Pure Consciousness?

Is the mind the same as the body? What is consciousness? Can machines have it?

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Ginkgo
Posts: 2657
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Re: Pure Consciousness?

Post by Ginkgo »

Greylorn Ell wrote:
Ginkgo wrote:
Greylorn Ell wrote:
Yes re: the thesis. The Penrose-edited boat-anchor of a book, "Consciousness and the Universe," leads with Stuart Hameroff's presentation. Moreover, I've discussed his ideas with a mathematician friend who has studied the same source. Our conclusion is that the Hameroff-Penrose model of consciousness does not work.
You are probably referring to the "too warm. too noisy and too wet" criticism leveled at Hameroff. This was a criticism lead by a group of Australian scientists that were particularly critical of Hameroff idea that microtubules could carry out a a quantum function in such an environment. So, yes one of the criticism was with the maths.

At the time Hameroff took the criticism on board and actively worked toward resolving some of the problems. Other researches became interested as well. Hameroff's theory is a scientific theory so it can subjected to the scientific method. Time will tell if the theory can be confirmed or rejected based on the the evidence.
I wasn't aware of that criticism, and appreciate the information. It would not be a criticism of mine, since I have a different take on QM than most.

Scientists have been trying to figure out how photosynthesis works for a long time. The last I read, a few were pursuing QM effects as a way to explain some odd chemical activity that doesn't quite fit classical chemical models. I don't have a reference to that research, but if it turns out that plant-leaves use quantum trickery to drive biochemical processes with photons, objections to biological QM based upon temperature and humidity seem irrelevant.
Ginkgo wrote:
Greylorn Ell wrote: Any theory that confines consciousness to the human brain is incorrect, because there are plenty of well documented instances of OOB (Out of Body) experiences. (e.g: Pam Reynolds' surgery.) "Ghosts" are real. I once owned a house occupied by one, a child who had found his only release from pain, and who had died there. He was a friendly spook who had prevented intrusions into my home on several occasions, but when I learned of his reality I was compelled to help him leave and get on with his pursuit of consciousness in another body.

Of course that is an easily dismissible personal anecdote, so dismiss it. Nonetheless if you are curious about reality, peruse other books on the subject of OOBs. There are several.

May I also recommend extended data-gathering in the area of parapsychology? Telepathy works. So does telekinesis. The "dog whisperer" manages unruly beasts with the power of mind, while distracting viewers with words that dogs do not understand.
Yes, I am in to that sort of stuff myself.
I'm delighted to learn that. Several questions, which may be too personal for a reply.

1. Does your curiosity stem from personal experience (as does mine) or theoretical info?

2. Any relationship between paranormal experience and your philosophical curiosity?

3. What are your thoughts about my argument that, given the reality of psychic phenomena, any model of the mind that confines it to the brain is obviously faulty?

Ginkgo wrote:
Greylorn Ell wrote:
Lest I forget, a neurological experiment performed by Charles Gray et.al. a few decades back showed clear evidence that data within the brain could be transmitted from one part of the brain to another without neural connections. The H-P model does not account for that.


That is correct, expect quantum information using microtubules is not transferred via neural connections.
I learned about Gray's experiment because I was searching not for quantum effects in the brain, but for wave effects. Beon Theory requires some kind of wave model of information/energy transfer, and it would seem that such a model would also help account for parapsychological effects.
Ginkgo wrote:
Greylorn Ell wrote: Then move on to the extensive evidence for reincarnation. It will show you that there is an essential component of mind, memory included, that cannot be accounted for by any theory that declares the human brain to be the entire mechanism of mind.

I am certain that both Penrose and Hameroff know this, so am puzzled by their development of a theory that fails to account for it.
This is because it is really two theories in one. Firstly, there is the Penrose-Hameroff Orch-OR model and there is the Hameroff metaphysical theory that is an extension of the Orch-OR. Penrose is firstly scientist and a mathematician, so as far as he is concerned consciousness occurs within the brain. Hameroff, being a scientist and a metaphysician takes it a step further and claims the information model of the Och-OR is also applicable to the micro universe as well. So such things as spirits and OBE are part of Hameroff's theory of consciousness. Hameroff often has to explain this point of difference.
Thank you for the insights. You make sense.

