Quantum effects at the neurological level

[alxm]

Alxm, wondering if the world disappears is poetic but that's not what he said. He said can something exist if it's not observed.

Which is metaphysics. How many times does that need to be explained?
Saying "X happens when we're not looking" is by definition an unfalsifiable suggestion. It cannot be disproven. It is not a scientific theory.

I find your attitude defensive.

I find your attitude evasive. Drop the metaphysics and answer the question, I'll post it again:

Define 'QM process'. Chemistry is intrinsically quantum-mechanical. So what are you saying? That there's unknown chemistry going on in the brain? Or that there's a quantum-mechanical process that skips several orders of magnitude and then suddenly becomes significant again, magically bypassing chemistry?

To elaborate, explain also why you think the brain would necessarily use a quantum mechanical process, why such a process, which would have to be of chemical significance would be unknown to today's chemistry, despite the fact that virtually nothing hitherto discovered in biochemistry has required that kind of unique treatment. Experience does not support this idea. Explain how this would work. In detail. Explain which quantum-mechanical phenomena you're talking about. Superpositions? The decoherence times are too short to be significant in the human body. Max Tegmark did the math on that already. Tunneling? Is well known, and it's not significant for anything bigger than a proton.

If small molecules (much less the macromolecules Penrose is thinking of) could exist in a geometric superposition - why do molecules have geometric stability? Why don't stereoisomers spontaneously racemize? There are several reasons for that. (such as the quantum Zeno effect). More importantly, if this was the case, it'd have been known long before quantum physics. Biot would not have discovered chirality in the early 19th century.

its the science that is new. Perhaps, you think new shouldn't be speculated about.

I've done quantum-chemical studies of biochemical systems for a living. I've been paid to speculate on quantum effects in biology. I have nothing against scientific speculation. I have a lot against pseudoscientific speculation, especially in a physics forum. If you can make a concrete scientific argument, let's hear it. But if you're going to keep waxing on philosophy and hand-waving vagaries, take it somewhere else and stop pretending you're doing physics.

 

[rasp]

Alxm,albeit in a poor way, you make 2 good points. Let me answer each.

1)

I have a lot against pseudoscientific speculation, especially in a physics forum. .. if you're going to keep waxing on philosophy and hand-waving vagaries, take it somewhere else and stop pretending you're doing physics.

I accept that you represent the majority view of the ruling members of the physics forum, which do not want speculation on metaphysical concepts, unless those metaphysical speculations can be related causally to the physical. Which, of course if there were a hypothesized causal link, whether observed or not, this would in and of itself, "collapse" the meta-physical concept down to a physical one. This I gather would be acceptable. I humbly accept this decree from you - as I believe you do speak for the majority.

2)QUOTE=alxm;2361411]If you can make a concrete scientific argument, let's hear it.[/QUOTE

I don't do original research in this area and I don't want to overwhelm you with a variety of papers, for which I neither endorse nor speak to their quality, but which I find interesting.

a) Research done in Calgary by Christoph Simon is pertinent: He argues "that putting conscious observers at the center of the considerations clarifies and strengthens the many-worlds interpretation. The basic assumption, which seems extremely plausible based on our current understanding of the brain and of decoherence, is that quantumstates corresponding to distinct conscious experiences have to be orthogonal. I show that, once this is accepted, probabilistic measurement outcomes corresponding to basis elements and following Born’s rule emerge naturally from global unitary dynamics."

