Can anyone explain the "Quantum Consciousness" model? or its implications?

Great Debates
1

Here is the website of young Danko Georgiev with links to much of his work (in PDFs), along with links to several hundred other papers he cites. As he says in one abstract:

This is the book in which Sir Roger Penrose first proposed the Quantum Mind theory.

Here’s a fellow who says Penrose is nuts.

If I understand correctly (which seems doubtful), the Quantum Mind Theory (QMT) states that human thought is a multidimensional process partly independent of local timespace. I have only a loose grasp of neurochemistry, and no grasp of quantum physics at all, beyong a few anecdotes about multiple dimensions. So:

  1. Can anyone explain this model to me without phrases like “boson condensation”? Is this actual science, or just frantic arm-waving?

  2. If the QMT does have a theoretically sound basis, what are the implications? I’ve found a number of sites where people have tried to use it to “mathematically prove” the existance of God, explain supernatural phenomena, etc. Are these folks on to something, or merely on something? :slight_smile:

Please keep things in the realm of science. Brief forays into theology are acceptable, so long as they address the topic at hand. Presenting your own alternate theory that we are all fruit flies on God’s banana is unacceptable.

2

I only read the first Penrose book, and it was a while ago, but my impression was that he was taking very real, experimentally confirmed, aspects of Quantum Mechanics (QM) and taking a wild leap that they have “something to do with consciousness”.

The main aspect in question is something called “entanglement”, which is not really a well-defined term, but is used for systems that show some sort of long-range correlations that can’t be explained by intuitive conceptual models. Hmm… was that too close to “boson condensation”? All I can suggest is to read a good book on QM written for laypersons (like The Cosmic Code by Heinz Pagels, or Einstein’s Moon by F. David Peat).

Recent research has proved that quantum computers can, in principle, calculate certain things much faster than ordinary computers. Whether this has anything to do with the brain is an open question, but most scientists seem to think it’s doubtful.

Hope this helps.

3

Here’s a pretty good layman’s example of what Penrose was talking about.

Watch your finger as you use it to touch your toe. Did you see it first? Did you feel it in your finger first, or in your toe? The answer is it all happened at once. However, the sensory impulses did not reach your brain at the same time. In fact, the lag between a neural impulse travelling from your eye to your brain and a neural impulse travelling from your toe to your brain is well into the range of perceptability. Furthermore, if you and someone else watched the incident, you would agree on the time of contact within the delta of your response times.

Why is this important? Because it’s absolutely impossible in a simple neural network. The neural impulses are not reaching your cognitive centers at the same time, but your are feeling them at the same time. Moreover, the only way (discounting telepathy) that you and another observer will agree on the timing is if you are perceiving these events to occur at the time they actually occur. This implies that the events come into the brain and are resequenced so that you perceive them all at or very near the time of the actual event. This means that not only are your sensory input centers playing a trick on your conscious mind, but due to the noticeable lag in input from your extremities, it also means that signals are being sent back in time.

Now, I don’t claim to know that this is true or be able to prove it. But that’s the theory. I read Penrose’s theories a good while back, and I seem to recall him claiming to have medical data showing this type of precognition, but I can’t vouch for that or for the accuracy of his data. He was a brilliant physicist, which does lend some credibility to the theory, but it’s a tough case to prove.

4

If you want a layman’s simplification of quantum cognition, check out the science fiction works of Robert Sawyer. This idea plays a part in several of his books, including (IIRC) Factoring Humanity, The Terminal Experiment, and the Neanderthal Parallax.

I just checked his website (sfwriter.com), and there are brief discussions of quantum calculation here and here.

Naturally, he simplifies the concept somewhat, but you suggested that’s what you’re looking for.

5

I barely remember the book, but I remember the argument being that an algorithm on a Turing machine could never “discover” Gödel Theorem. The quantum nature of our brains allows for thinking and understanding beyond that of an algorithm. That was the gist of the argument I think.

6

From what I’ve read of sentience-researchers (Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennet, Marvin Minksy) commenting on Penrose’s theory, Penrose’s theory is an illustration of the dangers of very smart people thinking their intelligence has high value outside of their particular field of expertise.

