Free will, Brain dominance, Biosystemic coherence

Roger Penrose's theory of quantum microwave vibrations within the microtubules or axions of the brain was proven twice last year and the brain is not classical, but quantum mechanical. Technically it resembles a distributed gain amplifier incorporating Bayesian probabilities vanishing into indeterminacy.

Its analog logic and, for example, on the most fundamental level of their organization the mind can substitute for the brain's inadequacies and malfunctions and vice versa because a mind without a brain and a brain without a mind are a contradiction. They are the particle-wave duality.

Quoting wuliheron

Roger Penrose's theory of quantum microwave vibrations within the microtubules or axions of the brain was proven twice last year and the brain is not classical, but quantum mechanical

Do you have the references for that?

Surely, all electrons have Planck scale spin properties, and at the quantum level of reality perception, these properties are not without effects on axons networks coherence (no coherence=inefficient randomness). The question here is to distinguish between “having consciousness of reality as a meta phenomenon acting on brain activity” and it’s contrary, “having axons biochemical and electro-chemical reactions to senses controlling what we perceived and the way we react.”

Avanti

"Taking a modern pan–psychist view in which protoconscious experience and Platonic values are embedded in Planck–scale spin networks, the Orch OR model portrays consciousness as brain activities linked to fundamental ripples in spacetime geometry."
Quantum computation in brain microtubules? The Penrose–Hameroff ‘Orch OR‘ model of consciousness: http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/356/1743/1869.short

Reply to tom I have a free standing offer to teach anyone how to use a dictionary and search engine.

http://phys.org/news/2014-01-discovery-quantum-vibrations-microtubules-corroborates.html

I think Penrose may have missed the mark with the details of his theory, but within months two experiments confirmed these microwave vibrations are quantum mechanical in nature and produce some brainwaves and memories.

It's analog logic which almost nobody is taught because it has to be as equally artistic as it is rigorous and isn't as amenable to either classical logic or error correction.

Quoting wuliheron

I have a free standing offer to teach anyone how to use a dictionary and search engine

Well, you made the claim, it's not unreasonable to ask you to supply the link to the evidence. You spoke of 'proof' but it's a long way from that. But it's very interesting. Here's a useful discussion about it:

http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/discovery-of-quantum-vibrations-in-microtubules-inside-brain-neurons-supports-controversial-theory.2003/page-2

Reply to mcdoodle

Muddy Waters

The best of man is like muddy waters,
Which benefits all living things, contending with none.
Flowing into those lowly places others disdain,
Where it burbles....
So, a true ignoramus,
Dwells, within bullshit,
Thinks inside deep bullshit,
Simply offers impartial bullshit.
Trusting others to own their personal bullshit,
And, to avoid pointless bullshit with a chuckle.

Reply to mcdoodle It does not even begin to "prove" that the brain is quantum mechanical, let alone that even incidental quantum processes exist.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064513001619

Chat rooms and one paper arguing against them are not proof against two experimental results showing empirical evidence of quantum mechanics in the brain. Either you have something that is a serious challenge to the evidence they have already presented or you're just blowing it out the rear. There is also evidence of quantum mechanics at work in more than one type of photosynthesis and bird navigation. Deny it all you want, but the growing body of evidence is that the theorists have been correct for over half a century that quantum mechanics are not confined to the subatomic and its not merely an issue of scale.

In a paradox of existence everything would organize around what's missing from this picture, or what is low in entropy. The human brain taping into quantum mechanics would mean it is capable of attaining the lowest possible energy state of the complete system which is consistent with other findings within the last twenty years or so. In physics, anything over ten years old is considered ancient history and if Penrose's vindication were overturned it would be huge news.

Quoting wuliheron

Chat rooms and one paper arguing against them are not proof against two experimental results showing empirical evidence of quantum mechanics in the brain. Either you have something that is a serious challenge to the evidence they have already presented or you're just blowing it out the rear. There is also evidence of quantum mechanics at work in more than one type of photosynthesis and bird navigation. Deny it all you want, but the growing body of evidence is that the theorists have been correct for over half a century that quantum mechanics are not confined to the subatomic and its not merely an issue of scale.

They don't have any evidence that brain processes involve quantum coherence.

But yes, quantum mechanics is a universal theory.

Reply to Alain Avanti

My current thinking is that our brain (and body) is a tool for growing the higher consciousness which we are all connected to.

I also think our conscience is the nudge we get when we are going against the flow of the higher consciousness (a bit like how we nudge our children when they go down the wrong road). So I guess our brain serves conscience.

Our brain can still choose to ignore conscience though, so we have free will.