b) Subhash Kak from Czheck University and Loisianana State talks about the whole brain as a quantum system. I quote the following from Kak so we have a common ground, but I SINCERELY TRUST you already KNOW this: The question of consciousness is connected to the relationship between brain and mind. Reductionism takes it that they are identical, and mind is only the sum total of the activity in the brain, viewed at a suitable higher level of representation. Opposed to this is the viewpoint that although mind requires a physical structure, it ends up transcending that structure. One of Kak's lines of reasoning is this, "Quantum theory has the potential to provide understanding of certain biological processes not amenable to classical explanation. Take the protein-folding problem. Proteins are sequences of large number of amino acids. Once a sequence is established, the protein folds up rapidly into a highly specific three-dimensional structure that determines its function in the organism. It has been estimated that a fast computer applying plausible rules for protein folding would need 10 to the 127th years to find the final folded form for even a very short sequence of 100 amino acids [12]. Yet Nature solves this problem in a few seconds. Since quantum computing can be exponentially faster than conventional computing, it could very well be the explanation for Nature's speed [13
c) Stuart Kauffman from Santa Fe. I'll quote him although you may think him too metaphysical for your rules, a "persona non grata as you labeled Penrose? Whatever, he's been paid more than you and so passes one of your rules for respectability. QUOTE=alxm;2361411]I've been paid to speculate on quantum effects in biology.[/QUOTE
"The mind-brain system is a quantum coherent, but reversibly decohering and recohering system. This allows me to answer
1) mind does not act causally on brain at all, rather it acausally decohers to classicity (for all practical purposes), hence has consequences for brain and body as matter. Epiphenomenalism is averted. A quantum mind, because it is acausal on Copenhagen including Born, yields a free will, but a merely random free will, not a responsible free will.
2) the most radical part of this article proposes that the quantum classical interface
is not always describable by a law: specifically in a special relativity setting, no function, F, maps the present state of the system mind-brain into its future. In its place is a nonrandom yet lawless process. I seek in this non-random yet lawless process a source for a responsible free will."

Your move, ALXM

 

[Nick666]

The truth is that one can feel...lovingly, when sniffing something that contains androstenol .

One can get extremely horny when sniffing androstenone .

One can feel like a badass, extremely confident and more alive after sniffing androstenone .

There's nothing quantum about that . (I presume that you remember how you consciously felt the last time you had some of the feelings I described)

Oh, by the way, I guess I don't need to mention how testosterone makes a guy feel .

You could argue that the brain is responsable, not those chemicals, but the plain fact is that a bunch of mollecules can change one's mood, feelings etc .

 

[alxm]

The basic assumption, which seems extremely plausible based on our current understanding of the brain and of decoherence, is that quantumstates corresponding to distinct conscious experiences have to be orthogonal.

Our current understanding of the brain and decoherence puts the decoherence time at less than 10^-13 s (Tegmark's calculation). That's too fast for chemistry. Molecules in water bump into each other slower than that. (on the order of picoseconds) It's like saying it's plausible that the speed at which you swat flies is determined by the motion of air molecules.

The body is chemical. Whatever you believe, you still have to admit that whatever the brain does, the majority of the stuff it does is due to chemistry.

One of Kak's lines of reasoning is this, "Quantum theory has the potential to provide understanding of certain biological processes not amenable to classical explanation. Take the protein-folding problem. [...] Yet Nature solves this problem in a few seconds. Since quantum computing can be exponentially faster than conventional computing, it could very well be the explanation for Nature's speed

Frankly, that's idiotic. Nature doesn't perform calculations, nature just is. There are plenty of phenomena (and perfectly classical ones) that are exceedingly difficult to calculate. The idea that it'd take 10^127 years or so to calculate the conformation is an estimate made on the basis that it's a combinatorial analysis. Form every possible configuration and 'test' it. That's not what happens. A ball at the edge of a bowl does not try out every possible place it could be, decide the bottom is the best, and goes there. It just rolls down the slope.

But let's just pretend for a second that nature really does 'calculate' every possible protein configuration. How does it 'know' which answer to choose? Thermodynamics would say it should then choose the lowest-energy configuration. They don't. Proteins in living organisms almost never have their lowest-energy conformation. The lowest-energy configuration is a random mess. Proteins are folded to a specific ordered shape. They are in a local minimum, not a global one. Biological organisms go to great lengths to ensure that they 'find' the right local minimum of the millions of possibilities, by providing specific environments and 'chaperones' for the protein to fold in. It can take dozens of helper proteins to produce just one complicated one.

