David was quite clear that the conference he’s speaking at would be the focus of his energies for a few days. For the moment however I’d like to get into the nature of his work, what it means for our current discussion, and what might be productive going forward.
David’s project is to help set up humanity to reduce suffering as much as possible over time. This concerns human suffering of course, where he advocates our genetic recalibration, and also things like the development of non-sentient meat for general consumption to reduce the suffering of otherwise consumed animals. Several good points are made at: https://www.abolitionist.com/
I say this because it shouldn’t matter what the specific source of consciousness is to David, but rather just that this does get figured out. Observe that once scientists do conclusively validate a given consciousness theory, it should then be scrutinized technically for clues about how to advance his project to end suffering. Here he has incentive to not let the natural desire for rhetorical victory set back his overriding cause. Johnjoe probably doesn’t have quite this much incentive to be impartial about the possibility of quantum consciousness (though I guess he might at least enjoy expanding his quantum biology field that way if viable).
As general readers should know by now, I consider consciousness science quite primitive today. It seems like obfuscation promotes rather than diminishes popularity. Who’s hiding what? Therefore I like to keep things simple. Furthermore if a given popular group doesn’t provide me with simple enough ideas regarding the nature of what their position is, I might work on it until I can find some effective reductions. Thus for example I’ve reduced computationalism/functionalism/illusionism to mandate that an experiencer of thumb pain must exist if paper with the right marks on it were used to create more paper with the right other marks on it. Then with such an understanding of a given position I’m able to make an effective assessment.
In the past I haven’t thought too much about quantum consciousness given that QM is of course challenging, and also that I’d heard it depends upon quantum coherence existing in ways that contradict evidence. So just as people should naturally invent gods regardless of their existence, it’s seemed appropriate to me that people would take something like consciousness which is already a bit spooky, and pair it up with something like quantum mechanics which also has that feel. If there’s a simple argument of what the theory happens to be, then I’d love to consider it. For now however the following is essentially what I’ve got.
The properties of superposition, tunneling, and entanglement are able to create quantum informational bits that aren’t just standard binary figures, but rather continuous quantum bits. Thus not only could very fast computers be built this way, but biological brains have used it to create continuous rather than discrete existence.
Is that an essential description of what quantum consciousness happens to be, or rather is it something else? My response to this description is that if computers merely provide potential information to various things which thus become informed by them, I’d still like to know what such information would be informing to exist as consciousness? What would my vision, pain, love, and so on be made of given quantum computation?
Johnjoe’s theory tells me what my consciousness would be made of if true, so I like that. This makes it testable rather than unfalsifiable. I was also planning to present a simple description of his theory here so that any basic criticisms of it might be put forth and assessed. How does it work and what does it effectively mean? Does it have any ridiculous implications? I’ll need to save that for another time however.
Consciousness as an Electromagnetic Field 
Pearce’s project is admirable and I am in full support of it.
Your attempt at explaining quantum mind is about as good as anything I could come up with. I think it arises from the “conscious observer” argument – that nothing becomes reality until it is manifested by consciousness. Certainly there is truth in that for us as individuals, but how they plays out for reality beyond yours or my individual consciousness isn’t clear. You have to either be a solipsist with no external reality or believe in a mind at large (God, in effect) that conceives external reality for it to work. Neither of those approaches allows for any sort of scientific proposal.
I’m not so sure consciousness science is as primitive as you think. I’ve compared it to genetics before the discovery of DNA. There was a science of genetics but nobody understood the mechanism of heredity before DNA was found. We could have a breakthrough in consciousness science equivalent to the discovery of DNA at any time. We might be closer than you think.
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It’s good to know that you back Pearce’s Abolition project James. And also that you liked my potential reduction of quantum mind. If knowledgable people could tell me that it’s essentially correct, or perhaps could provide an improved version, then maybe I’d finally be able to say that I essentially understand what’s meant by “quantum mind”. Any takers?
That brings up another thought. If quantum mind essentially is the position held by computationalists/functionalists/illusionists, though instead by means of a quantum computer rather than classical, then my thumb pain thought experiment ought to also apply. So if a sufficiently advanced quantum computer were to process the right marks on paper into the right other marks on paper, then apparently something in this conversion from one to the other should thus experience what you do when your thumb gets whacked.
I presume that most advocates would object, and perhaps validly. But if this particular reduction of their theory occurs through a mischaracterization, then could they modify my thought experiment to reflect their actual position? Note that for McFadden’s theory I’m able to sensibly do so by including an EM field.
I like your association between the field of genetics and consciousness. As you say, the discovery of DNA revolutionized genetics. Similarly I suspect that the field of consciousness will be revolutionized by the experimental validation of McFadden’s cemi field theory. But regarding those two fields themselves, no I wouldn’t imply a similar level of health. Even back then I’d characterize genetics as “hard science”. Conversely I generally consider modern consciousness science more in the form of “quasi” to “pseudo”.
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FC would be the best one to explain quantum mind.
I don’t see it as a position of computationalists/functionalists/illusionists. It is more typically the position of New Agers and idealists who believe in life after death and ESP.
As I said, I think it frequently is derived from the “conscious observer” argument – that nothing becomes reality until it is manifested by consciousness. That falls into solipsism or mind-at-large speculations. Most physicists believe that to be a misunderstanding of the usage of the term “observer” in physics.
Penrose’s argument might be slightly different. It is along the lines of reality can’t be understood by ordinary computation (because Godel, Turing), but we somehow do seem to understand it, so we must have a quantum computer for a mind for reality to make sense.
Aside from that, there is no evidence of anything like quantum processes operating at a macro level in the brain.
