Is consciousness to be found in quantum processes in microtubules?

[Write4U]

Would you please go away again?

Why don't you just stay away from me? Keep it simple.

 

[Write4U]

Nobody has ever suggested there is a problem with the proposition that there are still undiscovered aspects of the universe. That has never been in dispute.

Up till now there have only been "declarations" that there is a problem with the proposition that microtubules may be functional as processors of any kind, let alone quantum processors.
We have come a long way from microtubules as being part of the cytoskeleton that gives structure to cells.

 

[Write4U]

Ask for something relevant and you shall receive (an undifferentiated pile of junk, with) one item within it that is relevant.

Ask for something relevant and you will get an answer with something relevant within it.

Your sub YouTube-quality algorithm draws no distinction between this one paper that is relevant to the thread subject and all the other shite you have been shovelling in the last two thousand posts.

Your sub-civil quality discourse is not relevant to this thread and it is you who has been shoveling ad hominem "shite" in all but one relevant post.
You cannot make the distinction because your only objective here is destruction of this thread and smearing your vile crap all over my floor.
Stay away, I don't need you!

 

[C C]

Does the concept of "perceptronium" satisfy the requirements of "qualia", other than that it is an unknown quality?

If the perceptronium conception ever addresses qualia at all, it seems to immediately veer off into the "easy" to explain cognitive aspect of consciousness, which is intelligence and memory related (no manifestations required). "Identification and understanding" transpiring in the dark does not require a new state of matter -- just the pre-existing capacity of matter to interact with itself and be configurable into dynamic organizations.

But as Peter Hankins pointed-out back then in his blog ("Conscious Entities"), maybe the kitsch label of "perceptronium" is a roundabout way of Tegmark highlighting autonomy or some kind of free-will attribution.

Obviously, Tegmark's love for multiverse theories(PDF) was bound to cross paths with his speculations about consciousness...

Perceptronium (Conscious Entities blog)
https://www.consciousentities.com/2014/10/perceptronium/

EXCERPT: . . . but Tegmark, if I understand him right, adds another requirement for consciousness: autonomy, which requires both dynamics and independence; so there has to be active information processing, and it has to be isolated from outside influence, much the way we typically think of computation.

The really exciting part, however, is the potential linkage with deep cosmological problems – in particular the quantum factorisation problem. This is way beyond my understanding, and the pages of equations Tegmark offers are no help, but the gist appears to be that quantum mechanics offers us a range of possible universes. If we want to get ‘physics from scratch’, all we have to work with is, in Tegmark’s words: "two Hermitian matrices, the density matrix p encoding the state of our world and the Hamiltonian H determining its time-evolution…"

Please don’t ask me to explain; the point is that the three things don’t pin down a single universe; there are an infinite number of acceptable solutions to the equations. If we want to know why we’ve got the universe we have – and in particular why we’ve got classical physics, more or less, and a world with an object hierarchy – we need something more. Very briefly, I take Tegmark’s suggestion to be that consciousness, with its property of autonomy, tends naturally to pick out versions of the universe in which there are similarly integrated and independent entities – in other words the kind of object-hierarchical world we do in fact see around us. To put it another way and rather baldly, the universe looks like this because it’s the only kind of universe which is compatible with the existence of conscious entities capable of perceiving it.​

Here's an excerpt from the earlier part of Hankins' blog piece that I would rather have started with, but the above was more directly relevant with respect to autonomy.

Tegmark’s paper presents the idea rather strangely, suggesting that consciousness might be another state of matter like the states of being a gas, a liquid, or solid. That surely can’t be true in any simple literal sense because those particular states are normally considered to be mutually exclusive: becoming a gas means ceasing to be a liquid. If consciousness were another member of that exclusive set it would mean that becoming conscious involved ceasing to be solid (or liquid, or gas), which is strange indeed. Moreover Tegmark goes on to name the new state ‘perceptronium’ as if it were a new element. He clearly means something slightly different, although the misleading claim perhaps garners him sensational headlines which wouldn’t be available if he were merely saying that consciousness arose from certain kinds of subtle informational organisation, which is closer to what he really means.

