Is consciousness to be found in quantum processes in microtubules?

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience' started by Write4U, Sep 8, 2018.

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  1. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    I've said it many times and I'll repeat once more, just for you.

    The open-minded scientist is not morally obliged to listen to the ravings of every nutter on the street corner. That is not what being open-minded involves. If we did, we'd get nothing done. Furthermore, we would be encouraging nutters to think more highly of themselves and their ideas than they deserve.

    Once one has read up the idea, and read the critiques of it, one is entitled to form an opinion. Thereafter, there is only a moral obligation to give the same idea more attention if new evidence is put forward that could be expected to change one's orginal assessment.

    Have a nice day.
     
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  3. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    This is so annoying. You are always saying this or that causes a 'wave function' to collapse. That is an absurd way to speak.

    If I jump off of a platform I can say "I fell to the ground due to gravity", but if I say "I fell to the ground due to the gravity field equations" I would sound like a nutter, or someone who had no idea what they were talking about.

    The wave function didn't collapse the wave collapsed.
     
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  5. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Absurd? Really?
    A short correction would have been sufficient.....

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    I'd rather be treated with some common courtesy and a willingness to overlook my shortcomings in formal scientific verbage. The odd part is that even as I get critiqued on my presentation, seldom does anyone tell me I'm flat wrong in content.
    This is such an occasion. You complain about my presentation, but is it wrong?
    When someone actually corrects a real error, I am always grateful and feel I have "learned".

    Critiquing writing style without addressing content in a science forum is not very productive is it? Especially if it is accompanied by over the top ad hominem.


    p.s. I have no objection to the transfer, but if one examines what I was really proposing you will find that I was right on topic of "Is life a dialogue or a monologue" all the time unless this was supposed to be about the non-science of religion again.
     
    Last edited: Sep 14, 2018
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  7. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Problem is you don't read up on the links I provide, which always clarify my inadequacies in formal expression and usually provide new evidence which might be expected to change one's original assessment.....if only one took the time and courtesy....., I do....

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    If there is not enough time for that, then there should be not enough time to criticise rather than critique the post and poster.
     
    Last edited: Sep 14, 2018
  8. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    While I've tended to doubt that microtuble processes will pan-out in a significant way, I agree with James R's apparent assessment that their hypothesis is in limbo as far as either being supported or killed-off.

    In addition to Penrose and he supposedly compiling a list of purported "successes" over the years, Hameroff has responded to most criticisms, including research items like this one: Study Rules Out Fröhlich Condensates in Quantum Consciousness Model. But those counterings no longer show-up easily on the web, it takes quite a bit of digging to locate them (unless he features them on his website).

    Of course, just because he parries attacks doesn't mean they carry weight (each is subject to the evaluation of onlookers). This particular faultfinding from Tegmark is actually very old:

    We refuted Tegmark in the same journal in which he published a year later (see Hagan et al, 2001). Tegmark calculated a microtubule decoherence time of only 10^-13 secs, but he used a superposition separation distance of 24 nanometers, a term in the denominator of the decoherence time formula. In Orch OR the separation is the Fermi length, 7 orders of magnitude smaller, correcting microtubule decoherence time to 10^-6 secs. We found a few other mistakes which brought our calculated decoherence time to 10^-4 secs, later shown experimentally by Bandyopadhyay’s group (all references are in the 2014 Orch OR review paper). Tegmark refuted his own model, not ours. http://www.brainpreservation.org/sc...to-brain-preservation-uploading-and-identity/

    One of the earliest criticisms has arguably fallen to the wayside with regard to the force it once had: That the biological domain was too "hot" and macroscopic for quantum effects to ever find applicability there. (quantum biology).

