Quote: “I can say that educators “eat shit” and they
only cower and hide, doing nothing that will
induce debate, that will indict them as evil.
Americans will die SINGULARITY stupid,
their brain lobotomized by EVIL educators.”
Brits…
Physics wasn’t “designed to leave out consciousness”. And our current understanding of physics extends to objects far smaller than the neurons that make up our brains.
I’m not going to bother going through all the rest of the stuff. It’s not a coherent theory. It’s just a random collection of speculations sprinkled heavily with “quantum mechanics is magic” rationalizations.
When we look at how the brain functions at the lowest level we don’t see anything that can’t be explained with normal organic chemistry. It’s all just neurons exchanging neurotransmitters. If some sort of quantum magic special sauce was at work we should be able to observe neurological behavior that doesn’t make chemical sense. However, we don’t.
Our current best guess is that consciousness is an emergent effect of large systems of neurons. Emergent effects are complicated system-wide behaviors that cannot be explained by studying the individual components of a system. We see emergent effects all the times in large rule-based systems – the economy, for example – so it’s not unreasonable to assume the brain could produce emergent effects as well.
OK, that was a wrong statement. Physics wasn’t designed to leave out consciousness, but Newtonian physics was neither useful to better describe it..
If you mean that the writer was def not a physicist I agree, still, the points out in my previous post seem attractive.
Where this was going to was that consciousness was not limited to the brain. Rather (almost?) all matter in space time seems to be part of consciousness yet connecting at different levels/points.
The text was without a doubt not the best, yet I failed to find something better on the subject. (I think) the attempt was not to explain classical phenomena with quantum mechanics, but rather to explore and integrate the psychology of quantum mechanics in relation to consciousness.
I do not see how this conflicts.
That doesn’t seem right. If you shoot someone in the head, consciousness goes away. That’s pretty strong empirical evidence that consciousness is merely a local property of neurons that are connected up in a particular way.
Might as well throw this in as zombie food, ScienceDaily published a news release of a paper about the interactions of Photons in supermassive black holes which, (by means of mathematical mumbo jumbo beyond my understanding) places a maximum limit on the mass of photons equal to a trillionth of a trillionth of the mass of the smallest neutrino. (Evidently black holes would have a limit in size if the photon was more massive than that.) It also went to some pains to make clear that the mathimatical model does not require a minimum mass for the photon.
It is, sadly, also beyond my competence to even consider the cosmological consequence of the mass of photons, other than to say a trillionth of a trillionth is pretty damned small, since we started measuring at the neutrino.
Tris
I do not argue that. You seem to limit consciousness and also life in this universe to the existence of the human mind.
Quote “Rather (almost?) all matter in space time seems to be part of consciousness yet connecting at different levels/points.”
What I meant to say is that consciousness binds to matter and everything we can see, know of and experience is interconnected.
When you look at the stars matter will bind to your conscious. Stars are not per definition conscious.
An interesting phenomena for example is quantum entanglement. According to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, the shared state is indefinite until measured (=conscious).
What predictions does this theory make, and how could we test them?
What do you mean by “binds”?
It seems like you’re saying that consciousness has an existence independent of brains. However, there is no evidence to support that view. As far as we can tell, consciousness is just something that emerges when you connect a lot of neurons together in a particular way.
It’s like when you see a whirlpool in a river. The whirlpool exists as a particular dynamic arrangement of water molecules. It doesn’t have an existence apart from that. It’s not like there’s some universal “essence of whirlpoolness” that binds to the water to make a whirlpool.
No. My mind constructs an internal idea of a star as an explanation for a particular sensory experience. But my mind is in no sense “bound” to the star.
Measurement is not equivalent to consciousness.
I read Roger Penrose’s The Emperor’s New Mind, an early argument for “quantum consciousness.” I thought it was, frankly, a load of crap. Penrose is one of the world’s foremost mathematicians, and can be trusted for calculations regarding General Relativity, but his knowledge of human consciousness was showcased as ludicrous and ignorant.
In the end, he retreated to “qualia.” If presented with a conscious computer, he said we should ask, “What does it feel like.”
Yes. The way the article I linked to suggested it was that the brain (hardware) creates a virtual field (lets see it as software or consciousness). Now the interesting thing of this idea is that the software can interact with other software produced by other brains if that’s the type you wish to refer to. This could for example practically explain phenomena such as telepathy and collective consciousness.
Why not? in string theory that whirlpool exists in 10 dimensions. Also, can we compare a whirlpool with consciousness?
I am not saying that. However, the picture you have in your mind is the only way of connecting you to the star if you wanted to. Lets say it binds at the software level.
Its not a direct parallel value in everyday life if thats what you are saying, yet it does increase your awareness. At quantum mechanic level where things just are or not this could be different.
Hello Trinopus, thank you for the book title.
This is something I am going to look into if just out of curiosity 
Haha, how do YOU feel today?
Things that travel at the speed of light are not too fast to be seen - after all, light can be seen.
Yep - here’s a cite to that effect The Human Eye and Single Photons
The article you linked to is wrong. There is no evidence for “virtual fields” linking different brains. None. Zip. Zero. Nada. You might as well say “Quantum mechanics proves that magical unicorns are whispering lottery numbers in my ear.”
“String theory” says nothing about the existence of eternal essences. Seriously, you’re just sprinkling random sciency-sounding words around like pixie dust. You not actually saying anything coherent or meaningful. You’re just creating a cloud of sparkly make-believe where you can pretend that things like telepathy are real.
Imaging a connection is not the same as actually being connected. I can imagine there’s a million dollars in my checking account, but that doesn’t mean I can go out and use those imaginary dollars to buy a Porsche.
Look, it’s clear that you have an interest in what’s going on on the frontiers of science. But you need to stop thinking about quantum mechanics as some sort of mystical free pass that makes all sorts of supernatural things possible. What scientists are actually discovering is way cooler than that.
This part is worth noting though - I think they’re referring to rods rather than cones.
I was joking around
If I ever win the lotto I may like your stand on magical unicorns too.
String theory indeed has nothing to do with it (i think) but it sounded cool
If you were to believe that then you will get disconnected (like the internet). This happens when there is either something wrong with your brain, with your consciousness, or with the conductor between those two.
I’m not try to make things possible that aren’t. I was just wondering about people’s definition of consciousness here.
There has to be something that connects quantum mechanics and consciousness, even if its solely the fact that both are still poorly understood.
So’s the appeal of Honey Boo Boo. Connections are a fool’s game. Anybody can play but only James Burke can win.
Obviously I’m also at least skeptical of unsubstantiated claims. Too often jargon is used to project an undeserved veneer of erudition. However there is evidence for the proposition that biological systems do in fact use quantum effects. The ability of some animals to sense magnetic fields is almost certainly one example. And it looks like photosynthesis may be another.
I don’t think anyone is disputing that sufficiently small biological systems may interact quantum mechanically. The objection is to an unsubstantiated proposal where supposedly an undefined grid binds in an undefined way to an undefined aspect of the physical brain to produce a poorly defined phenomena called consciousness. That’s so far removed from any kind of rigour you’d have to call it woo.