A better analogy might be the many different forms carbon can take according to the arrangement of its atoms: graphite, diamond, charcoal, graphene, and so on; it can have quite different physical properties without ceasing to be carbon. Tegmark is drawing on the idea of computronium proposed by Toffoli and Margolus...​

p.s. How about that "Monkey business illusion"? Does AI have this dubious ability of "selective attention" and how does this happen?

They can be designed for it.

Using Selective Attention in Reinforcement Learning Agents
https://ai.googleblog.com/2020/06/using-selective-attention-in.html

EXCERPT: While this may seem to be a limitation, such “bottlenecks” observed in nature can also inspire the design of machine learning systems that hope to mimic the success and efficiency of biological organisms.

In our recent GECCO 2020 paper, “Neuroevolution of Self-Interpretable Agents” (AttentionAgent), we investigate the properties of such agents that employ a self-attention bottleneck.

We show that not only are they able to solve challenging vision-based tasks from pixel inputs with 1000x fewer learnable parameters compared to conventional methods, they are also better at generalization to unseen modifications of their tasks, simply due to its ability to “not see details” that can confuse it.​

_

 

[Write4U]

Grist for much thought!

 

[Write4U]

A better analogy might be the many different forms carbon can take according to the arrangement of its atoms: graphite, diamond, charcoal, graphene, and so on; it can have quite different physical properties without ceasing to be carbon. Tegmark is drawing on the idea of computronium proposed by Toffoli and Margolus...

One of the new methods of researching cellular electrical activity.

Graphene ‘camera’ captures real-time electrical activity of beating heart
Bay Area scientists have captured the real-time electrical activity of a beating heart, using a sheet of graphene to record an optical image — almost like a video camera — of the faint electric fields generated by the rhythmic firing of the heart’s muscle cells.

The graphene camera represents a new type of sensor useful for studying cells and tissues that generate electrical voltages, including groups of neurons or cardiac muscle cells. To date, electrodes or chemical dyes have been used to measure electrical firing in these cells. But electrodes and dyes measure the voltage at one point only; a graphene sheet measures the voltage continuously over all the tissue it touches.

Nano Letters, comes from a collaboration between two teams of quantum physicists at the University of California, Berkeley, and physical chemists at Stanford University.

“Because we are imaging all cells simultaneously onto a camera, we don’t have to scan, and we don’t have just a point measurement. We can image the entire network of cells at the same time,” said Halleh Balch, one of three first authors of the paper and a recent Ph.D. recipient in UC Berkeley’s Department of Physics.

While the graphene sensor works without having to label cells with dyes or tracers, it can easily be combined with standard microscopy to image fluorescently labeled nerve or muscle tissue while simultaneously recording the electrical signals the cells use to communicate.

“The ease with which you can image an entire region of a sample could be especially useful in the study of neural networks that have all sorts of cell types involved,” said another first author of the study, Allister McGuire, who recently received a Ph.D. from Stanford. “If you have a fluorescently labeled cell system, you might only be targeting a certain type of neuron. Our system would allow you to capture electrical activity in all neurons and their support cells with very high integrity, which could really impact the way that people do these network level studies.”

Graphene is a one-atom thick sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a two-dimensional hexagonal pattern reminiscent of honeycomb. The 2D structure has captured the interest of physicists for several decades because of its unique electrical properties and robustness and its interesting optical and optoelectronic properties.

https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/06/1...al-time-electrical-activity-of-beating-heart/

Looks like we are making great strides in nano scale observation and measurements.

 

[Write4U]

What are good examples of applying dynamical systems in cognitive science?
"Dynamical Systems Approaches to Cognition" by G. Schoner gives this example that seems a very good example:

"A highly illustrative example comes from the orientation behaviors of the common house fly (Reichardt & Poggio, 1976; Poggio & Reichardt, 1976). Flies orient toward moving objects, which they chase as part of their mating behavior.

