Quantum Biology and the Hidden Nature of Nature

[Pythagorean]

In order for "you" to be conscious of "tree", there has to be one place that has all the information.

What experiment determined that?

 

[.Scott]

"In order for "you" to be conscious of "tree", there has to be one place that has all the information."

What experiment determined that?

I thought the statement made before this demonstrated it: "If you had four neurons, each with one of the letters, which neuron would have the experience of "tree"?".
What kind of experiment would prove or disprove this? It's a fundamental statement of locality.

 

[Q_Goest]

In order to be conscious of something, the information describing that something has to be in one state - not divided into discrete symbols. Classical information processing doesn't provide a mechanism for that.

Hi Scott, Just to clarify, when I said, "... there’s no reason to accept that local interactions are insufficient to produce all of the phenomena produced." I mean that classical mechanics (ie: local interactions which are separable as defined in philosophy of science) between neurons is sufficient (to produce oscillations, etc...). I don't mean that classical mechanics is up to the task of explaining p-consciousness. Let's accept that neuron interactions don't utilize any of the special features of quantum mechanics and move on from there. I would disagree that's a dead end.

The argument that 'classical' information can't provide a mechanism for p-consciousness has been written about by a few authors. I think I'd listed a few earlier. Below are two more. There are others. Pythagorean has eluded to field theories which attempt to introduce quantum mechanical interactions across the entire brain such as by Pocket and McFadden. However, there's a complicated line of logic that's needed to support the contention that classical mechanics can't provide a basis for p-consciousness and I don't see any papers that have provided that logic in a way that everyone can accept.

Note the two authors below would agree that there's no quantum mechanical interactions between neurons. Edwards suggests single cells are the fundamental units of consciousness without providing much in the way of a logical argument. Sevush jumps right to the conclusion and provides even less of an argument why than Edwards. I personally believe there's a great argument out there having to do with separability but there are as many other arguments that suggest otherwise.

The bottom line is that this forum isn't set up for and doesn't support philosophical discussions around this topic, primarily because people tend to 'shoot from the hip' with their own pet theories without referencing the published literature and without knowing much about what's already been written.

Edwards, J. C. (2005). Is consciousness only a property of individual cells?. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 12(4-5), 4-5.
Sevush, S. (2006). Single-neuron theory of consciousness. Journal of theoretical biology, 238(3), 704-725.

 

[testingus]

Step sizes for the Runge Kutta algorithm are much much smaller than the mechanisms of synchrony so that they can be taken to be continuous; this is a rather basic ptinciple in numerical analysis.

Yes, numerically I understand this, but what is the physical basis for this assumption in a biological system? Updating methods can have a serious effect on observed phenomena [1]. Wouldn't choosing smaller step sizes imply that faster processes (i.e. molecular interactions) are synchronized? What is the physical rationale for this? Why is it safe to assume that the faster processes are synchronized?

[1] Cornforth, D., Green, D. G., Newth, D., & Kirley, M. (2003). Do artificial ants march in step? Ordered asynchronous processes and modularity in biological systems. In Proceedings of the eighth international conference on Artificial life, MIT Press (pp. 28-32).

 

[.Scott]

Let's accept that neuron interactions don't utilize any of the special features of quantum mechanics and move on from there. I would disagree that's a dead end.

I tend to agree - but I'm not as certain as you. There are obvious difficulties with having any QM data processing in a wet and warm environment. The problems get more difficult, and probably insurmountable, when you try to communicate entanglement from one cell to another. In the other cases we know of where QM processing may be active in living tissue, it happens at the molecular scale. In the video introduced in the OP, Seth Lloyd also pointed out that in both of those cases, photons in the visible range were available to provide a burst of energy - something he cited as being potentially instrumental in allowing QM to be effective for an instant.

The argument that 'classical' information can't provide a mechanism for p-consciousness has been written about by a few authors. I think I'd listed a few earlier. Below are two more. There are others. Pythagorean has eluded to field theories which attempt to introduce quantum mechanical interactions across the entire brain such as by Pocket and McFadden. However, there's a complicated line of logic that's needed to support the contention that classical mechanics can't provide a basis for p-consciousness and I don't see any papers that have provided that logic in a way that everyone can accept.

A paper that everyone can accept is a long way off. For me, it appears to be direct observation - although I didn't make that observation until I had been programming computers for several years. Until we find one of the neurons that does the QM processing, identify exactly what the process is (I'm suspecting a variation of Grover's Algorithm), and show that that's what the neuron is doing, we won't have acceptance from "everyone".

Note the two authors below would agree that there's no quantum mechanical interactions between neurons. Edwards suggests single cells are the fundamental units of consciousness without providing much in the way of a logical argument. Sevush jumps right to the conclusion and provides even less of an argument why than Edwards. I personally believe there's a great argument out there having to do with separability but there are as many other arguments that suggest otherwise.

I will check them out. As a software engineer trying to get into a large undocumented system, I try to identify essential elements of the process that have to be there - then I locate the code that performs those functions and work my way out from there. So that's what I do with consciousness. Since we can talk about it, it has to be part of our decision-making process. So the question becomes why would we use QM processing to process the type of information that we are conscious of to make a decision?

The bottom line is that this forum isn't set up for and doesn't support philosophical discussions around this topic, primarily because people tend to 'shoot from the hip' with their own pet theories without referencing the published literature and without knowing much about what's already been written.

I am interested in the mechanics. And as you may have noticed, I have little interest in the philosophical aspect of this. I have read up on the philosophy - and it impresses me as many distinctions with no differences. From a physics point of view, two systems which, in principle, cannot be distinguished from each other are equivalent.

 

[Evo]

There have been a lot of good posts, some people are good about providing citations, others not, and too much philosophical discussion has been interjected. As such, the mentors have decided it is time to put the thread to rest.