    Publicity wise, Hameroff has been his own worst enemy by straying off into all sorts of appended speculative territory during interviews in questionable places, in a kind of Jack Sarfatti like fashion.
    ~
     
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  9. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I agree.
    From a Tegmark paper on decoherence, I ran across this;
    and
    https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9907009.pdf

    Anybody ever had a head-ache? How many degrees of temperature fluctuations cause neural decoherence in the brain? At 105 F people usually become disoriented and "incoherent". At higher temperatures or direct exposure, brain death often follows. Sun-stroke?

    Are these not indications that the environment indeed has a great effect on brain function?
    Moreover, would these symptoms not tend to support rather than argue against neural quantum decoherence in microtubules?
     
    Last edited: Sep 14, 2018
  10. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    If anyone wants to pursue the microtubules hypothesis in fiction - read Robert J. Sawyer's Quantum Night.
    He leverages the microtubules in an interesting way - extrapolating three groups into which all humans fit: P-zombies, psychopaths and conscious-with-conscience. And catastrophic events (such as near-death experiences) can flip you from one state to the other.

    RJS is Canada's golden child for speculative fiction writing. He's won a metric buttload (~28) of awards (including Hugo, Nebula and Robert Heinlein Awards) all around the world for his writing. His "Flash Forward" novel became a TV series by the same name.
     
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  11. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know what you are on about. I rechecked my sources and the expression "wave function collapse" is specifically addressed and defined exactly as I wanted to present it.
    Wiki;
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function_collapse

    Any other complaints and derogatory statements? Keep 'em coming boys.......

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  12. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    i spent 2 years polling new mothers.
    around 45% of them reported the pregnancy(and birth of current children living) unintentional.

    while many are wraped up in their own emotional dogma around feelings of being wanted. the reality of this is a health issue in my opinion.
    best practice is ideal, but mostly 1 out of 2 kids is not going to be best practice pre pregnancy.

    how do you quantify that in a medical best possible outcome scenario for total national health delivery ?

    pro activeness is the only possible solution.
    spending tax payer money on education and services.
    its outcome is far more beneficial than anything else possible.

    which is why i am pro universal health care with private health care as an after event.
    the reality is private health care can not provide for 50% of new born children.
     
  13. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Have a nice day.
     
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  14. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    While this proposition by Matthew Fisher does not specifically address microtubular computing, it uses brain neural networks as a quantum computing system. The acceptance of biological quantum computing systems is becoming more popular , it seems. All we need to figure out is which biological system is the most likely candidate for a possible biological quantum computing system.

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    https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-spin-on-the-quantum-brain-20161102/

    This is exciting news as each researcher will bring new info to the table.
    However, IMO, this example from Hameroff may well demonstrate the greater likelihood that microtubules are ultimately better equipped to act as quantum computers than neural synapses.

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    Being that microtubules have identified information processing capabilities and are present in almost all biological life, IMO, it makes them a very good candidate, perhaps even more suitable than gross neural networks.
    https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/microtubules-and-filaments-14052932
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2018
  15. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I appreciate your caution, but in view that consciousness is not peculiarly human but exists almost everywhere in biology in varying degrees of sophistication, it seems logical to assume a common physical characteristic which allows a biological organism to acquire the ability to consciously and dynamically interact with its environment.

    One such common physical aspect is the microtubule, which can found in single celled organisms as well as humans and all other living things.

    Oddly the worm C-Elegans seems not to have microtubules in its neural system (synapses) which is well mapped. But when its neural system is stimulated with electricity, it does not respond to the stimulation, i.e. no consciousness.

    OTOH, the much smaller and simpler single-celled Paramecium has no synapses, but does have microtubules (flagella) which allow it to swim and navigate. This single-celled organism appears to be conscious as demonstrated by its sexual behavior, the only time when both partners do not perceptibly move to avoid touch.....

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    Last edited: Sep 17, 2018
  16. gamelord Registered Senior Member

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    Then the question remains, how is everything conscious at the same time? Only one being can be conscious at any particular conscious frame of reference.
     
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, it's called "relativity". Each "observer" experiences reality from their own perspective of their unique position in spacetime....