Detailed analysis revealed that the circuitry underlying this behavior forms a simple controller: a motion detection system fed by luminance changes on the fly’s facet eye drives the flight motor, generating an amount of torque that is a function of where on the sensory surface motion was detected.

If the speck of motion is detected on the right, a torque to the right is generated. If the speck is detected on the left, a torque to the left is generated. The level of torque passes through zero when the speck is right ahead. The torque changes the flight direction of the fly, which in turn changes the location on the facet eye at which the moving stimulus is detected. Given the aerodynamics of flies, the torque and its on-line updating generate an orientation behavior, in which the insect orients its flight into the direction in which a moving stimulus is detected.

Dynamical Systems Thinking From Metaphor to Neural Theory
Gregor Schöner

The Self-Organization Metaphor
One way developmental scientists have addressed this tension between the apparent stability of the developmental process and its flexibility in response to variable environments and experiential histories is by invoking the concept of self-organization. In a self-organizing system, the flexible and individual processes of development may emerge from the confluence of various forces, while the inherent organizational principles would hold the developmental process on track. Exactly how that may work requires closer examination

CHAPTER 8
The Fundamental Tension in Development between Stability and Flexibility
The Self-Organization Metaphor
Molenaar_HbkDvlpmntlSysThryMthdlgy.indb 188 9/18/2013 5:24:16 PM

Dynamical Systems Thinking 189 environments and experiential histories is by invoking the concept of self-organization.
In a self-organizing system, the flexible and individual processes of development may emerge from the confluence of various forces, while the inherent organizational principles would hold the developmental process on track.

Exactly how that may work requires closer examination. This ideas has been promoted as a metaphor for development that has inspired a research program into possible mechanisms of emergence, of how environmental factors contribute to development, how individual differences persist, and how the ensemble of these influences jointly control development (“soft causation”) (Elman et al., 1997; Spencer et al., 2006; Thelen & Smith, 1994).

This chapter reviews this metaphor, criticizes it, and proposes a specific direction in which this metaphor can be transformed into an operational theory of the development of behavior and cognition. The perspective of self-organization was developed, in part, in opposition to an apparent alternative; that is, to an account of development that is based on maturation and innateness. In such an account the molecular machinery of growth guarantees the reproducible patterns of development and also explains how individual differences
arise from different starting conditions, largely determined by genetic factors, and remain stable over the course of development (Fodor, 1981; for critiques, see Molenaar, 1986; Quartz, 1993).

Interestingly, the self-organization metaphor connects to older theoretical ideas about growth processes. In fact, within developmental biology an analogous tension exists between two metaphors, one based on information processing and programming, the other on self-organization and emergence.

The fine-grained molecular machinery of growth engages gene expression, which may be thought of as the core driver of morphogenesis, which is the formation of macroscopic shape from microscopic processes. At this molecular level, information-processing metaphors such as program, lock and key, and reading or writing of genetic information, etc., are commonly invoked. These metaphors have their own interesting conceptual history (Fox Keller, 2002).

Molecular biologists resonated with these concepts as these seemed to fit to their experimental tools.
In an older view, morphogenesis had been thought of as a form of pattern formation. This older view dates back to Waddington’s famous epigenetic landscape (Waddington, 1953; see also Ho, Chapter 5, and Newell & Liu, Chapter 12, this volume and Figure 8.1), often invoked but somewhat inconsequential to modern developmental biology.

The metaphor suggests that “forces” shape the form of an organism, which then emerges from a process of equilibration of these forces. Over development, the landscape of forces and the associated equilibria become increasingly complex, leading to a more and more differentiated organism.

This metaphor resonates with the famous mathematical model of pattern formation of Alan Turing (1952), in which the interaction of diffusion and chemical reaction kinetics generates concentration patterns. The structure of these patterns is encoded in the parameters of the chemical and diffusion dynamics that are hypothesized to drive growth. That and similar models remained essentially metaphorical too, as they did not make contact with experimentally accessible problems in development.

https://www.ini.rub.de/upload/file/1485095301_c3ff2992a6bf6c34ebb6/Schoner_handbook_dev_2014.pdf

 

[James R]

Up till now there have only been "declarations" that there is a problem with the proposition that microtubules may be functional as processors of any kind, let alone quantum processors.