If proteins could exist in a big superposition of possible structural conformations, they'd denature themselves. Eggs would instantly turn hard-boiled. We'd all be dead. This is all contrary to very well-known experimental evidence: Most chemical isomers are quite stable. Not even small molecules exist in a superposition. To take the original example of Biot and Pasteur: D-Tartaric acid is D-Tartaric acid, every time you look at it. It does not spontaneously become L-tartaric acid. There's no superposition of D and L forms going on. It's simply ridiculous to think that a protein molecule 1000 times larger could do so. The smallest possible chemical 'unit' - a single hydrogen atom, which in some circumstances does tunnel or form a superposition, still behaves mostly 'classically'. I can dig up the numbers if you like, but it amounts to little more than a correction to the calculated speeds of hydrogen kinetics.

Quantum computing is great for combinatorial problems, but it's not a combinatorial problem. It's a dynamical problem; the many-body dynamics of a huge system. Those are hard to calculate, even when purely classical. (and when protein-structure calculations are done in the real world, it's with an essentially classical model)

Whatever, he's been paid more than you and so passes one of your rules for respectability.

I didn't say respectability had anything to do with getting paid. You alleged that I'm somehow averse to speculating on quantum effects in biochemistry. I was merely pointing out that, not am I not averse to (credible) speculation, but as someone who's worked with it, I can claim to have been paid to do it.

But I do not work for a department of philosophy. I work for a department of physics. I don't get paid unless I accompany my speculations with either calculations or experiments. JACS isn't going to accept a paper consisting of little more than worded argument. (at least not unless you sneak it into a review article or something)

I thought I made the point earlier: It's nto about respectability. It's about expertise. And to the extent that I know anything about anything, the thing I know the most about, is how chemstry and quantum physics relate - and even more specifically, in biochemistry.

Penrose isn't a 'persona non grata'. He's a gifted mathematician who did indisputably important work with Stephen Hawking. I'm happy to hear his opinion on black holes. But I'm not going to rate his speculation on the quantum-mechanical actions of proteins higher than the experiences of those who are experts at doing quantum mechanical calculations on proteins.

 

[Galteeth]

Our current understanding of the brain and decoherence puts the decoherence time at less than 10^-13 s (Tegmark's calculation). That's too fast for chemistry. Molecules in water bump into each other slower than that. (on the order of picoseconds) It's like saying it's plausible that the speed at which you swat flies is determined by the motion of air molecules.

The body is chemical. Whatever you believe, you still have to admit that whatever the brain does, the majority of the stuff it does is due to chemistry.



Frankly, that's idiotic. Nature doesn't perform calculations, nature just is. There are plenty of phenomena (and perfectly classical ones) that are exceedingly difficult to calculate. The idea that it'd take 10^127 years or so to calculate the conformation is an estimate made on the basis that it's a combinatorial analysis. Form every possible configuration and 'test' it. That's not what happens. A ball at the edge of a bowl does not try out every possible place it could be, decide the bottom is the best, and goes there. It just rolls down the slope.

But let's just pretend for a second that nature really does 'calculate' every possible protein configuration. How does it 'know' which answer to choose? Thermodynamics would say it should then choose the lowest-energy configuration. They don't. Proteins in living organisms almost never have their lowest-energy conformation. The lowest-energy configuration is a random mess. Proteins are folded to a specific ordered shape. They are in a local minimum, not a global one. Biological organisms go to great lengths to ensure that they 'find' the right local minimum of the millions of possibilities, by providing specific environments and 'chaperones' for the protein to fold in. It can take dozens of helper proteins to produce just one complicated one.

If proteins could exist in a big superposition of possible structural conformations, they'd denature themselves. Eggs would instantly turn hard-boiled. We'd all be dead. This is all contrary to very well-known experimental evidence: Most chemical isomers are quite stable. Not even small molecules exist in a superposition. To take the original example of Biot and Pasteur: D-Tartaric acid is D-Tartaric acid, every time you look at it. It does not spontaneously become L-tartaric acid. There's no superposition of D and L forms going on. It's simply ridiculous to think that a protein molecule 1000 times larger could do so. The smallest possible chemical 'unit' - a single hydrogen atom, which in some circumstances does tunnel or form a superposition, still behaves mostly 'classically'. I can dig up the numbers if you like, but it amounts to little more than a correction to the calculated speeds of hydrogen kinetics.

