Qualia and Quantum Mechanics
Hey guys, I'd like to get your opinions on a possible application of quantum mechanics in explaining subjective experience. This theory is drawn from a book that came out recently, and it seems convincing to me, but introspection is a slippery, highly deceptive topic. Tell me if you think these ideas make intuitive sense, or if you disagree in some way, it would be interesting to get an elaboration of why.
Up to this point, it has seemed that quantum phenomena are exceedingly sensitive to incoming energy, so even the slightest increase in entropy can produce decoherence, converting a system into the more familiar form of self-contained jostling particles combining and separating at rates determined by three-dimensional structure. Hypothesizing claims quantum biology is in need of a thermodynamic buffer shielding its actions from even most molecular-scale forces, which directs the search for its presence to very specific chemical components of even large macromolecules, particularly anywhere that individual protons, electrons or other charged particles are relatively free to shift across some kind of gap, such as between atoms.
One possible instance of a biologically active quantum occurrence is the fast triplet reaction. An electron in an outer atomic orbital paired with its partner of opposite spin is so to speak knocked or drawn out of position into another atom due to the peculiar orientation of these atoms to each other. Even after this happens, the newly positioned electron remains quantum entangled with its former mate, and electromagnetic force is also exerted on it by its new partner, in which state it is in a superposition putting it into a statistical percentage of same spin with each, a highly unstable formation that can be driven out of its wavering tension by tiny quantities of energy. When this type of reaction exists upstream of biochemical pathways in key cells, its effects might be magnified by the molecular flow it instigates, engendering an exquisite sensitivity of organic processes to the environment.
A fast triplet reaction was found by molecular biologists at a particular site in a blue light sensitive pigment called cryptochrome present throughout the animal kingdom within many different cell types and body parts, and was almost simultaneously identified in the eyes of European robins and the antennae of the monarch butterfly based on collaboration with field biologists. These two instances came to the heightened attention of biochemists because it was apparent that the cryptochrome reaction is sensitive enough to respond to the earth’s magnetic field, a vanishingly small energy source, supplying a possible perceptual means of managing long range migrations. Through a fortunate set of events the camps joined forces, discussing each other’s research projects and pinning down cryptochrome as a likely candidate for stimulating magnetically-induced qualia in transient species. Cryptochrome and similar molecules in additional organs also have a plausible adaptive role for making organisms sensitive to the magnetic charge of approaching storm fronts and other natural events, allowing them as everyone notices to find shelter far in advance. Statistical math, conceptual modeling and chemistry experiments with a bioactive molecule have, along with ongoing fact-gathering about the natural world and interdisciplinary efforts, set modeling on course for novel mechanistic understanding down to the atomic level of some core perceptual phenomena previously untouched by science.
Also in the initiatory theoretical stages is quantum theory’s promise for clarifying the workings of human consciousness. It has been known for decades that nerve cells function by voltage conductance down their length as ions are transported through the axon's cell membrane in a directional sequence of ion channels, stimulating the release of neurotransmitters into the synaptic clefts between axon terminals and dendrites as well as between dendrites, where neurons intersect. A well-founded model, but as in the case of enzyme activity, the process happens too fast to be explained in the standard way, as spherical particles incrementally ferried through a three-dimensional rate bottleneck. It is also unclear how qualia with their subjectively experienced causal effects can exist at all in association with averred bare, traditional chemistry, resulting in a persistently advocated dichotomy of mind and matter in our modeling of the central nervous system.
Accounts have ranged all the way from consciousness as an accidental byproduct of the brain, supervenient on matter, with consciousness’ apparent causality being an illusion, at most a certainty-bolstering epiphenomenon of perceived free will, to awareness as fundamental to the universe and matter nestled within it, the corporeal world essentially being a perception. Philosopher Rene Descartes proposed the pineal gland as the point of intersection between mental and material, physicist Roger Penrose offered that gap junctions connecting brain cells might abet a synthesizing mechanism of qualia production, but contemporary quantum biology presages a superior model, though tests are still forthcoming.