No. There's no problem with the proposition/hypothesis.

The only problem is that there's no convincing evidence that the proposition is true. At least, none you have presented.

Also, don't think I didn't notice that you ignored most of the substantive questions I put to you in posts #2573 and #2574.

 

[Write4U]

I don't think you're even aware that most of the stuff you're posting is entirely irrelevant, and the rest you don't understand well enough to be able to think about it meaningfully, let alone to be able to explain it to somebody else who isn't already an expert in the field.

But this is where you miss the point. It's all relevant. Because the one thing all motile organisms share are microtubules as the "translators" of raw data into ordered informational experiences.

What is thought? Thought is a mental processing of information, no. And what is the substrate that does that mental processing? Mictotubules, no? Can anyone think of a better candidate? If so, please list it here, I want to know.

No one has come up with an answer that is remotely meaningful to the question of what process must be responsible for the emergence of conscious information processing.
I don't claim tho have the answer as to the "hard question". I do agree with Max Tegmark that we already have all the necessary physical ingredients that allow for the emergence of consciousness and if that is true, there is only one candidate that appears to meet all the necessary qualifications if arranged in a pattern that already exists in humans and all other sentient organisms.
Every bit of thought is generated in a microtubule or a set of microtubules and it is clear that all sensory information is gathered and transmitted by microtubules.

What you see as unrelated is in fact overwhelming evidence of the role microtubules play in the phenomenon of "neural information processing" also dubbed "thinking".

IMO, biological thought began with single celled organisms that "learned" to navigate via cilia. The rest is just an evolutionary process in the refinement of sensory data processes in all its diversity that you call unrelated.
All of them are forms of "thought", from the heliotropic abilities of flowers, to the use of the Fibonacci sequence to maximize storage space, to the construction of mathematical honeycombs, to the triangulation by predatory organisms to calculate the trajectory of a fast-moving prey, to echolocation in aquatic and terranean animals, and finally, to abstract predictive

Why is science such a vibrant area of interest and research? Because we want to find out how things work and the more we "learn" to navigate the hidden obstacles in that effort, the more skilled we become in evaluating the data and even anticipating what as yet "unknown" data may look like or become expressed in reality.

To say that all the magnificent feats of information processing by a natural self-assembling transistor is irrelevant is completely missing the point of its extraordinary versatility that makes it the a priori candidate for consideration as the causal substrate for emerging self-experiencing thought. "I think, therefore I am".

But I am absolutely sure there are many animals that are self-aware and this is another expression of evolutionary dynamism.

p.s. I am working on answers to #2573 and #2574. I am never purposely neglecting to answer any question in regard to MT. But the field has grown enormously and there is much information available now.

 

[Write4U]

Another example of shared evolutionary origins.

Squid and human brains develop the same way despite diverging 500 million years ago
By Ben Turner

It seems that the blueprint for complex brain development remains the same, despite 500 million years of divergent evolution.

Scientists who watched nerve cells connect inside the eyes of growing squid have uncovered a remarkable secret — the cephalopods’ brains independently evolved to develop in the same way ours do.

The discovery, made using high-resolution cameras focused on the retinas of longfin squid (Doryteuthis pealeii) embryos, reveals that, in spite of 500 million years of divergent evolution, the basic blueprint for how complex brains and nervous systems evolve may be the same across a wide range of species.

cephalopods — a class of marine animals that includes octopuses, squid and cuttlefish — has long been a subject of fascination among biologists. Unlike most invertebrates, these animals possess remarkable memories; use tools to solve problems; excel at camouflage; react with curiosity, boredom or even playful malevolence to their surroundings; and can dream, if the ripples of colors that flash across their skin as they sleep are any indication.
https://www.livescience.com/baby-squid-retinas-have-vertebrate-brain-development

Why has this process remained the same in 2 otherwise completely evolutionary divergent organisms and facilitated the emergence of highly intelligent brains in both species?