Quantum computing is great for combinatorial problems, but it's not a combinatorial problem. It's a dynamical problem; the many-body dynamics of a huge system. Those are hard to calculate, even when purely classical. (and when protein-structure calculations are done in the real world, it's with an essentially classical model)




I didn't say respectability had anything to do with getting paid. You alleged that I'm somehow averse to speculating on quantum effects in biochemistry. I was merely pointing out that, not am I not averse to (credible) speculation, but as someone who's worked with it, I can claim to have been paid to do it.

But I do not work for a department of philosophy. I work for a department of physics. I don't get paid unless I accompany my speculations with either calculations or experiments. JACS isn't going to accept a paper consisting of little more than worded argument. (at least not unless you sneak it into a review article or something)

I thought I made the point earlier: It's nto about respectability. It's about expertise. And to the extent that I know anything about anything, the thing I know the most about, is how chemstry and quantum physics relate - and even more specifically, in biochemistry.

Penrose isn't a 'persona non grata'. He's a gifted mathematician who did indisputably important work with Stephen Hawking. I'm happy to hear his opinion on black holes. But I'm not going to rate his speculation on the quantum-mechanical actions of proteins higher than the experiences of those who are experts at doing quantum mechanical calculations on proteins.

Excellent!

 

[rasp]

Dear alxm,
How shall I begin?
1st let me thank-you for your thought-full response.
2nd let me say I'm already satisfied by your answers, not so much by your scientific hypotheses, but more because you no longer put me down personally for asking a question in a format you don't approve.
3rd let me remind you that I started this thread as a question...not as a strawhorse for my own theory.
4th Let me indulge your patience and curiosity to respond to your own "scientific" views.

a)

Our current understanding of the brain and decoherence puts the decoherence time at less than 10^-13 s (Tegmark's calculation). That's too fast for chemistry. Molecules in water bump into each other slower than that. (on the order of picoseconds) It's like saying it's plausible that the speed at which you swat flies is determined by the motion of air molecules.

I'm not overwhelmed with Tegmark's work. I accept his calculations.. but what does it prove other than the brain is "wet and warm" and interfaces with its environment rapidly, and therefore is not a typical quantum system. This is something I already knew. Decoherence becomes another enigma, not a refutation that the brain can not be a quantum system. The enigma, starts with the Copenhagen Interpretation. It is supported by the whole issue of qualia. Perhaps, I am not comfortable with Tegmark's premise that the subject is different than the observer. As he says in his 1999 paper, "An observer can always decompose the world into three subsystems: the degrees of freedom corresponding to her subjective perceptions (the subject), the degrees of freedom being studied (the object), and everything else (the environment). As indicated, the subsystem Hamiltonians Hs, Ho, He and the interaction Hamiltonians Hso, Hoe, Hse can cause qualitatively very different effects, which is why it is often useful to study them separately. This paper focuses on the interaction Hse. Note that the first two definitions are very restrictive. Whereas the subject would include the entire body of the observer in the common way of speaking, only very few degrees of freedom qualify as our subject or object. For instance, if a physicist is observing a Stern-Gerlach apparatus, the vast majority of the ∼ 1028 degrees of freedom in the the observer and apparatus are counted as environment, not as subject or object.

b.

The body is chemical. Whatever you believe, you still have to admit that whatever the brain does, the majority of the stuff it does is due to chemistry.

This is a silly statement. Of course the brain is chemical, and at a lower level of organization it is physical. What else could it be?. When you say "the majority of the stuff it does is chemical, does it that mean you think the brain works through another means? FYI, I agree Penrose is probably grasping at straws when he supposes that microtubules can process info as a quantum computer. I am not offering a theory on what part of the brain engages the quantum world, I am only believing that there is a causal link and asking for information from the experts.

c.