Those versed in quantum mechanics find it likely that the extremely rapid rate of turnover in the ion flow cycle of nerve cells necessitates that these ions take the form of a tunneling wavicle as they enter and leave cells through transport channels. Rather than being seized as localized mass by some kind of membrane machinery and moved or coaxed with electromagnetic charge through a medium of three dimensions, they probably undergo higher-dimensional, near instantaneous tunneling into and out of the cell, along with a complementary wavicle afflux down longitudinal transport chains internal to the axon that bust through the rate barriers of diffusion. Along the length of the axon's interior, diffusion alone between ion transport nodes would require fourteen days, yet transduction of the total signal comes to pass in milliseconds, so obviously something much more potent is at work.
In this quantum state, ionic motion may be acutely responsive to minute inputs of energy, just as in the fast triplet reaction, and the electromagnetic field of the brain as registered by EEG machines may be such an energy source. If brain waves linked to states of awareness can in fact impact ion channels and perhaps additional quantum-scale facets of the biochemistry of brain and nervous system, this may go a long way towards explaining how qualia seem both supervenient and causal, with subjective consciousness being describable or at least much more predictable in terms of energy field/quantum mechanical interactions. Maybe we would gain the ability to say what something such as ‘color perception’ or ‘stream of consciousness’ is at the cellular level, and the dubious view that professes a paucity of function for the pervasive phenomenon of qualia would be overcome.
What do you guys think of this?
Up to this point, it has seemed that quantum phenomena are exceedingly sensitive to incoming energy, so even the slightest increase in entropy can produce decoherence, converting a system into the more familiar form of self-contained jostling particles combining and separating at rates determined by three-dimensional structure. Hypothesizing claims quantum biology is in need of a thermodynamic buffer shielding its actions from even most molecular-scale forces, which directs the search for its presence to very specific chemical components of even large macromolecules, particularly anywhere that individual protons, electrons or other charged particles are relatively free to shift across some kind of gap, such as between atoms.
One possible instance of a biologically active quantum occurrence is the fast triplet reaction. An electron in an outer atomic orbital paired with its partner of opposite spin is so to speak knocked or drawn out of position into another atom due to the peculiar orientation of these atoms to each other. Even after this happens, the newly positioned electron remains quantum entangled with its former mate, and electromagnetic force is also exerted on it by its new partner, in which state it is in a superposition putting it into a statistical percentage of same spin with each, a highly unstable formation that can be driven out of its wavering tension by tiny quantities of energy. When this type of reaction exists upstream of biochemical pathways in key cells, its effects might be magnified by the molecular flow it instigates, engendering an exquisite sensitivity of organic processes to the environment.
A fast triplet reaction was found by molecular biologists at a particular site in a blue light sensitive pigment called cryptochrome present throughout the animal kingdom within many different cell types and body parts, and was almost simultaneously identified in the eyes of European robins and the antennae of the monarch butterfly based on collaboration with field biologists. These two instances came to the heightened attention of biochemists because it was apparent that the cryptochrome reaction is sensitive enough to respond to the earth’s magnetic field, a vanishingly small energy source, supplying a possible perceptual means of managing long range migrations. Through a fortunate set of events the camps joined forces, discussing each other’s research projects and pinning down cryptochrome as a likely candidate for stimulating magnetically-induced qualia in transient species. Cryptochrome and similar molecules in additional organs also have a plausible adaptive role for making organisms sensitive to the magnetic charge of approaching storm fronts and other natural events, allowing them as everyone notices to find shelter far in advance. Statistical math, conceptual modeling and chemistry experiments with a bioactive molecule have, along with ongoing fact-gathering about the natural world and interdisciplinary efforts, set modeling on course for novel mechanistic understanding down to the atomic level of some core perceptual phenomena previously untouched by science.
Also in the initiatory theoretical stages is quantum theory’s promise for clarifying the workings of human consciousness. It has been known for decades that nerve cells function by voltage conductance down their length as ions are transported through the axon's cell membrane in a directional sequence of ion channels, stimulating the release of neurotransmitters into the synaptic clefts between axon terminals and dendrites as well as between dendrites, where neurons intersect. A well-founded model, but as in the case of enzyme activity, the process happens too fast to be explained in the standard way, as spherical particles incrementally ferried through a three-dimensional rate bottleneck. It is also unclear how qualia with their subjectively experienced causal effects can exist at all in association with averred bare, traditional chemistry, resulting in a persistently advocated dichotomy of mind and matter in our modeling of the central nervous system.