Can a case be made that the growth process has not changed because both species use the very same chromosomal mitotic process? And the mechanism for mitosis is the mitotic spindle which consists of microtubules that have not changed since the emergence of Eukaryotic life and are also responsible for neural growth and function.

The circumstantial evidence keeps piling up......

 

[Write4U]

And continuing on this path;

Now, this new study, published Dec. 5, 2022 in the journal Current Biology, suggests that key parts of the formula for advanced intelligence, on Earth at least, remain the same.

Related: Octopuses may be so terrifyingly smart because they share humans' genes for intelligence

"Our conclusions were surprising because a lot of what we know about nervous system development in vertebrates has long been thought to be special to that lineage," study senior author Kristen Koenig, a molecular biologist at Harvard University, said in a statement. "By observing the fact that the process is very similar, what it suggested to us is that these two [lineages] independently evolved very large nervous systems using the same mechanisms to build them. What that suggests is that those mechanisms — those tools — the animals use during development may be important for building big nervous systems."

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/z7vrPuAYtT7kAgYt9xdiKR-1200-80.gif
A squid retina with its cell membranes marked with a fluorescent dye to make them visible. (Image credit: Kristen Koenig)

To study the squid embryos’ developing brains, the scientists used fluorescent dyes to mark a special type of stem cell called neural progenitor cells, before studying how they developed with regular, 10-minute snaps from microscope cameras. The cameras looked at the retinas, where roughly two-thirds of a squid's neural tissue is found.

Just as in vertebrates, the researchers saw the squids’ progenitor cells arrange themselves into a structure called a pseudostratified epithelium — a long, densely packed structure that forms as a crucial step in the growth of large, complex tissue. The researchers noted that the size, organization and movement of the structure's nucleus was remarkably similar to the same neural epitheliums in vertebrates; something that was once considered a unique feature that enabled back-boned animals to grow sophisticated brains and eyes.

This is not the only time that scientists have spotted cephaolopods sharing common neurological blueprints with us. Much like humans, octopuses and squid also have a large variety of microRNAs (small molecules that control how genes are expressed) found inside their neural tissue.

more..... https://www.livescience.com/baby-squid-retinas-have-vertebrate-brain-development

 

[exchemist]

Another example of shared evolutionary origins.

Squid and human brains develop the same way despite diverging 500 million years ago
By Ben Turner

It seems that the blueprint for complex brain development remains the same, despite 500 million years of divergent evolution.





Why has this process remained the same in 2 otherwise completely evolutionary divergent organisms and facilitated the emergence of highly intelligent brains in both species?

Can a case be made that the growth process has not changed because both species use the very same chromosomal mitotic process? And the mechanism for mitosis is the mitotic spindle which consists of microtubules that have not changed since the emergence of Eukaryotic life and are also responsible for neural growth and function.

No.

Hox and pax genes regulate body plans in almost all multicellular organisms are there are surprising commonalities. Research has shown that the compound eye in arthropods and the human "camera" eye both make sure of the same pax 6 gene. Very likely something similar goes on with brains.

Microtubules are important in the mechanical process of cell division. They don't do the job of genes.

 

[Write4U]

Microtubules are important in the mechanical process of cell division. They don't do the job of genes.

I agree. Microtubules are not the blueprints, they regulate the execution of the blueprints.

Microtubules, together with microfilaments and intermediate filaments, form the cell cytoskeleton. The microtubule network is recognized for its role in regulating cell growth and movement as well as key signaling events, which modulate fundamental cellular processes. Jun 3, 2014
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fonc.2014.00153/full#

When that control goes bad the result can be cancer (uncontrolled cell growth).
IOW, the body's homeostasis begins with the copying and growth of new healthy cells. Microtubules regulate this process.

