lose coherency before they reached a scale where they could be useful for
neural processing. This supposition was
elaborated by Tegmark. His calculations indicate that
quantum systems in the brain decohere at sub-picosecond timescales. No response by a brain has shows computation results or
reactions on this fast of a timescale. Typical reactions are on the order of
milliseconds, trillions of times longer than sub-picosecond time scales.
Daniel Dennett uses an experimental result
in support of his Multiple Drafts Model of an optical illusion that happens on
a time scale of less than a second or so. In this experiment, two different
colored lights, with an angular separation of a few degrees at the eye, are
flashed in succession.
If the interval between the flashes is less
than a second or so, the first light that is flashed appears to move across to
the position of the second light. Furthermore, the light seems to change color
as it moves across the visual field. A green light will appear to turn red as
it seems to move across to the position of a red light. Dennett asks how we
could see the light change color before the second light is observed Velmans argues that the cutaneous rabbit
illusion, another illusion that happens in about a second,
demonstrates that there is a delay while modelling occurs in the brain and that
this delay was discovered by Libet. These
slow illusions that happen at times of less than a second don't support a
proposal that the brain functions on the picosecond time scale.
According to David Pearce, a demonstration
of picosecond effects is "the fiendishly hard part – feasible in
principle, but an experimental challenge still beyond the reach of contemporary
molecular matter-wave interferometry. ...The conjecture predicts that we'll
discover the interference signature of sub-femtosecond
macro-superpositions."
Penrose says,
The problem with trying to use quantum
mechanics in the action of the brain is that if it were a matter of quantum
nerve signals, these nerve signals would disturb the rest of the material in
the brain, to the extent that the quantum coherence would get lost very
quickly. You couldn't even attempt to build a
quantum computer out of ordinary nerve signals, because they're just too big
and in an environment that's too disorganized. Ordinary nerve signals
have to be treated classically. But if you go down to the level of the
microtubules, then there's an extremely good chance that you can get
quantum-level activity inside them.
For my picture, I need this quantum-level
activity in the microtubules; the activity has to be a large scale thing that
goes not just from one microtubule to the next but from one nerve cell to the
next, across large areas of the brain. We need some kind of coherent activity
of a quantum nature which is weakly coupled to the computational activity that
Hameroff argues is taking place along the microtubules.
There are
various avenues of attack. One is directly on the physics, on quantum theory,
and there are certain experiments that people are beginning to perform, and
various schemes for a modification of quantum mechanics. I don't think the
experiments are sensitive enough yet to test many of these specific ideas. One
could imagine experiments that might test these things, but they'd be very hard
to perform.
A demonstration of a quantum effect in the
brain has to explain this problem or explain why it is not relevant, or that
the brain somehow circumvents the problem of the loss of quantum coherency at
body temperature. As Penrose proposes, it may require a new type of physical
theory.
Ethical
problems
Can self-awareness, or understanding of a
self in the surrounding environment, be done by a classical parallel processor,
or are quantum effects needed to have a sense of "oneness"? According
to Lawrence Krauss, "You should be wary whenever you hear something like,
'Quantum mechanics connects you with the universe' ... or 'quantum mechanics
unifies you with everything else.' You can begin to be skeptical that the
speaker is somehow trying to use quantum mechanics to argue fundamentally that
you can change the world by thinking about it." A subjective feeling is not sufficient to make this
determination. Humans don't have a reliable subjective feeling for how we do a
lot of functions.
According to Daniel Dennett, "On this topic, Everybody's an expert... but they think that they have a particular
personal authority about the nature of their own conscious experiences that can
trump any hypothesis they find unacceptable."
Since humans are the only animals known to
be conscious, then performing experiments to demonstrate quantum effects in
consciousness requires experimentation on a living human brain. This is not
automatically excluded or impossible, but it seriously limits the kinds of
experiments that can be done. Studies of the ethics of brain studies are
being actively solicited by the BRAIN Initiative,
a U.S. Federal Government funded effort to document the connections of neutrons
in the brain.