Accounts have ranged all the way from consciousness as an accidental byproduct of the brain, supervenient on matter, with consciousness’ apparent causality being an illusion, at most a certainty-bolstering epiphenomenon of perceived free will, to awareness as fundamental to the universe and matter nestled within it, the corporeal world essentially being a perception. Philosopher Rene Descartes proposed the pineal gland as the point of intersection between mental and material, physicist Roger Penrose offered that gap junctions connecting brain cells might abet a synthesizing mechanism of qualia production, but contemporary quantum biology presages a superior model, though tests are still forthcoming.
Those versed in quantum mechanics find it likely that the extremely rapid rate of turnover in the ion flow cycle of nerve cells necessitates that these ions take the form of a tunneling wavicle as they enter and leave cells through transport channels. Rather than being seized as localized mass by some kind of membrane machinery and moved or coaxed with electromagnetic charge through a medium of three dimensions, they probably undergo higher-dimensional, near instantaneous tunneling into and out of the cell, along with a complementary wavicle afflux down longitudinal transport chains internal to the axon that bust through the rate barriers of diffusion. Along the length of the axon's interior, diffusion alone between ion transport nodes would require fourteen days, yet transduction of the total signal comes to pass in milliseconds, so obviously something much more potent is at work.
In this quantum state, ionic motion may be acutely responsive to minute inputs of energy, just as in the fast triplet reaction, and the electromagnetic field of the brain as registered by EEG machines may be such an energy source. If brain waves linked to states of awareness can in fact impact ion channels and perhaps additional quantum-scale facets of the biochemistry of brain and nervous system, this may go a long way towards explaining how qualia seem both supervenient and causal, with subjective consciousness being describable or at least much more predictable in terms of energy field/quantum mechanical interactions. Maybe we would gain the ability to say what something such as ‘color perception’ or ‘stream of consciousness’ is at the cellular level, and the dubious view that professes a paucity of function for the pervasive phenomenon of qualia would be overcome.
What do you guys think of this?
Comments (55)
Hi, Enrique. What book is that?
Quoting Enrique
I'm not qualified to comment on the quantum physics of "fast triplets". But with my general understanding of the quantum realm, I still don't see the connection between "sensitivity of organic processes to the environment" and consciousness of those sensations. Navigating birds may use "triplets" to sense the magnetic field as a pulling force, but the question remains whether they are consciously aware of the field, or of its significance as a navigation aid. It could be like a horse going in the direction the bridle is pulled, without awareness of where or why the rider wants to go that way.
Quoting Enrique
My own thesis of Enformationism postulates that raw information (energy), but not processed information (consciousness), is fundamental to the universe. Yet the transformation from meaningless pushes and pulls to meaningful ideas is still the "hard problem". All I can say is that the mental "process" may convert impersonal data into subjective significance, in the sense that the brain "computes" meaning from mathematics (data). The mechanics of that "act or process of enformation" are beyond me.
Quoting Enrique
Aye. There's the rub. Terrance Deacon, in Incomplete Nature, also explores possible quantum effects -- as opposed to ordinary macro thermodynamics -- on the interpretation of "thingness" (tokens) into "aboutness" (meaning). But like me, he is left to guess about the details of that strange form of "causation". Imagining the universe and brain as quantum computers may be a step in the right direction, but there is still a dark "dichotomy" between objective reality and subjective experience. Whitehead's "prehension" may be somehow connected to "comprehension" via Entanglement, but I don't know how that would work in detail. So Consciousness remains a mystery, unless you assume that there is Entention behind Causation. Which is my solution. :cool:
Entention : causation plus direction;
Enformation : the power to give Form to the formless, meaning to the meaningless; EnFormAction
Incomplete Nature : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature
Any natural explanation will take the form of a mechanism or system. But not necessarily a reductio ad absurdum (i.e. a "turtles all the way down" explanation). A systems theory is holistic, not reductive.
Holistic : characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole.
In this case, the whole universe, including any entention behind its causation.
big complicated explanation trying to bamboozle the mind into belief
people try the same bullshit with the big bang coming from nothing, and for how time travel is possible, etc.. etc..
all 3 are impossible.
brain cannot create consciousness
universe cannot come from nothing
you cant travel through time
The two examples that you cite - the physiological magnetic compass in birds and (hypothesized) quantum effects in neurobiology - are of the latter variety: they are fine-grained mechanisms that would better explain coarse-grained phenomena. What I don't see though is a straight link to "qualia," which is just a fancy label for a fuzzy folk intuition. I think that before we can hypothesize QM explanations for qualia, we need to better analyze and instrumentalize this notion - if that is at all possible, which remains a contentious question as of today.