They basically dis his theory as an attempt to rescue the Specialness of human consciousness and free will by invoking this very very speculative mechanism of allegedly non-mechanistic quantum effects.

7

Here’s a book by E.H. Walker on the subject. I’m only about halfway through it, but so far he’s gone over a brief history of physics and the basics of Q.M. In the second half he explains how he thinks it ties into consciousness and the Big Questions.

8

That would seem to fly in the face of research that has demonstrated an observable delay between events and our perception of them. The evidence suggests that events are resequenced in the mind, but that it happens in forward time.

9

As I said, I’m not attempting to defend the theory, just to explain it as I remember it. Aside from not keeping up with the evidenciary side of things, quantum physics gives me a big huge migraine to begin with.

10

Thanks to everyone who has posted thus far.

Still digesting cites and collecting books.

Assuming the QMT is ~valid: would it explain any “supernatural” phenomenon?

(Didn’t think so. :))

11

I use the Turing Machine chapter as a sleep aid. However, I feel I can say:

  1. Penrose is nuts. Topologists tend to be nuts.

  2. Being nuts doesn’t always mean you are wrong.

  3. But he does stray far from his areas of expertise in that book, with the predictable results.

  4. But I still don’t know where Lerna, Illinois is. Where you live, 'possum? And why do you have to stalk them? Around here they come and look in my kitchen window.

12

Penrose is highly upset that he can’t find an explanation for how free will would work, or even what the heck it is. So he resorts to invoking alternate realities, quantum effects, and other possibilities. All or none of them could be true, but the problem is, they STILL don’t get him where he wants to go. That’s because the problem with concepts like free will is not any particular causality. It’s that the concepts THEMSELVES seem incoherent and inexplicable, no matter what empirical state of affairs you invoke.

Penrose’s major problem is that he doesn’t know where he wants to go: he has no operational definition of things like “free will” so no matter how much he searches, there’s no way to say “ah ha! This is how it could work!” because he’s yet to explain what “this” is. It’s like going hunting for snelches. You shoot a whole bunch of animals, but you aren’t sure what a snelch is, or even if it IS an animal. And even if one of the animals you shot IS a snelch, you have no way of knowing it. So you go to greater and greater lengths, shooting more and more exotic things. But you never get anywhere via this method, because you have no idea what you are trying to do.

13

Just down the road from the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site.
BTW, I live in an old farmhouse, cut 7 cords of wood/yr, grow beans, etc. Common law wife makes soap. Good times. Do have “city-style” h20, electricity, and phone/modem. Also bugs the size of your hand. And an open sewage trench. Huzzah!

I chose the handle after some wacky 'possum encounters- they were starving at the end of spring and started breaking in to my porch for cat food.

Having no desire to trap/eat 'possum, I began waiting for the telltale crunch of a 'possum eating Lola’s cat food, then leaping out and macing aforementioned 'possum with US postal service dog repellant. Thus 'possum stalker.

Only had to do it twice, and they told every 'possum in the county.

But enough about my glamorous lifestyle.

14

God, how I wish I was making this up.

15

Of course; I wasn’t implying anything else.

16

I must be going daft. For some reason I found this quote from one of the links (Here’s a fellow who says Penrose is nuts) to be quite amusing and perhaps appropriate for a sig.

 :cool:
17

I don’t know how much this helps, but I recall watching a program on public broadcast television (maybe PBS) which had several specialists in various fields relating to counsciousness participating in a round-table discussion.

The topic of quantum consciousness came up and one of the experts, an anesthesiologist (Hameroff probably) mentioned how the gases used in anesthesia, to make someone unconscious, work on the quantum level. From that, he suggested that consciousness is based (moreso) on the quantum model of physics rather than the classical. Sorry, I don’t have a cite.

Doing a quick search on Google reveals some basics behind the whole theory. Basically instead of consciousness (what the hell is it anyway?) residing on the level of synapses, it lies further down in microtubules, filaments found in the cytoskeletons of eukaryotic cells. They serve a purpose in helping to maintain the structure of the cell as well as in the process of mitosis, and apparantly now also in consciousness. Since their purpose is basically to contract or expand, according to quantum mechanics they can exist in both states at once and allow for all the wonders of consciousness. .cite

Opponents of the theory refute this claim by stating the relatively high temperature of the brain; from the little I’ve read of experimental physics (eg. quantum physics) most experiments and theorems have been done and achieved at low low temperatures.