An ethically objectionable practice by
proponents of quantum mind theories involves the practice of using quantum
mechanical terms in an effort to make the argument sound more impressive, even
when they know that those terms are irrelevant. Dale DeBakcsy notes that
"trendy parapsychologists, academic relativists, and even the Dalai Lama have all taken their turn at robbing modern physics of a
few well-sounding phrases and stretching them far beyond their original scope
in order to add scientific weight to various pet theories."
At the very least, these proponents must
make a clear statement about whether quantum formalism is being used as an
analogy or as an actual physical mechanism, and what evidence they are using
for support.
An ethical statement by a researcher should
specify what kind of relationship their hypothesis has to the physical laws.
Misleading statements of this type have
been given by, for example, Deepak Chopra. Chopra has commonly referred to
topics such as quantum healing or quantum effects of consciousness. Seeing the
human body as being undergirded by a "quantum mechanical body" composed
not of matter but of energy and information, he believes that "human aging
is fluid and changeable; it can speed up, slow down, stop for a time, and even
reverse itself," as determined by one's state of mind.
Robert Carroll states Chopra attempts to integrate Ayurveda with quantum mechanics to justify his teachings. Chopra argues that what he calls "quantum
healing" cures any manner of ailments, including cancer, through effects
that he claims are literally based on the same principles as quantum mechanics.
This has led physicists to object to his
use of the term quantum in reference to medical conditions and the human body. Chopra said, "I think quantum theory has a lot of
things to say about the observer effect, about non-locality, about
correlations. So I think there’s a school of physicists who believe that
consciousness has to be equated, or at least brought into the equation, in
understanding quantum mechanics."
On the other hand, he also claims
"[Quantum effects are] just a metaphor. Just like an electron or a photon
is an indivisible unit of information and energy, a thought is an indivisible
unit of consciousness."
In his book Quantum Healing,
Chopra stated the conclusion that quantum entanglement links everything in the Universe, and therefore it must
create consciousness. In either
case, the references to the word "quantum" don't mean what a
physicist would claim, and arguments that use the word "quantum"
shouldn't be taken as scientifically proven.
Chris Carter includes statements in his
book, Science and Psychic Phenomena of quotes from quantum physicists in support of psychic
phenomena. In a review of the book, Benjamin Radford wrote that Carter used
such references to "quantum physics, which he knows nothing about and
which he (and people like Deepak Chopra) love to cite and reference because it
sounds mysterious and paranormal....
Real, actual physicists I've spoken to
break out laughing at this crap.... If Carter wishes to posit that quantum
physics provides a plausible mechanism for psi, then it is his responsibility
to show that, and he clearly fails to do so."
Sharon Hill has studied amateur paranormal
research groups, and these groups like to use "vague and confusing
language: ghosts 'use energy,' are made up of 'magnetic fields', or are
associated with a 'quantum state.'"
Statements like these about quantum
mechanics indicate a temptation to misinterpret technical, mathematical terms
like entanglement in terms of mystical feelings.
This approach can be interpreted as a kind
of Scientism, using the
language and authority of science when the scientific concepts don't apply.
A larger problem in the popular press with
the quantum mind hypotheses is that they are extracted without scientific
support or justification and used to support areas of pseudoscience.
In brief, for example, the property of
quantum entanglement refers to the connection between two particles that share
a property such as angular momentum. If the particles collide, then they are no
longer entangled.
Extrapolating this property from the
entanglement of two elementary particles to the functioning of neurons in the
brain to be used in a computation is not simple. It is a long chain to prove
a connection between entangled elementary particles and a macroscopic effect
that affects human consciousness.
It is also necessary to show how sensory
inputs affect the coupled particles and then computation is accomplished.
Perhaps the final question is, what
difference does it make if quantum effects are involved in computations in the
brain? It is already known that quantum mechanics plays a role in the brain,
since quantum mechanics determines the shapes and properties of molecules like neurotransmitters and proteins, and these
molecules affect how the brain works.
