Can sensory apparatuses unlock the secrets of the Deep Future at Starlab?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the potential of sensory apparatuses and experimental techniques, particularly in the context of Starlab's research on consciousness and quantum phenomena. Participants explore various experimental approaches, including photon echo experiments and the implications of sensory data acquisition in understanding complex patterns in the brain.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express interest in funding photon echo experiments, suggesting they could yield significant insights into brain function.
  • One participant questions the feasibility of observing quantum coherent states in the brain, referencing a link to a study that discusses the potential for the brain to avoid thermal decoherence.
  • Another participant introduces the Weber Bar as a tool for detecting gravitational waves and discusses sensory compensation in monkeys without eyesight, raising questions about consciousness and the perception of order in chaotic environments.
  • There is a suggestion that energy scales may play a role in understanding complex patterns in the brain, though no solid conclusions are presented.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants appear to have varying perspectives on the feasibility and implications of the discussed experiments and theories. There is no consensus on the effectiveness of the proposed methods or the interpretations of consciousness and sensory perception.

Contextual Notes

Participants reference specific experimental techniques and theoretical frameworks without resolving the underlying assumptions or limitations of these approaches. The discussion includes speculative ideas about consciousness and sensory processing that remain unverified.

Who May Find This Useful

Readers interested in neuroscience, quantum consciousness, experimental physics, and the intersection of sensory perception and complex systems may find this discussion relevant.

christaltman
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Starlab
... a place where 100 years means nothing

Starlab NV/SA was a privately funded, Blue Sky research institute in Brussels, Belgium. At the time of its closing on June 12, 2001, it employed over 100 scientists from more than 30 nationalities, many of them leaders in their respective fields. The range of research areas was very broad: intelligent clothing, stemcell research, emotics, transarchitecture, robotics, theoretical physics (e.g., the possibilities of time-travel), quantum consciousness, quantum computation, art, artificial brain building, new media, biophysics, materials science, protein folding and nano-electronics, to mention a few. Research was grouped within the acronym BANG - Bits, Atoms, Neurons, Genes; this combination was recently adopted at MIT.

Starlab's cross-disciplinary nature was an innovative and noteworthy effort to foster creativity among scientific researchers, and it will certainly be remembered as an original, if ambitious, dream to create a utopian scientific environment. Though Starlab's Brussels facility was closed, the http://www.starlab-bcn.com/ facility remains in operation.

Physicist Chris Duif maintains a Starlab archive at SpaceTime.

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I hope someone will fund that photon echo experiment. I can't think of anything with a higher ratio of important knowledge gained to cost. Either way it turns out it will have major impact on the way we see the brain.
 
Photon Echo

Dickt,

Do you have a link in mind, when you say this about photon echo in previous post?

Sol
 
Reference

12 September 2003

Hi Sol,

Certainly, I can provide a link :

http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/hameroff/New/Photon%20echo/Echo.htm
Pierre St. Hilaire, Dick Bierman, Stuart Hameroff

Abstract: Our approach to the problem of consciousness implicates quantum coherent states in the brain. Conventional wisdom in science holds that significant quantum phenomena are impossible at brain temperature due to thermal decoherence. However theory suggests that the brain has evolved methods to avoid decoherence, and in fact uses thermal energy to pump the coherence. Experimental observation of such quantum states has not yet been possible. Recently physicists Pierre St. Hillaire and Dick Bierman at Starlab devised an experimental system to utilize "photon echo", a technique from quantum optics, to look for evidence of quantum coherent superposition in the human retina in awake volunteers. In photon echo a short laser pulse is sent to the system being studied followed by another pulse from the same source. If quantum coherence is occurring in the system a delayed photon "echo" is detected. Because the laser pulses required are of a very low power there is no risk of injury to the retina. Indeed subjects should perceive only a faint flash of light. Lasers are used commonly in ophthalmology; safety of the technique will be assured in the experiments proposed, and possible spinoff effects of retinal holography evaluated.


Kind regards,

Chris



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Sensory Apparatus

Hello Chris,

I am just going to put something our here for consideration.

The Weber Bar, and its use for detection of gravitational waves, and the effect of no eyesight, in monkey's, and how they compensate, in their sensory data acquicition.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/humphrey.html

I don't have any thing solid, yet I am intrigued by how we can be conscious:) How can there be order in something that is so tangible as chaos in very hot regions, yet the temperature in the brain could have perceived very complex patterns(there has to be a scale in energy determination that speaks to the same thing regardless of the weak and strong forces)?

Sol