Cell division helps maintain homeostasis in living things because it creates new cells that can be used for growth and repair. During mitosis, one cell creates two identical daughter cells. These cells are necessary to replace old cells that die in the organism or to repair damage to the body.
https://homework.study.com/explanat...p-maintain-homeostasis-in-living-things.html#

As noted above, homeostasis already begins at the mitotic stage, by regulating the process via electrochemical signaling. Keyword: regulated growth.

Autoregulation and repair in microtubule homeostasis

Abstract

Even in the face of damaging insults, most cells maintain stability over time through multiple homeostatic pathways, including maintenance of the microtubule cytoskeleton that is fundamental to numerous cellular processes. The dynamic instability-perpetual growth and shrinkage-is the best-known microtubule regulatory pathway, which allows rapid rebuilding of the microtubule cytoskeleton in response to internal or external cues.

Much less investigated is homeostatic regulation through availability of α-β tubulin heterodimers-microtubules' main building blocks-which influences total mass and dynamic behavior of microtubules. Finally, the most recently discovered is microtubule homeostasis through self-repair, where new GTP-bound tubulin heterodimers replace the lost ones in the microtubule lattice. In this review we try to integrate our current knowledge on how dynamic instability, regulation of tubulin mass, and self-repair work together to achieve microtubule homeostasis.
more..... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30415186/

Autoregulation of eukaryotic transcription factors

Abstract

The structures of several promoters regulating the expression of eukaryotic transcription factors have in recent years been examined. In many cases there is good evidence for autoregulation, in which a given factor binds to its own promoter and either activates or represses transcription. Autoregulation occurs in all eukaryotes and is an important component in controlling expression of basal, cell cycle specific, inducible response and cell type-specific factors. The basal factors are autoregulatory, being strictly necessary for their own expression, and as such must be epigenetically inherited.

Autoregulation of stimulus response factors typically serves to amplify cellular signals transiently and also to attenuate the response whether or not a given inducer remains. Cell cycle-specific transcription factors are positively and negatively autoregulatory, but this frequently depends on interlocking circuits among family members. Autoregulation of cell type-specific factors results in a form of cellular memory that can contribute, or define, a determined state.

Autoregulation of transcription factors provides a simple circuitry, useful in many cellular circumstances, that does not require the involvement of additional factors, which, in turn, would need to be subject to another hierarchy of regulation.

Autoregulation additionally can provide a direct means to sense and control the cellular concentration of a given factor. However, autoregulatory loops are often dependent on cellular pathways that create the circumstances under which autoregulation occurs.
more ..... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9594574/

 

[Write4U]

Daniel Dennet

 

[Write4U]

This may be of interest from a different perspective.

Intentional Systems Theory

Daniel Dennett Intentional systems theory is in the first place an analysis of the meanings of such everyday ‘mentalistic’ terms as ‘believe,’ ‘desire,’ ‘expect,’ ‘decide,’ and ‘intend,’ the terms of ‘folk psychology’ (Dennett 1971) that we use to interpret, explain, and predict the behavior of other human beings, animals, some artifacts such as robots and computers, and indeed ourselves.

In traditional parlance, we seem to be attributing minds to the things we thus interpret, and this raises a host of questions about the conditions under which a thing can be truly said to have a mind, or to have beliefs, desires and other ‘mental’ states.

According to intentional systems theory, these questions can best be answered by analyzing the logical presuppositions and methods of our attribution practices, when we adopt the intentional stance toward something.

Anything that is usefully and voluminously predictable from the intentional stance is, by definition, an intentional system. The intentional stance is the strategy of interpreting the behavior of an entity (person, animal, artifact, whatever) by treating it as if it were a rational agent who governed its ‘choice’ of ‘action’ by a ‘consideration’ of its ‘beliefs’ and ‘desires.’ The scare-quotes around all these terms draw attention to the fact that some of their standard connotations may be set aside in the interests of exploiting their central features: their role in practical reasoning, and hence in the prediction of the behavior of practical reasoners.

more.... https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/intentionalsystems.pdf

 

[James R]

What does "intentional systems theory" have to do with microtubules? Shouldn't this be a separate topic? (Mind you, I guess it's useful to have Wrtie4U's random cut-and-pastes confined mostly to one thread.)