This is the reason that drugs such as morphine affect consciousness. As Daniel Dennett said,
"quantum effects are there in your car, your watch, and your computer. But
most things — most macroscopic objects — are, as it were, oblivious to quantum
effects. They don't amplify them; they don't hinge on them."
Lawrence Krauss said, "We're also
connected to the universe by gravity, and we're connected to the planets by
gravity. But that doesn't mean that astrology is true.... Often, people who
are trying to sell whatever it is they're trying to sell try to justify it on
the basis of science.
Everyone knows quantum mechanics is weird,
so why not use that to justify it? ... I don't know how many times I've heard
people say, 'Oh, I love quantum mechanics because I'm really into meditation,
or I love the spiritual benefits that it brings me.' But quantum mechanics, for better or worse, doesn't bring any more
spiritual benefits than gravity does."
But it appears that these molecular quantum
effects are not what the proponents of the quantum mind are interested in.
Proponents seem to want to use the nonlocal, non-classical aspects of quantum
mechanics to connect the human consciousness to a kind of universal
consciousness or to long-range supernatural abilities.
Although it isn't impossible that these effects may be
observed, they have not been found at present, and the burden of proof is on
those who claim that these effects exist. The ability of humans to transfer
information at a distance without a known classical physical mechanism has not
been shown.
Selected an d edited
from Wikipedia - Quantum Mind
** **
1659 hours. Wow. This is one
doozy of an article. It immediately reminds me of a line out of Melville's Moby
Dick, that is, a line out of the 1956 classic film Moby Dick
directed by John Huston and starring Gregory Peck (Captain Ahab), Richard
Basehart (Ishmael) and Leo Genn (Starbuck).
** **
Ishmael:
[seeing Moby Dick for the first time] Is it real? Do you see it, too?
The Manxman, a
sailor: We all see it. That don't make it real.
** **
Yes, I, the Amorella, agree. The first thing you thought of after
reading the article above. Your unconscious speaking directly. That is how you
see the 'truth' between the lines in both the book and film versions of Moby
Dick and how you see or imagine a truth in the article "Quantum Mind"
from Wikipedia. Post.
Post. - Amorella
2230 hours. I found a paper
on the subject. I will look for more research on this.
** **
Evidence of Macroscopic
Quantum Entanglement During Double Quantitative Electroencephalographic
Measurements of Friends vs Strangers
ORIGINAL
ARTICLE
Blake
T. Dotta, Bryce P. Mulligan, Mathew D. Hunter and Michael A. Persinger
Abstract
One
indication of entanglement between two particles is a change in parity or spin
in one when the other is changed in order to maintain constancy of the system.
Our experiment was designed to discern if this phenomenon occurred at the
macroscopic level between the electroencephalographic activities of brains of
pairs of people, separated by about 75 m, with various degrees of
“entanglement”. About 50% of the variance of the "simultaneous"
electroencephalographic power was shared between pairs of brains. Pairs of
strangers were positively correlated within alpha and gamma bands within the
temporal and frontal lobes. However the power levels within the alpha and theta
bands were negatively correlated for pairs of people who had a protracted
history of interaction. The latter result might be considered support for the
hypothesis of macroscopic entanglement.
Key
Words: entanglement; electroencephalographic activity; human; action at a
distance; social affiliation
NeuroQuantology
2009; 4: 548-551
Selected from scholarly google: NeuroQuantology |
December 2009 | Vol 7 | Issue 4| Page 548-551 Persinger et al., Evidence of
macroscopic quantum entanglement, 548
** **
In light of the content of the previous article, "Quantum
Mind", caution is advised, orndorff. - Amorella
2241 hours. I agree wholeheartedly Amorella, but I
want to pursue this concept further. My underlining above shows little more
than perhaps a distant plausibility to me. I don't know anything about this
sort of hopefully scholarly research.
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