It becomes a little unclear what exactly the implications of a quantum model for consciousness are. Likewise, we’re still left wondering what exactly this whole consciousness deal is. :confused:

18

seems like the juicy part of this, is the “what is consciousness” slice, (quantum mechanics is too slippery for me)
i know that its the scientific words that are probably wanted, but i dont understand them, (god knows ive tried) but i have found a different angle of viewing the subject from the indian classics, bhagavad gita, and srimad bhagavatam. therein, the subject of self realisation, or understanding what is the soul/self, is explained in a way which, although poetic, gave me more understanding of the nature of consciousness than barrel-loads of sience. consciousness, awareness, is the symptom of the presence of the soul. the body is made from material elements; earth, water, fire, air, ether, and the subtle body; the mind, intelligence, false ego all these are classified as material. the soul however, is classified as non material, or spiritual. the material body, displays consciousness due to the presence of the spirit soul within it, but as soon as the soul departs the body, there is no more consciousness. the material energy is not living, or conscious, but the superior spiritual energy, you and i, the soul, is always conscious, and does not depend on the body for existence. it is not that "i am this body, and i have a soul" it is "i am the soul, and i have (for now) this body. by studying the body, ( the material energy), the answer to "what is consciousness?" will not be found, if the source of that consciousness is not the material body,(including the mind,intelligence and false ego), but the soul. the quantum science will also be frustrated in understanding consciousness, if the soul is situated as described in bhagavad gita, i appologise if this post is not quite in context with what youre looking for possum, but i can only play the cards i`ve been dealt.
i hope you can find something here that helps a little.

19

On the level of pure faith I agree with you, the creosote kid, but on pragmatically I think you’re wrong. I don’t know whether you believe that we realize our soul but I do and I believe our soul is who we are and what we exhibit through our actions and behavior, not just some invisible force which influences rather than performs said actions and behaviors.

The brain is such an amazing balance of chemicals that combine to create the unique creature you are. An imbalance for whatever reason can completely change you, your behavior, your thoughts, and remove any vestiges of an “old” self. Speaking from experience, this is how the brain works, and thus a change in the chemistry of our brain can change our soul.

I understand that you speak from a wholly spiritual standpoint, where the soul is unaffected by the body, but even metaphysics has to have a basis and the only tools we have to examine such a foundation are based on the physical world. I think its a copout to just say science can’t explain it and leave it at that, when at least from my standpoint, experience tells me that the soul is bound to the physical in at least a few ways.

20

hi pothead,
thanks for goin down the road with me at least some of the way!
in the gita, how the soul is interfaced with the body goes like this; there`s a chariot, with 5 horses, a driver, and a passenger.

the horses are the senses, the reins are the mind, and the driver is the intelligence. the chariot is the body.

the soul is the passenger, who, by his desire, should be in control of the chariot through the agency of the mind and senses, by using intelligence.

when the soul forgets his true identity as a spiritual entity, intelligence can not direct the mind – rather, the mind, (which is now being pulled this way and that by the senses, can allow the chariot to behave in ways which are not beneficial to the soul, who is totally spiritual in nature.

it is natural for the soul to seek happiness, for the soul is described in the gita as being eternal, full of knowledge, and full of bliss. but when the eternal soul identifies with the temporary material body, an incompatible situation arises.

to get back to your post, you say “our soul is who we are and what we exhibit through our actions and behavior”

i would have to say that what we exhibit through our actions and behavior, (unless you are a self realized person) is a display (more or less) of the forgetfulness of the souls true nature.

everybody wants happiness, to be happy there must be peace,
how can there be peace when the mind is uncontrolled? so long as we mistake the body (including the brain, and the mind) to be US, then it will be impossible to control the mind.

you are correct to say that the soul is bound to the physical, but merely knowing this will not unbind us.
its like knowing your stuck down a well – knowing it cant get you out, we need help from someone outside the well,

for me, science is down in the well too, and thats why i dont count on it to solve this one, but maybe im wrong.