 

[Write4U]

What does "intentional systems theory" have to do with microtubules? Shouldn't this be a separate topic? (Mind you, I guess it's useful to have Wrtie4U's random cut-and-pastes confined mostly to one thread.)

Nonono, James, The topic of consciousness is one of the most expansive topics of any science.

Roger Penrose proposes that "quantum collapse" throughout the universe produces an instant of "consciousness"
Theists believe in an eternal supernatural conscious creative agency.
Buddhists believe that Tulpas are autonomous products of mind and acquire an independent existence.
Max Tegmark proposes that consciousness emerges from specific data processing "patterns"
Bonnie Bassler demonstrated that bacteria "communicate" via "quorum sensing", a form of hive consciousness.
Anil Seth proposes that our brain experiences "controlled hallucinations, best guesses of what's out there.

I quote Daniel Bennet, who proposes that "consciousness arises from interaction of physical and cognitive processes in the brain."

Consciousness Explained is a 1991 book by the American philosopher Daniel Dennett, in which the author offers an account of how consciousness arises from the interaction of physical and cognitive processes in the brain.

Dennett describes consciousness as an account of the various calculations occurring in the brain at close to the same time. He compares consciousness to an academic paper that is being developed or edited in the hands of multiple people at one time, the "multiple drafts" theory of consciousness.[/quote]

In this analogy, "the paper" exists even though there is no single, unified paper. When people report on their inner experiences, Dennett considers their reports to be more like theorizing than like describing. These reports may be informative, he says, but a psychologist is not to take them at face value. Dennett describes several phenomena that show that perception is more limited and less reliable than we perceive it to be.

more ...... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained

And you tell me that Dennett's views are not relevant? Open your mind, please.

You presume to set boundaries on a subject that has intrigued mankind since the ability of "problem solving" is apparent in even the earliest life forms on earth.

Dennett:

In traditional parlance, we seem to be attributing minds to the things we thus interpret, and this raises a host of questions about the conditions under which a thing can be truly said to have a mind, or to have beliefs, desires and other ‘mental’ states. According to intentional systems theory, these questions can best be answered by analyzing the logical presuppositions and methods of our attribution practices, when we adopt the intentional stance toward something. Anything that is usefully and voluminously predictable from the intentional stance is, by definition, an intentional system.

It is all relevant if you look deep enough.

 

[James R]

Nonono, James, The topic of consciousness is one of the most expansive topics of any science.

My comments referred to "intentional systems theory" (whatever that might be*), not consciousness.

Roger Penrose proposes that "quantum collapse" throughout the universe produces an instant of "consciousness"

Yes, yes. He proposed (a long time ago) that this happens in microtubules. But I asked: what does this have to do with "intentional systems theory"?

Theists believe in an eternal supernatural conscious creative agency.
Buddhists believe that Tulpas are autonomous products of mind and acquire an independent existence.
Max Tegmark proposes that consciousness emerges from specific data processing "patterns"
Bonnie Bassler demonstrated that bacteria "communicate" via "quorum sensing", a form of hive consciousness.
Anil Seth proposes that our brain experiences "controlled hallucinations, best guesses of what's out there.

None of these things is relevant to the thread topic, as far as I can tell.

I quote Daniel Bennet [sic], who proposes that "consciousness arises from interaction of physical and cognitive processes in the brain."

I've read that book. Its title is over-reach, since Dennett doesn't actually explain consciousness. Well, not a full explanation, which is what you believe you have with your microtubules. I've met Dennett and I guess I'd class myself as something of a fan of his. Nevertheless...

Dennett describes consciousness as an account of the various calculations occurring in the brain at close to the same time. He compares consciousness to an academic paper that is being developed or edited in the hands of multiple people at one time, the "multiple drafts" theory of consciousness.

