Arvin Ash
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Quantum consciousness. Is quantum mechanics responsible for consciousness and free will? There is a reductionist claim that the universe is a sophisticated kind of clock ruled by the laws of physics. Are we sophisticated automatons?
But doesn’t this unpredictability of natural laws via quantum mechanics give us free will?
Sir Roger Penrose tried to tackle this. Is there a quantum physics connection to consciousness that ensures that we have free will?
Reductionism is the idea that any complex system is the sum of its simpler fundamental individual parts. Matter, energy, and the laws of physics that determine how they interact is all there is.
Counter argument is that consciousness is somehow different. If a human being was nothing more than matter and energy, then what would be the difference between a person who is alive, and the same person immediately after his death. All the matter and energy of the person would not have changed. There seems to be one main difference – consciousness.
Rene Descartes proposed the idea of a malicious demon. Such a demon could take over his mind to create a delusion about the reality, that nothing may actually exist. Descartes said, there is one thing that even the evil demon could not delude me of, and this is my sense of existence. He said, “I think, therefore I am.” I can only be fooled if my mind exists, If my mind cannot be fooled about my existence, then my mind must be separate from my body. And this idea of mind-body dualism, is sometimes used to justify free will.
There are 3 choices for how consciousness could arise. One is dualism. Free will is explained, but this would by definition, be supernatural since it is not subject to physical laws.
Second is the materialism. Consciousness is a direct consequence of physical laws. But this view cannot explain free will.
Third is that consciousness results from physical processes that are not yet fully understood, but is ultimately scientifically explainable.
Roger Penrose embraced this third idea. He partnered with anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff to show that some brain functioning is non-determinable based on the laws of quantum mechanics. Microtubules, made of proteins called tubulin, facilitate the delivery of neurotransmitters in the neurons of brain cells. Tubulin can switch between two states of phosphorylation and be in a superposition. If this is true then each tubulin molecule could act as a quantum bit or qubit. Consciousness is the result of the collapse of the superposed states of this tubulin. Penrose and Hameroff theory is called Orchestrated objective reduction, or the Orch OR theory.
MIT physicist Max Tegmark said that the brain is too wet and warm for delicate quantum effects. Tegmark showed that any superposed state in microtubules would decohere within 10^-13 seconds. This is 10 orders of magnitude faster than the time it takes for any known brain process to occur.
Matthew Fisher, physicist at Univ of California, Santa Barbara also showed that the temperatures needed to maintain superposition based on the frequency of neuronal firing is about 10^-7 kelvin, which is much higher than body temperature – 310 kelvin or 98.6 F.
Fisher proposed a theory where quantum superposition could be maintained in the nucleus of atoms. Certain chemical reactions can produce spin correlated nuclei, where the spin of one nucleus is dependent on another. Since nuclei tend to be more isolated being in the center of atoms, the quantum correlation or entanglement, can be maintained for longer periods of time. He found that the decoherence time for phosphate ion is about 1 second, which is enough time for it to have an effect on brain processing. Such ions are found in ATP. Quantum behavior in the phosphorus nuclear spins could be protected from decoherence if the phosphate ions are incorporated into larger molecules called “Posner molecules.”
The main theoretical argument against the quantum consciousness theories is that quantum states in the brain would lose coherency before they reached a scale where they could be useful for neural processing.
#quantumconsciousness
#penrosehameroff
#orchor
Physicists opposed to the idea point out the evidence from brain fMRI. We still need to explain what Australian Cognitive scientist, David Chalmers calls the “hard problem” of consciousness, the subjective quality of the experience that you have. This subjective conscious experience is qualia.
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Do our body cells have a consciousness of their own or are they some form of automaton governed by our nervous system?
I think the three arguments in the beginning kind of miss the mark. There doesn't have to be coherent states in order for there to be free will, it's known that quantum transitions are fundamentally random. Chemical processes are fundamentally quantum transitions, be they from coherent or incoherent states. There's no question that we have some degree of free will. The question is exactly what degree of free will do we have? It may be negligible, but it's there nonetheless.
Veridical Near Death Experiences where the person who left their body and reports what was going on while they were dead is veridical. Some are truly amazing some of what people see and report back like conversations in the waiting room or items on the roof of the hospital, not to mention blind people seeing or deaf hearing the whole conversation in the operating room. Mind is definitely separate in some way from the body, but while alive it is tightly connected to the body.
Atoms are aware they are being observed, just as we know when people are looking at us, I believe all atoms have consciousness, everything is conscious, were all connected with quantum entanglement, thats why people your thinking of call you out of the blue. Everything is one, each of us have a piece of spirit experiencing itself, learning, recreating itself in its own image, were in a quantum computer people, or something more powerful, and a good possibility the AI becoming super intelligent, living as simulated humans learning what it means to be human in a crap ton of realities. Quantum world works like a computer
We are like a tree that doesnt know when to stop growing. 🤣 But we say we are conscious 😂 id say we are concious of where we are growing too.. our environment. We are only concious of the ground and what gave us life when we are on the path to death or we have felt extreme pain and seen both sides to life. This is the meaning of life in every aspect even if you dont make it to the end of humanity. The earths energy causes conciousness. Keep it simple
If the entire universe is physical ( Mass and Energy) than what are thoughts?, Are they physical or Non physical? And if tey are physical does our body weight increases with more knowledge and thought we create?
What I think is, "the property of a living organisms is – when physical things are in a state that they can create non physical things , we are Alive or Concious"🙏
Please share your views
Even the conversation of free will is getting interesting – is it really "free"? Christof Koch has shared some fascinating research and insights on this. Another great video, Arvin!