Reply to tom Argue all you want, but there is empirical evidence from more than one science with Quantum Cognition already having established itself. The question is not whether it exists, but how it operates physically and mentally and modern physics has just acquired the technology to explore such possibilities in earnest. The brain has turned out to possess a scalar analog architecture which displays no loyalty whatsoever to classical causal logic and every inclination to rely upon quantum mechanics instead for greater efficiency which can't be interpreted as classical.

The same is appearing to be true in preliminary examinations of proteins which, it turns out, rely upon ringing like a bell in order to expedite folding faster and, thus, displaying their particle-wave duality. It should also turn out to be much same with the mitochondria creating energy for the body. These kinds of findings of greater efficiency than classical physics can account for should eventually describe everything as revolving around quantum mechanics as the only way to produce the lowest possible energy state.

Quoting wuliheron

Argue all you want, but there is empirical evidence from more than one science with Quantum Cognition already having established itself.

Please provide links to the peer-reviewed literature substantiating your claim.

Reply to tom

Again, if you can't use a search engine or a dictionary I give free lessons.

Reply to wuliheron

I charge for reading comprehension and basic physics lessons.

Reply to bassplayer Possibly what can be conceived as the cosmic consciousness, that is to say the organization of energy (as represented by the strings theory) spontaneously emerging from quantum vacuum: absolute nothing [to] Big Bang [to] inflation [to] quarks and other particles [to] hydrogen [to] … complex nucleus (elements) [to] organic complexes … and finally to the building of organisms … intelligence … and consciousness.

However, the metaphysical (and scientific) problem is to determine if our capacity to “know” what we’re doing (well … maybe this capacity is very limited) is acting on our choices (free will), or, if it is limited to explain what our brain as a survival oriented organic system is doing, this with no effect on its behavior (no free will).

Reply to Alain Avanti

What if consciousness has always been there? i.e. there is no such such thing as nothing (or total vacuum). Maybe everything has come from that cosmic/higher consciousness (which is the reverse of your first paragraph).

Regarding your second paragraph. Maybe the higher consciousness has the same problem as a human parent. Do you program the child to do everything you want, or give the child free reign and learn from them?

As a human parent, I can categorically say I've learnt a lot from my children.

What if consciousness can't ultimately be identified....
What if it is merely the continuing evolution of the Big Bang?
What if its just impossible to see the back of your own head clearly?

Brain (biochemical and systemic organic) and subconscious dominance over consciousness is amongst the most fundamental limits to human evolution. Is that what modern neuroscience is telling us?

Quoting wuliheron

?tom I have a free standing offer to teach anyone how to use a dictionary and search engine.

http://phys.org/news/2014-01-discovery-quantum-vibrations-microtubules-corroborates.html

3 problems:

-I don't know enough about what you know to be confident that what you say is true. This is not your fault--it's just a fact.

-Electrical waves in the brain have to be generated somewhere, and it is nice to know where those somewheres are. Whether it is a "quantum vibration" or not, and what that means in the context of consciousness is not a quick dictionary / Google search away.

Sentences like

Quoting wuliheron

The brain has turned out to possess a scalar analog architecture which displays no loyalty whatsoever to classical causal logic and every inclination to rely upon quantum mechanics instead for greater efficiency which can't be interpreted as classical.

and

Quoting wuliheron

... proteins which... rely upon ringing like a bell in order to expedite folding faster and, thus, displaying their particle-wave duality.

are just not readily comprehended or integrated into a sensible conclusion--by me. I might be too stupid to understand it, and I might be the only person here who doesn't get it, but I doubt it. Quantum physics isn't my field, and neither is quantum microtubular generation of consciousness.

I have been around long to enough to know scientists are perfectly capable of merrily babbling away about their favorite ideas without being well grounded. Proper scientific terminology can be turned into a jabberwocky.

None of this is your fault. Where deficiency enters in is when the person making a case fails to find language that connects with the audience.

Donald Hoffman is a game theory specialist who spent a decade studying all the neurological evidence and running one computer simulation after another only to conclude that if the human mind and brain had ever remotely resembled reality we would have become extinct as a species. Reality is analog whether classical logic says it is or not and an analog brain is a type of computer that produces analogs or patterns of what it is modeling rather than obeying classical logic. You can claim ignorance on the subject, but this is a fundamental fact of neurology that has been known for a long time. The remaining issue to be proven just yet is how scalar the architecture happens to be, but its only a question of time.

The implication is that the brain is more fundamentally a self-organizing system like a coral or a bee hive or whatever and only incidentally resembles a computer. Like an abacus it means its input and output can be the same as we occupy the lowest possible energy state of the system. The same should hold up for all the different parts of the body which can be viewed as resembling one another fundamentally because everything would resemble everything else to some degree. The fractal nature of everything explains why every single sell organism operates by quorum sensing and countless other issues with the remaining question being how do all these fractals fit together in everything to produce the Big Picture.