Frankly, that's idiotic. Nature doesn't perform calculations, nature just is.

Well, yes, it is a stretch to propose that a protein performs a calculation to decide what shape it unfolds into, but I think it is foolish for a scientist to say "Nature just is." Everything happens either by chance, choice, or rules. If the protein somehow "investigates" the landscape of possibilities, before settling into its structure, it could loosely be termed a calculation.

d.

I didn't say respectability had anything to do with getting paid.I thought I made the point earlier: It's nto about respectability. It's about expertise.

Does that mean that you find Kaufman qualified to speak about the "quantum chemistry" of the brain? I noticed you didn't remark about his position. Here is a more detailed quote from his July 2009 paper, "Had one asked a physicist twenty or even ten years ago if the human brain could exhibit quantum coherent phenomena, the response, after laughter, would have been that thermalization would have destroyed any vestige of quantum coherence, so the answer was ’No’. It is therefore astonishing and important that recent results on the chlorophyll molecule, surrounded by its evolved ’antenna protein’, has been shown to be quantum coherent for almost a nanosecond. Now the normal time scale for decoherence is on the order of 10 to the -15 second, or a femto-second. Yet these experiments, carried out at 77K, but thought to apply to chlorophyll in plants at ambient temperature, show quantum coherence of an absorbed photon traveling to the reaction center for over 700 femtoseconds, the length of their longest trial, (24). No one expected this. The time scale of neural activities is a million times slower, in the millisecond range. But it takes light on the order of a millisecond to cross the brain, so if there were a dispersed quantum decohering-recohering mind-brain, reaching the millisecond range is probably within grasp of a quantum theory of the mindbrain system.

Thanks again for your continued interest in my questions.

 

[Galteeth]

The purely subjective matter of what you percieve as going on in your brain, is simply not a measurable, objective physical thing. It's inherently subjective. You will always have the question: "how do I know what I'm thinking is really the same as what's measured?", and there will never be a physical answer to that, because it's a metaphysical question. )

O really?

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/brain-scans-reveal-what-youve-seen/


Edit: My point here is maybe we CAN measure "what you perceive" but we still are far away from understanding WHY you perceive it. In other words, why do "I" perceive what's going on in "my" brain, it's not currently understood, but maybe some day it will be and it's silly to assume that it's just some fundamentally unanswerable metaphysical question, there must be a reason and a mechanism. At one time, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" might have seemed like a pointless metaphysical question, but know we understand that there actually is a timeline of the evolution of biological life.

 

[MoonlitFractl]

If quantum is anything in anyplace at anytime, than I've been thinking about this unscientificly sadly but with a good focal point in logic.

does this seem to resonate in the field of "dreams"?

As in humans "dreamed" that we could fly back in times of acinet greece.

As in, any person, can "dream" about anyevent, at anytime, if such event is understood from the atomic data from our senses allowing us to create things?? Like planes...? The abilty to realize that we can manipluate out sourroundings from out senses with the different parts of data altering parts of our brain. Like, the thought "can we find a kernel of truth". But the truth is differnt depending on whom sees it, and that too, is a reult of atomic data from our senses.

Another example is this: T


T T

T


(if this were a sheet of paper it would be wayyyy easier.)

What atomic data did you just recive?
In what order and geometric shape are the "T"'s in?

[DEPENDING ON HOW YOU LOOK AT IT, IT MIGHT BE DIFFERENT *WINK WINK*]
Now if you think about it in a classical sense you identify that you followed the "T"'s in a pattern regardindg the computer's protocalls. If you think about it in a quantum sense though, you think that there is no patturn and it is merely a result of the infiante and connected randomness that the entire "regarded reality" arranged the "T"'s in such a way.

Does the quantum thought seem rather brain-like? Or the search for a "fate"? Or even.. "God like" as in, I can make the waves of the sea part "just cause I want them to"... That identifing a single particle can show the entire system.