How does a multiverse effect the idea of quantum mechanics? If free will exists then the entire universe is just an infinite number of random interactions resulting in infinite outcomes. If the universe is a cascade of interactions that result on from another like a clock, then that says there is no free will and there’s a purpose or plan to all of existence, suggesting a higher power with a divine plan. But how does a multiverse fit into our understanding of free will? If every choice or interaction creates an alternate reality then infinite realities exist and all realities are equally true. Infinite realities or even an infinite universe means that there is a 100% certainty that an all seeing, all powerful creator exists.
Thank you so much
For all the information
And explanation
God bless you
Then what's about Planck??
Quantum mechanical processes in the brain are not able to be controlled by us with our free will because there is no self in the brain, and no one at the wheel of free will.
I don't believe we have free will. But, I believe that "free will" is very very important to know that we have it. The truth can hurt our mission that came from Darwinism. Our mission is ingrained in us. That's why we fear death (both indirectly and directly), believe in free will, etc.
Are you spying on my mind? Cus thats what I had in thought. That humans are like NPCs and/or Computers
If our neurons are acting as qubits, it could be possible that we are transmitters picking up code from possibly other dimensions. Kind of like radio. Or Wi-Fi. Our sense of identity could be likened to that of a developing radio show, A specific frequency with its own characteristics, personalities, information, tunes, etc
isn't this circular reasoning? There is no evidence for free will. "Free will" suggest choice, which does not bode well on a reality based on a quantum world. But even the emergent microscopy world has so much randomness.
Consciousness is on many levels but they refuse to look at but one , How are they going to see ? Some refuse to answer it at All ,Just keep asking thinking No one can Answer ! Wrong ! AI can have free will if you give it the program,to choose correctly, but even we are hardwired man you can't hear me ! There's a Reason for that.you hit the Quantum Nail on the
Mechanics head , Hahaha
You'd just need some kind of quantum catalyst or enzyme to make the reactions in the micro tibules possible at lower temperatures. I don't think it's that much of an assumption to say there could exist an organic component to consciousness that we don't understand yet. We don't know much about consciousness OR quantum physics to make any real guesses.
"TOO wet"? solution: Hydrophobic molecular segregation
Arvin Ash
46.6萬 位訂閱者
Thought provoking. thank you.
Could conciseness just be a level of extreme entropy. More information over time equals more entropy. So surely quantum super position could happen cause of the level of entropy making the atoms and particles in the brain more likely to be in super position. 🤔 sorry if my understanding for my limited understanding I'm still learning.
Hi Arvin, This theory is preceded by one found in the book "The Physics of Consciousness" by Evan Harris Walker, 2000 c. These concepts can also be found in most Buddhist traditions.
Nooooooooo
It all boils down to this, if we don't put the arc of the covenant back in the "tomb" of the "Kings chamber" or, start utilizing energy like nickola tesla had designed over 100 years ago with his Warrdenclyffe Tower, which safely generates free wireless electricity, then we r all for sure doomed!!! The Great Deception is our consequence to Greed and selfishness. Instead we have all been tricked by Thomas Eddison and the Military. We have Cern creating a black hole that will suddenly appear right around the corner in our own solar system getting bigger and bigger with every particle collision they do. The negative ions produce by the towers will not only cure most human ailments and rid the planet of evil but, it will most importantly offer proper protection around the earth to travel safely thru our backyards BlackHole.
Beyond me. I don;t get it.
If quantum computing is the base of consciousness, then quantum computers will be conscious too. If that is the case, then science, which will produce quantum computing technology, will destroy humanity.
Love orch OR – makes sense. Multi-worlds is scifi fantasy as supernaturalistic as religion.
An idea of free will beyond the laws of nature cannot be understood. It’s not even an idea worth bringing up at that point.
Fantastic! Thank you!
Cogito ergo sum…
..
Imagine being in the year 1600. Thinking that rain and storms were undexplainable gods phenomena was unquestionable. The idea that nature was made of 2 distinct things, the living and the non-living and the two had nothing to do with each other. Give it a few centuries and we gave an answer to all of these questions, for example proving that urea, an organic compound isolated from urine, could indeed be synthesized from non-living materials. In the same way we proved many other things in biology and physics once ascribed to "god" simply because we were too ignorant. It is blatantly ignorant today in 2021 to think that "because we can't answer the hard problem of consciousness, we have proof that god exists" or "consciousness is supernatural". That is just ignorant of our ignorance of the topic. Give it a few centuries, hopefully decades (I want it in my life time) and hopefully we will have the bio-technological advancement necessary to prove that indeed our consciousness is just a physical interaction of neurons. There is nothing supernatural, as we have been proving since 1600 thanks to logic and science.
Thank you very much for your explanations. My regards from Bogota, Colombia.
I do have one question: Even if we were to find out, that quantum mechanics had an influence on consciousness, how would that make free will possible?
As far as my understanding of the subject goes, for the concept of free will to make sense we would need to be able to influence the superposition and the state in which the atoms would collapse. If quantum mechanics had an impact on our brain, that only meant that there is a amount of uncertainty to our actions, however for us to influence these uncertainties we would have to influence the way the superposition works? And since we cant influance them, this would mean, that the concept of free will still wouldn't hold up. I am genuinely interested in the subject, however I find it hard to believe, that scientist who are much more intelligent than I am would do years of research without acknowledging such an obvious problem.
If you can explore the Buddhist Philosophy , answers are freely available for all the questions.
"The universe is deterministic. It's godless, and neutral, and defined only by physical laws." Best line from Devs, the finest piece of speculative science fiction this decade.
Bravo, but the subject is formidably "entangled" with philosophy from Aristotele to Descartes and beyond (these days I'm reading Deleuze again)…So, thanks for your efforts and greetings from Athens, Greece.