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Okay James, so that would be two different simple assessments of quantum mind. One of them seems to invoke the “observational” characteristics of quantum mechanics. As in it only happens given measurement. So the “funky” side of it that you mentioned since physicists obviously don’t believe that epistemic measurement is required for superposition, tunneling, or entanglement to occur.
Then you’re suggesting Penrose to observe that since classical computers shouldn’t be able to do it, though it still gets done, quantum computers must be the answer. I see two different directions that that could potentially go. One would be my speculation above where quantum computers get the job done by means of computing extensively enough to cause a “binding” to occur. It’s consistent with the right marks on paper converted to the right other marks on paper (QM style), mandating the existence of an experiencer of thumb pain.
Then the other goes deeper and seems to be what FC is proposing. This is to say that the physics of consciousness lies deeper down in the quantum mechanical nature of neural function. For that to be a comprehensible theory (and so like McFadden’s), they’d need to identify what brain information informs to exist as an experience of existence.
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“If quantum mind essentially is the position held by computationalists/functionalists/illusionists, though instead by means of a quantum computer rather than classical, then my thumb pain thought experiment ought to also apply.”
This is not the position held by computationalists/functionalists/illusionists. Functionalism holds that there is no such thing as another “system” in the brain called mind. What we consider to be mind and the very experience of consciousness that this system is having is simply the illusion that results from processing enough information within the brain.
Your own grounding assumption with your dual computer model has always been on the right track however, this quantum cognitive system is an intrinsic property of the brain. It is regulated by the brain switching it online and offline, but it does not emerge from processing information. It is intrinsic to the physical composition of the brain. This distinction cannot be over-stated.
This differentiation is the deal breaker for functionalism. Furthermore, quantum mind avoids the dualism label because quantum mechanics is for all practical purposes physical, so it fits nicely within the framework of naturalism.
Hope that helps……
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You might be interested in this research:
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FC, I have little tolerance for videos, but from what I watched it seems all of the evidence presented is stuff at the microlevel in the brain. I have never ruled that out, although I can’t say anything about the validity of assertions presented.
But that doesn’t help with explaining something at the macro/brain-wide level. How do all of the events in the microtubules form a mind?
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I do not know how all of the events in the microtubules form a mind. All that can be derived from this research is that there is now a substrate within the neurons that is quantum, and that the neurons themselves are not merely discrete switching devices.
For all practical purposes, we now have a quantum device in the brain that can be used to support the notion that mind is not what the brain does, which for all practical purpose is a classical function, but we now have an emergent cognitive system that is quantum.
Anirban Bandyopadhyay has published many papers on his research and as he commented in the video, he strongly feels that this finding has moved neuroscience ahead 100 years. That’s a profoundly bold claim…
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Bandyopadhyay stuff looks interesting.
This article (he’s one of the co-authors) suggest an EM influence.
Saxena, Komal, et al. “Fractal, scale free electromagnetic resonance of a single brain extracted microtubule nanowire, a single tubulin protein and a single neuron.” Fractal and Fractional 4.2 (2020): 11.
“Biomaterials are primarily insulators. For nearly a century, electromagnetic resonance and antenna–receiver properties have been measured and extensively theoretically modeled. The dielectric constituents of biomaterials—if arranged in distinct symmetries, then each vibrational symmetry—would lead to a distinct resonance frequency. While the literature is rich with data on the dielectric resonance of proteins, scale-free relationships of vibrational modes are scarce. Here, we report a self-similar triplet of triplet resonance frequency pattern for the four-4 nm-wide tubulin protein, for the 25-nm-wide microtubule nanowire and 1-μm-wide axon initial segment of a neuron. Thus, preserving the symmetry of vibrations was a fundamental integration feature of the three materials”
This article
Bandyopadhyay, Anirban, et al. “Massively parallel computing on an organic molecular layer.” Nature Physics 6.5 (2010): 369-375.
has arguments similar to Zeki
Zeki, Semir. “A massively asynchronous, parallel brain.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 370.1668 (2015): 20140174.
All great support for microconsciousnesses.
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Great information….. It will be interesting to see if anyone is willing to go out on a limb and posit that the binding required to form macro-consciousness may occur due to non-locality.
I’ve read research papers published within the last couple of years that demonstrate non-locality between entangled particles is a real phenomenon. Also, according to Bandyopadhyay, experiments were done where they observed a proton fired into a microtubule bundle created two photos that were entangled.
“Spooky action at a distance”, time will tell I guess…….
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I would say it isn’t needed to explain what we know for reasons I have enumerated before.
Zeki, however, proposes a solution that might make sense if we are looking for a non-quantum binding mechanism. Zeki is talking about vision but the same could apply to other “bindings.”
quote from paper linked
The solution, I suggest, that evolution has adopted for the
brain is to make of the visual brain a totally asynchronous
organ, one in which the parallel systems operate with a fair
degree of temporal autonomy and in which activity at different nodes of different parallel processing systems is not simultaneously reset to zero continuously by some master clock in the brain. If that is the solution, then it follows that
binding of different visual attributes must itself be subject
to a different rule than the one we have been entertaining
so far [36]. One suggestion would be that discrete perceptual
events occurring at different nodes are somehow related to
another timing system, say, the theta rhythm in the
hippocampus (6 Hz). Two or more events occurring within
the hippocampal cycle might then be perceived as being
bound. There is, indeed, some clinical evidence to suggest
that this may be so [124,125]. Although there is no experimental evidence for this, it emphasizes the need to study neural events surrounding very short memories [31].
end quote
Zeki’s solution makes sense,. Since the hippocampus is involved with spatial mapping, it might be that many bindings relating to the external world would be happening there.
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