Where did you learn so much about Hameroff?
The answer to your three questions:

(1) Theoretical

(2) yes

(3) yes

My only knowledge of Hameroff is via the interweb.

I have discussed consciousness with David Chalmers.

Consciousness has only become an interest much later in life.
Ginkgo
Posts: 2657
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2012 2:47 pm

Re: Pure Consciousness?

Post by Ginkgo »

Blaggard wrote:
No it is a hypothesis, Hammeroff has never had anything independently tested in experiment let alone done any experiments himself, or approached peer review in like manner. It's still at the hypothesis stage, it's also widely dismissed by anyone in science because of the limitations of quantum coherency, but since I said that before there is no point in waxing lyrical on it.

Now I think the idea has legs don't get me wrong, in fact I actually like it, but let's call a spade a spade.

It's great when you propose it as philosophy, and why not indeed, but when you propose it as a science theory it is erroneous.


Blags, can you outline your arguments for this.
Blaggard
Posts: 2246
Joined: Fri Jan 10, 2014 9:17 pm

Re: Pure Consciousness?

Post by Blaggard »

Already have why bother doing so again only to be ignored. Waste of my time.

Fuck that for a game of soldiers, I get it I am not allowed. Harsh but such is life.

Since I am not a child though I suggest you start on page 11/12 and read forward. I would also suggest you read certain threads on physics in the science forum too, where I explained it, I can only assume you didn't read them, which is no ones fault not even the Romans. Suffice to say it's not happening, and I can't summon up the courage or the strength to try again to explain something I already explained in depth that was ignored for the 4th time. No offence but, the reason I didn't post a long winded explanation on this thread was because I already did on countless others posted on. I thought you might have read them, I clearly was mistaken. So be it.

To save you some time though:

I posted this before but meh, I can't expect you you to know that.
Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff
Main article: Orchestrated objective reduction
Question book-new.svg
This section relies on references to primary sources. Please add references to secondary or tertiary sources. (February 2012)

Theoretical physicist Roger Penrose and anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff collaborated to produce the theory known as Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) Penrose and Hameroff initially developed their ideas separately, and only later collaborated to produce Orch-OR in the early 1990s. The theory was reviewed and updated by the original authors in late 2013.[8]

Penrose's controversial argument began from Gödel's incompleteness theorems. In his first book on consciousness, The Emperor's New Mind (1989), he argued that while a formal proof system cannot prove its own inconsistency, Gödel-unprovable results are provable by human mathematicians. He took this disparity to mean that human mathematicians are not describable as formal proof systems, and are not therefore running a computable algorithm.

Penrose determined that wave function collapse was the only possible physical basis for a non-computable process. Dissatisfied with its randomness, Penrose proposed a new form of wave function collapse that occurred in isolation, called objective reduction. He suggested that each quantum superposition has its own piece of spacetime curvature, and when these become separated by more than one Planck length, they become unstable and collapse. Penrose suggested that objective reduction represented neither randomness nor algorithmic processing, but instead a non-computable influence in spacetime geometry from which mathematical understanding and, by later extension, consciousness derived.

Originally, Penrose lacked a detailed proposal for how quantum processing could be implemented in the brain. However, Hameroff read Penrose's work, and suggested that microtubules would be suitable candidates.

Microtubules are composed of tubulin protein dimer subunits. The tubulin dimers each have hydrophobic pockets that are 8 nm apart, and which may contain delocalised pi electrons. Tubulins have other smaller non-polar regions that contain pi electron-rich indole rings separated by only about 2 nm. Hameroff proposes that these electrons are close enough to become quantum entangled.[9] Hameroff originally suggested the tubulin-subunit electrons would form a Bose–Einstein condensate, but this was discredited.[10] He then proposed a Frohlich condensate, a hypothetical coherent oscillation of dipolar molecules. However, this too has been experimentally discredited.[11]

Furthermore, he proposed that condensates in one neuron could extend to many others via gap junctions between neurons, thus forming a macroscopic quantum feature across an extended area of the brain. When the wave function of this extended condensate collapsed, it was suggested to non-computationally access mathematical understanding and ultimately conscious experience, that are hypothetically embedded in the geometry of spacetime.