In this analogy, "the paper" exists even though there is no single, unified paper. When people report on their inner experiences, Dennett considers their reports to be more like theorizing than like describing. These reports may be informative, he says, but a psychologist is not to take them at face value. Dennett describes several phenomena that show that perception is more limited and less reliable than we perceive it to be.​

Yes. And so? Relevance to the current discussion?

And you tell me that Dennett's views are not relevant?

There's nothing in the quotes you have provided (or, indeed, in the entire book you reference, IIRC) that mentions microtubules. Not a single reference.

You presume to set boundaries on a subject that has intrigued mankind since the ability of "problem solving" is apparent in even the earliest life forms on earth.

No. The boundaries are set by the thread topic, which is about the question of whether consciousness is to be explained with reference to quantum processes in microtubules.

Virtually everything in your latest post is off-topic.

Dennett: [snip]

It is all relevant if you look deep enough.

*It seems to me that we can probably add "intentional systems theory" to the long list of things you quote without understanding. At least you have explained where you cut-and-pasted that term from, however. That's something. Still irrelevant to the microtubules discussion, however.

 

[C C]

This may be of interest from a different perspective.

Intentional Systems Theory


more.... https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/intentionalsystems.pdf

Dennett is an advocate of the illusionism theory (a subset of eliminativism), which many construe as a position that denies that there are phenomenal properties (qualia or sensory and thought manifestations). Or IOW contending that we have no consciousness at all, apart from outward body behavior and language-mediated cognitive activity. (One might alternatively call this stance "phenomenal nihilism".)

But it can be difficult to determine exactly what some eliminativists really are asserting due to the imprecision or overall sloppiness of consciousness nomenclature. I.e., are they claiming that perceptions and thoughts are literally devoid of qualitative content or is it instead a conceptual issue -- protesting over slotting such as mental/subjective? (Folk theory labels.)

From the standpoint of personally favoring something along the line of Russellian monism (related to the Lee Smolin quote posted earlier), I could even toy with the idea of labeling myself an eliminativist.

Except that I don't deny phenomenal properties are present in our sensations and thoughts -- I just don't classify such manifestation in general as psychological, subjective, mental, etc. Except when recruited by brain processes to create complex experiences.

Otherwise (in the context of physicalism), I'd regard their potential [primitive] presence anywhere else as receiving ontological classification, instead of the psychological kind. In that elsewhere properties of manifestation would have to do with how non-represented matter exists to itself (sans the memory-based identification of brains) rather than with the abstract description of matter (a representation) that physics deals with. Inner (intrinsic character) contrasted with outer (extrinsic character).

Charles Peirce: "Viewing a thing from the outside, considering its relations of action and reaction with other things [measurements], it appears as matter. Viewing it from the inside, looking at its immediate character as feeling, it appears as consciousness." --Man's Glassy Essence
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[Write4U]

*It seems to me that we can probably add "intentional systems theory" to the long list of things you quote without understanding. At least you have explained where you cut-and-pasted that term from, however. That's something. Still irrelevant to the microtubules discussion, however.

ALL my cut-and-paste quotes are accompanied by links to the original papers.
I should think that the term "intentional systems" is self-explanatory.

An intentional system is based on "sufficient" resources.

Biological tests of necessity and sufficiency refer to experimental methods and techniques that seek to test or provide evidence for specific kinds of causal relationships in biological systems. A necessary cause is one without which it would be impossible for an effect to occur, while a sufficient cause is one whose presence guarantees the occurrence of an effect. These concepts are largely based on but distinct from ideas of necessity and sufficiency in logic.
more..... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_tests_of_necessity_and_sufficiency

When sufficient resources are present it makes it "necessary" for an effect to occur. It creates the existence of an unconscious intentional system, but that is where evolution (via natural selection) of adaptive specialization begins.

IMO, the microtubular network and its associated connective properties, such as synapses, make the MT network an "intentional system" from which conscious sentience emerges from necessity.