So yeah does this seem to resonate in the field of "dreams"?

 

[rasp]

If quantum is anything in anyplace at anytime, than I've been thinking about this unscientificly sadly but with a good focal point in logic. [/U]"?

I think i understand what you say here as a corollary to the many worlds theory and I accept that as a viable (although strange) scientific theory. But it is a bit hard for me to understand the rest of what you are saying. Are you suggesting that dreams are a representation of superimposed quantum states of mind, such that might exist in a mwi?

 

[MoonlitFractl]

Can you tell me about the mwi and superimposed states? *eg meditation??* (cause I'm unsure what you mean about what I mean)

But ontop of this fact there are some more thoughts I divulged out of this. For starters, if you think about "time travel" for a mere instant you come to some (yes "there is only now" quoted by that guy in the matrix) you realize some rather awesome factual data. I mean for startrs, how can you tell you are in the year 2010? You can be TOLD that two thousand and ten years passed after the oh so questionable "jesus" figure and people can be born and created but those are all chemical reactions, love and what we regard as "physical forces".

But if you take a shake at it, if you think about enstien's spacetime fabric, and with some thought that at the quantum level that you have heard that there are theoritcal black holes in each atom, things seem to expand, BIG TIEM. (^^;) For example, if you were to infantly (with the insane speed of course) strike an atom, hit a quark, go so f-in fast that you might as well shread to your atomic basics and somhow not die, you'd thoeritly reach a black hole and find out what is at the other side. You ever see "BACK TO THE FUTRURE"? The mad scientist uses the speed 88mph to regard as the ability to pass through time. Now, if I haven't lost you yet, think about that. "88" math being an expression, what are two physical infinates that are being crossed? Now of course "88" is nothing of an infinty and even more duh-ness is that if he started it and it was only able to travel at 8mph at its slowest speed. But if we imply the following thought, "The reason the 8 is not an infanty symbol is becuse it had directional energy to change its symtry and all horizontal objects are now vertical" it can suffice. For in this understanding, such things exist, the control of a knetic movment for example.

So if you sent an infinty at an infinty with both under the same control, it will allow time travel. (Basis/funtion)(w00t). Now if you took a proton, held it by magnetic forces, and sent another infianty at it with magnitic force it would allow time travel. But if you realize somthing, you have been the engine for both protons at each other, yet is the existence of the protons that allows such an event. So you have already had two infintes all along, but a third infinty is that you've been smashing them, so that you want to know that it is possible. But still, your freewill is an infanty itself. So the question is that, can we, ourselves, be able to achive such time travel?

I want to really know what mwi and superimposed states are, cause hacking the universe feels awesome to me. XD

 

[LukeD]

In some hopes that it might improve this train wreck of conversation, I wanted to add this:

Although "consciousness" seems to be a complex higher brain function that can be described in terms of the laws of chemistry and complex electromagnetic systems without needing to go into any fundamental quantum stuff...

Free will is incompatible with classical physics, but it is entirely compatible with quantum mechanics. In quantum physics, even electrons can have free will. (this is subject to your interpretation of quantum mechanics)

 

[MoonlitFractl]

Thankx, I kinda got to that last weekend after I did some more reasearch within it. Its rather fasiniting actully. I mean if you think about black holes they seem to lure a lot of attention so to speak. As in, if there was a black hole in space all matter would be in one place.

 

[flyzeggs]

The philosophical motivation behind the quantum-consciousness link is the "measurement problem" (from SEP: "von Neumann's motivation for introducing collapse was to save what he called psycho-physical parallelism (arguably supervenience of the mental on the physical: only one mental state is experienced, so there should be only one corresponding component in the physical state").

Just replace the term consciousness with experience (and avoid using terms like phenomenal and qualia) and you have yourself a foundations of physics paper even 't Hooft would enjoy. I happen to think it's an interesting philosophical problem but I'll stick to the "classical" stuff when I'm doing neurophysiology.