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    Anil Seth proposes that "relativity" is experienced by humans as "controlled hallucinations".
    When our controlled hallucinations agree, we call it "reality". It's by common agreement.
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Consciousness is a high level pattern - substrates do not comprise the patterns that form on them.
     
  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Is the brain not the substrate for the formation of consciousness? The brain features several billion microtubules, which process trillions of bits of incoming external and internal information.

    And according to Anil Seth our brain has a self-referential mechanism, which IMO has evolved into a consciousness generating process. We generate our reality inside the brain and verify it's "best guess" of what's out there by comparing the compiled internal image from our sensory experiences with the objects we are observing.

    The proof of this proposition is found in the fact that we don't always get it right!
    Optical illusion is just one area where the brain can be "fooled" into the wrong conscious experience of vision!

    https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_how_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality

    IMO, this very basic process in all brained organisms has evolved to a very high degree of sophistication in abstract thought, whereas in most animals it is only adapted to specific needs, although it seems many animals have the ability for basic planning such as in pack hunters.

    Do watch the Hameroff presentation. He is an anesthesiologist and knows where "consciousness" resides in the brain. Indeed it is the level 3 area of the brain, the portion which is rendered unconscious during operations.

    Relative to the other two "subconscious" control levels and their platforms which occur in separate areas of the brain, the conscious part is relatively small, but I bet it is larger in humans than in other self-conscious species.

     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2018
  20. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Yep.
    And so they are the substrate for the patterns that form among them.
     
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  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    yes, and it is those patterns which eventually lead to "cognition" and still later to "anticipation".

    Humans consciously verify what we experience. Eventually that leads to anticipation and that leads to the evolution of abstract thought.

    The brainless slime-mold already has the ability to anticipate environmental conditions.
    Timing seems to be a fundamental asset for organic life and does not necessarily constitute a response to an existing condition, but also to anticipated conditions.. The organism's physics can learn to mathematically anticipate future events.
    Insects respond to atmospheric pressure fluctuations from approaching weather fronts. They start feeding!

    IMO, these computational abilities is provided by micro-tubules and "experienced" by the organism from purely "electro-chemical" reactions to sophisticated analysis of "emotional" responses. In all cases the transfer of information involves a moment of "ping" when a treshold has been passed and a quantum collapse occurs "fixing" the moment. It is the totality of quantum pings which form the recognizable repeating patterns in nature
    (witness the interference patterns in the double slit experiment).

    Note: Microtubules are nano sized structures and are much smaller than neurons. Yet they perform almost all internal and external information sharing in addition to offer structural integrity of neurons themselves. I find that remarkable and note-worthy.

    Interestingly, the computer industry is experimenting with vertical stacking of semi-conductors as they have reached the limits of Moore's law of size reduction on a horizontal scale. We are beginning to copy micro-tubular structures.......

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    Natura artis magistra!
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2018
  22. gamelord Registered Senior Member

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    Personally, I find it fascinating just how fast the brain can perform such massive operations. I know it uses electricity to send signals, but it seems like there has to be some kind of cellular movement that is faster that the typical videos showing cellular behaviors. Maybe there is a scientific explanation, but it does seem like there is some kind of "otherworldly monitor" which processes the immediate, real time effects.
     
  23. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    It depends on how you define "computer" and "computational abilities",
    I see a chemical reaction as a computational function (transmission of "information = values")

    Just from a cursory examination, it is clear to me that computational processes and functions occur in microtubules, which are not only instrumental in providing a cellular structural skeleton to keep an organism consisting of 95% water from collapsing like a limp noodle, but also acts as an information sharing network which is distributed throughout the body.
    https://www.proteinatlas.org/cell
    https://www.proteinatlas.org/humancell/microtubules

    and for Animation;
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21698/

    It's the microtubules that drive this engine for animation.
    Think of the number of apparently "sensory" and "memory" functional microtubules contained in those neurons.

    Besides they "look like" little computers......

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    Last edited: Oct 29, 2018
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