However, Orch-OR made numerous false biological predictions, and is considered to be an extremely poor model of brain physiology. The proposed predominance of 'A' lattice microtubules, more suitable for information processing, was falsified by Kikkawa et al.,[12][13] who showed that all in vivo microtubules have a 'B' lattice and a seam. The proposed existence of gap junctions between neurons and glial cells was also falsified.[14] Orch-OR predicted that microtubule coherence reaches the synapses via dendritic lamellar bodies (DLBs), however De Zeeuw et al. proved this impossible,[15] by showing that DLBs are located micrometers away from gap junctions.[16]

In January 2014, Hameroff and Penrose announced that the discovery of quantum vibrations in microtubules by Anirban Bandyopadhyay of the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan in March 2013[17][18] confirms the hypothesis of the Orch-OR theory.[19]
Umezawa, Vitiello, Freeman, Kak

Hiroomi Umezawa and collaborators proposed a quantum field theory of memory storage. Giuseppe Vitiello and Walter Freeman have proposed a dialog model of the mind, where this dialog takes place between the classical and the quantum parts of the brain.[20][21] Quantum field theory models of brain dynamics are fundamentally different from the Penrose-Hameroff theory. Subhash Kak has proposed that the physical substratum to neural networks has a quantum basis,[22] but he also points out that the quantum mind will still have machine-like limitations.[23] He points to a role for quantum theory in the distinction between machine intelligence and biological intelligence.[24][25]
Henry Stapp

Henry Stapp favors the idea that quantum waves are reduced only when they interact with consciousness. He argues from the Orthodox Quantum Mechanics of John von Neumann that the quantum state collapses when the observer selects one among the alternative quantum possibilities as a basis for future action. The collapse, therefore, takes place in the expectation that the observer associated with the state.

His theory of how mind may interact with matter via quantum processes in the brain differs from that of Penrose and Hameroff.[26]
Criticism by Max Tegmark

The main argument against the quantum mind proposition is that quantum states in the brain would decohere before they reached a spatial or temporal scale at which they could be useful for neural processing. This argument was elaborated by the physicist, Max Tegmark. Based on his calculations, Tegmark concluded that quantum systems in the brain decohere at sub-picosecond timescales commonly assumed to be too short to control brain function.[27][28]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind

^ Tegmark, M. (2000). "Importance of quantum decoherence in brain processes". Physical Review E 61 (4): 4194–4206. arXiv:quant-ph/9907009. Bibcode:2000PhRvE..61.4194T. doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.61.4194.

I know I am a glutton for punishment, I doubt anyone is going to read anything I post for the 6th time either, but one can but live in hope...

This is also a relevant source:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 085105.htm

However bear in mind, most if not all of the claims in this if not old article, not current article, have been debunked by the above wiki article in scientific experiments which are of course the reason why I got permanently banned from a physics forum for posting the original papers as I mentioned way back on page 12 I think it was. ;)

And one should also note the papers by those who proposed the theories linked there too have also been firmly ciriticised and refuted by others in the field:

Journal References:

Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose. Consciousness in the universe: A review of the ‘Orch OR’ theory. Physics of Life Reviews, 2013 DOI: 10.1016/j.plrev.2013.08.002
Stuart Hameroff, MD, and Roger Penrose. Reply to criticism of the ‘Orch OR qubit’–‘Orchestrated objective reduction’ is scientifically justified. Physics of Life Reviews, 2013 DOI: 10.1016/j.plrev.2013.11.00
Stuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose. Consciousness in the universe. Physics of Life Reviews, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.plrev.2013.08.002

If nothing else at least you have plenty of reading to do. ;)

It's not a controversial theory by default it is so for one reason and one reason alone, it has no experimental evidence, and experiments that have been done have firmly disproved a lot of the ideas Penrose and Hammeroff came up with. Not that I think the idea is wrong in fact I was once a strong supporter of it, despite my perma bans from some physics forums. I have just learnt that there are more ways to bake a cake since then, and become more realistic in my older age. Generally that means I wish it was true, but if wishes were fishes the poor would not starve... ;)
jackles
Posts: 1553
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2013 10:40 pm

Re: Pure Consciousness?

Post by jackles »

well thanks for that blags.consciousness has to be indistinguishable to the event that is to say unlike energy the state before and after an event is inditingiushable or not time related or event related.consciousness is unmoving in all respects.why because it aint energy.
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