Quantum consciousness

[orgaelin]

I've found a great site that talks about quantum consciousness...

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/

I would love to discuss this but I broke my arm last night and am not up to typing my usual lengthy posts! :( I slipped on my Saint Bernard's slobber.

Anywho, check out the site and discuss away, does the theory seem credible to anyone? I am still reading if not posting...

~ Org.

[Suburbanite]

"However computation alone cannot explain why we have feelings and awareness, an 'inner life.'"

Uhm... the soul just doesn't exist. I don't know why feelings are so connected to an outside world of the physical; I mean they are reactionary and chemically induced. Awareness is just a term we use to describe how a brain reacts within the world, so we are aware with or without a soul, or an 'inner life.'

I think the idea is far too reminiscent of St. Thomas Aquinas. In other words, a load.

[orgaelin]

Uhm... the soul just doesn't exist

Oh right.

Glad you've cleared that up for the other seven *billion* of us that couldn't quite decide for sure. How is it you come by such authoritive wisdom?

Did you read the overview? I should have given that as the link instead...

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/overview.html

That's the best place to start. For those who don't want to read it cos it looks like a lot of text...

It basically says that consciousness is an inherent property of the universe, caused by fluctuations at the planck scale. It even suggests that for a brief moment following the Big Bang, the universe itself was conscious.

It explains our subjective human experience of consciousness as a result of "quantum mechanical internal forces (van der Waals London forces)" in "microtubules, cylindrical polymers of the protein tubulin arranged in hexagonal lattices" within the neurons of our brain.

From the language used in the excerpted quotes it should be apparent these guys are no whacky new age freaks. Indeed one of the people involved in the theory is the highly respected British mathematical physicist, Sir Roger Penrose.

[rcne]

Originally posted by Suburbanite, "However computation alone cannot explain why we have feelings and awareness, an 'inner life.'" Uhm... the soul just doesn't exist. I don't know why feelings are so connected to an outside world of the physical; I mean they are reactionary and chemically induced. Awareness is just a term we use to describe how a brain reacts within the world, so we are aware with or without a soul, or an 'inner life.' I think the idea is far too reminiscent of St. Thomas Aquinas. In other words, a load.

I always enjoy this - 'we are just a bunch of random chemical reactions' as we are consciously in a reflective mode of abstract reasoning.

I liken it to a camel hair brush and some pigment is art. The mechanics and stuff of art and conscious are the elements not the result.

The artist and the thinker may consider the tools but have the vision to make the tools secondary to the concept they express.

Your reasoning is a minute snapshot of the mechanics of thought. You could just as well have said - the 'inner self' if just synapses firing - but the key is the order and result.

[orgaelin]

Rcne, I had trouble getting your meaning in that post. Don't know if it was just me! Care to elaborate?

[rcne]

I guess I was off on a tangent.

I'll just use the close to make the point.

'Your reasoning is a minute snapshot of the mechanics of thought. You could just as well have said - the 'inner self' if just synapses firing - but the key is the order and result.'

When we break it down to the simplest steps, any organic action is chemically induced, or a thought in my example is just electrical activity in the brain.

These are the mechanics of the action, not the action itself. So when we consider the 'inner self' all these chemical and electrical activities are going on - 'in a set order to produce the thought'. The order didn't just happen - it was a result of the direction given by the 'soul', the inner self or the intellect - whatever term you chose.

One other example - you're driving down the road in your car - do you think of the firing order of the cylinders in the engine? You know they are there and basically how (the mechanics) they work, but do you drive the car or does the car drive you.

[orgaelin]

Good example.

And I see your point now.

I've just finished reading the full paper about the quantum consciousness stuff. Amazing stuff, and I can elaborate more now...

Basically it is not a new thought that there might be quantum processes going on in the brain. What Hameroff and Penrose are suggesting, which is new, is that consciousness itself can be explained through the Objective reduction of a quantum super position...

You know what, as I typed that it occured to me I might be typing this in the wrong forum! What we need is the facility to cross-post, so this entry for example could go in both the science and religion forums, as it involves both.

The significance of Objective Reduction relates to the old Schrödinger's cat paradox - with the cat that is both dead and alive in alternate universes inside a box, untill someone checks. This is called a quantum super position, where something is both of two possibilities untill something makes it choose to be only one. The "untill someone checks" means that it is Subjective, which is called Subjective Reduction (SR). If it were possible for reality to choose by itself whether the cat is alive or dead, this is called Objective Reduction (OR).

Hameroff and Penrose's theory relies on Objective Reduction, or what they call Orchestrated Objective Reduction. They believe that the substructure of neurons, as well as other types of cells, allows quantum processes to occur, and the stream of quantum 'events' occuring constantly within the brain are what create our sense of 'now', and provide the necessary complexity to explain the feeling of consciousness we all share. The "orchestrated" refers to the observation that these quantum events are not entirely random, but affected by the structure of the brain.

I particularly like how they recognise the huge difference between basic autonomous, survivally oriented processes within the brain (as would be present in any animal) and those processes we would call sub- or pre-conscious.

Obviously this is a bit more complex than the more philosophical among us usually go, and indeed it goes a great deal more complex too, but it should at least be comforting to those of us who feel the pull of both religion and science - the need for a proved reality rather than simple faith.

What it tells us, or at least what I draw from it, is that we don't have to just hope we have/are a soul. We really can use science to explain how our consciousness can be a part of and/or product of the universe.

I will create a seperate post concerning my ideas about the relationship between the soul, mind, brain and body. I hold views that don't require faith, but do perhaps require open mindedness. Will keep you posted!

~ Org.

[rcne]

I read Hameroff and Penrose's theory last year and it does seem to open new windows (analog of course) in the beginnings of thought and consciousness.

Cascading mircotubes of microthoughts. Interesting really.


- I look forward to hearing your views.

[orgaelin]

Obviously this stuff is so new it's not going to even get considered by anyone who follows the established scientific viewpoints. Science is every bit as dogmatic as religion, and it makes me sick!

The way I see it, very basically, is that the Body is a vehicle for the Brain, which is a vehicle for the Soul, and from the interaction between the latter two we get the Mind.

My views about the soul, while still very vague, are a little unsettling. The evidence as I see it seems to suggest that a soul without a brain to work through is much like electricity without a computer to work through. Both the computer and the electricity are effectively 'dead' or meaningless without each having the other.

Obviously this doesn't bode well for hopes of an afterlife.

I actually believe in reincarnation, though not the same way as anyone else seems to. The problem is that I have yet to find any physical method by which reincarnation might occur. Can a soul exist without the body/brain, and if it can, in what form?

~ Org.