• Eugen
    702
    You too, man. Nothing personal here, just that I am looking for a very specific answer. Maybe we'll get to debate your interesting view on other OPs. Have a good one!
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    You are arguing against ghosts. I read first part of your response and stopped dead because you are (clearly unintentionally) making out either myself or Penrose has made such a claim.

    Try reading/listening to his recent thought on this matter. To repeat, his position is (via Godel) that the brain does not merely ‘compute’ and that reason therefore dictates that something else is going on. When someone says they do not have an answer it does not mean they believe in fairies.
  • Nickolasgaspar
    1k
    You are arguing against ghosts. I read first part of your response and stopped dead because you are (clearly unintentionally) making out either myself or Penrose has made such a claim.I like sushi

    You will need to quote that part if you want me to accept your objection. If not, I can only assume you are trying to dodge a corner there. Please copy where I am trying to strawman you and why you think that.

    Try reading/listening to his recent thought on this matter.I like sushi
    As I told you in my initial post , I won't listen to a Biologist talking about QM, so I won't do that for Penrose when he talks about Biology.

    To repeat, his position is (via Godel) that the brain does not merely ‘compute’ and that reason therefore dictates that something else is going onI like sushi
    -So you want me to accept Penrose's statement when we have already observe quantum computation in Plants???
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-it-comes-to-photosynthesis-plants-perform-quantum-computation/

    When someone says they do not have an answer it does not mean they believe in fairies.I like sushi
    -Correct, this is why I respect Penrose's efforts but I don't waste my time on his philosophical takes while I ridicule Hameroff's pseudo scientific conclusions.
  • jgill
    3.5k
    THIS is the only thing of substance on this thread IMO. Penrose deserves praise for his contributions to physics and math, but as a philosopher I'm not so sure. For example, his notion that complex numbers are fundamental in QM seems a stretch - though they certainly facilitate the wave equations.
  • Metamorphosis
    16
    The conversation like everything in the universe has evolved... But it still seems relevant to the original thread
  • Metamorphosis
    16
    Bert you seem determined to have a word serve as a magical placeholder

    First it was consciousness and now it is experience... Those are just words... Life is a complex evolving chemical process...

    Zygote doesn't have consciousness, and it doesn't have experience, but it's part of the continuum of life on this planet...

    But even life doesn't have any clear edges as they will always be boundary conditions that are beyond any clear definition...

    We get a better understanding of the world without muddying the waters the way you are by overcomplicating things...
  • Metamorphosis
    16
    What about moment before conception, when it's sperm and egg....
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    I honestly do not see this going anywhere so I will decline. Bye
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    Using QM to describe biological phenomena is not wise or sufficient. We've already identified mechanisms that allow the brain to be aware and able to introduce content in a conscious state. Sure, a Quantum mechanism can have a role in the process (like in Photosynthesis or Navigation of Birds) but it would be ignorant and irrational to assume that quantum elements can be carriers of High Level features in an emergent biological phenomenon. All "spooky" actions in QM act on the Kinetic characteristics of particles....so I don't know how one can justify that leap.Nickolasgaspar

    For the sake of it. There you go. Neither myself nor Penrose makes any such claim. His point was - to repeat again - that what the brain does is more than mere computations (authority Godel).

    I literally have nothing more to say and have said nothing more than this (three times now I think?).
  • Nickolasgaspar
    1k
    For the sake of it. There you go. Neither myself nor Penrose makes any such claim. His point was - to repeat again - that what the brain does is more than mere computations (authority Godel).I like sushi
    -How such a generalization can ever be helpful in figuring out what the brain does?? My motor bike does more than taking me to my work and back....does that provide any information about my additional activities with it??
    I mean if someone wonders how a "deepity" sounds...its right there!
    So we can agree that neither Hameroff or anyone else can use Penrose's ideas to say anything about our brains functions and emergent properties.
    Can we agree that the best way to learn anything about the brain is by studying neuroscience?
    So here is the important question: Why does this thread exists when neither you or the author of the thread think much about Penrose /Hameroff's ideas?
    I am seriously puzzled....
    Btw I never accused you for saying anything of the above. My critique on Penrose is legit. He is a physicist and without an updated knowledge he tries to say what brain does or doesn't.(or does more).
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    He was not suggesting any mechanism only that something is happening that is not computational. He says nothing about biological processes because that isn’t his field. His field is very much about mathematics, logic and theoretical physics.

    Anyway, bored now. This is going nowhere fast.
  • Nickolasgaspar
    1k
    Maybe you don't really know what the Orch OR theory states.The core claim is that consciousness originates at a quantum level. Computational or not computational only defines a different characteristic. So the problem of Penrose's idea if far more serious than that.
    Please stop hiding behind that word...this is NOT the main or single claim of the theory.
    Check the references in the Wikipedia page. read the abstract , it will help you understand my objection.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction
  • invicta
    595
    I don’t think we can know the nature of Proto/consciousness that Penrose attests to. It’s a wild speculation for sure but we may never know the relation of proto consciousness to our consciousness.

    If this consciousness is in fact pure energy unrelated to matter then the relation of it to matter remains a ripe area for scientific study.

    Any block or unit of matter has energy in it but it’s contained in matter such as a log of wood.

    To use the log of wood metaphor burning it releases its contained energy and entropy which after burning we’Re unable to collect the fire that was unleashed from.

    To state that there is a proto/consciousness seems to me linguistically redundant at best…it would be better to refer to it as pure awareness and interaction with matter which is also energy as per Einstein
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    Not interested. I said one thing and that is all. Penrose states that the process in non-computational. He proposed that there is a QM mechanism in the brain and also stated that he saw no means of QM happening in the brain. The End (really).
  • Nickolasgaspar
    1k
    Cherry picking is a fallacy. You just hide behind a negative which says nothing about his theory's claims.
    He proposed that there is a QM mechanism in the brain and also stated that he saw no means of QM happening in the brain.I like sushi
    QM mechanisms are in every Biological System....there is this thing called Quantum Biology, the study of these phenomena.
    I rest my case.
  • Nickolasgaspar
    1k

    btw when you talk to Penrose, give him this paper.

    Our Brains Use Quantum Computation
    https://neurosciencenews.com/brain-quantum-computing-21695/
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