Quantum effects at the neurological level

[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.