Quoting armonie
That's because a mutation is, by definition, a random accident. There is no cause & effect mechanism. But, when you combine Mutation and Selection, you get the holistic systematic mechanism of Evolution. Randomness is not a thing, but a quality or property of a system.
Mutation merely shuffles the deck, and Selection picks a card, but not at random. Evolutionary selection is based on fitness criteria (laws?). So, in order to understand how evolution works, you have to consider both the freedom of randomness and the determinism of natural laws. Together they have created everything in the universe, including both Quanta and Qualia.
The problem with objective reductive Science is that it typically ignores the subjective Quality side of the equation. But holistic philosophical theories can at least suggest possible paths from Matter to Mind. And the "maddening" non-sense of the mis-named, Quantum "Mechanics", leaves a lot of room for informed speculation. Which may suggest a different approach for finding a new kind of non-local "mechanism", such as quantum tunneling.
The idea of brain wave/ion channel interactions is an extension of this paradigm, a hypothesis that while thermodynamics is resistant to electromagnetic fields, a huge assortment of evolutionarily selected quantum processes in cells of the nervous system and throughout the body are not. We're talking trillions and trillions of quantum "pockets". This might allow us to fashion a working model of the mind/matter complex, whether it be biochemical "hardware" running EMF "software", or some multifarious variation on this theme. It seems probable that the relevance of quantum physics to chemistry in general will increase as we discover more and more of these loci of quantum behavior in all kinds of everyday material forms, even if we at the same time debunk the new-agey "awareness is the foundation of reality" notion. The really cool possibility is gaining the ability to better model phenomena such as near teleportation of quantum particles and more using higher-dimensional math while we reverse engineer the dynamics of their existence in the natural world, then finding ways to harness this realm with technologies, very sci-fi! If you want a brief synopsis of some additional material from the book, I can supply it.
Explain these collapse of the wave function shenanigans, seems key to understanding quantum theory...
I haven't read that book, but a couple of years ago, I read Quantum Evolution : LIfe In the Multiverse, by Johnjoe McFadden. It was more about big picture Evolution and Cosmology than about the details of Biology. In that book he asked a provocative question : " is there a force of will behind evolution?". And answered in the affirmative.
This was right down my alley, because my own Cosmological thesis postulates a combination of Energy & Information that I call EnFormAction. Metaphorically, I described it as equivalent to the "Will of God", creating the world incrementally in the process of Evolution (Emergence). This non-random "force" is also the essence of Energy & Matter, and its expression emerges from the "virtual" foundation of the Quantum Field, and continues in a succession of Phase Transitions right on up to the unpredictable emergence of Life and Mind from lifeless energy and mindless matter.
"It is at the root of consciousness and free-will and provides a new understanding of the origins of life and the purpose of death." https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0006551289/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1
The EnFormAction Hypothesis : http://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html
"Collapse of the wave function" is a graphic metaphor for Emergence Theory and Phase Transitions on the quantum level of reality. And both of those are involved in the transformation of a collection of parts into a whole with new properties of its own.
Emergence : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence
Phase Transitions : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_transition
In a state of superposition, a virtual (potential) particle is essentially in chaos (nowhere, nowhen), but then it suddenly emerges from that unreal state with a measurable position and velocity -- like the Starship Enterprise emerging from hyperspace. Apparently, quantum particles are sprung like mousetraps by nosy scientists probing in the fog. Scary and spooky.
A macro scale phase transition may be similar to a quantum level phenomenon, such as quantum tunneling, where a particle suddenly appears on the other side of a barrier without passing through the space in between. FWIW, I like to think of Quantum Fields and Chaos as Eternity/Infinity : no time, no space, no particles -- only potential. :smile:
?????
This "only potential" sounds like a combination of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche's concept of "will" and Aristotle's "final causality", but with a modern, scientific flare. Me, I'm very much a positivist when it comes to epistemology, I agree that the cosmos has a spontaneous impetus transcending our natural intuitions and our consciousness, with the challenge being to incorporate these phenomena into a functionally theoretical framework for technological purposes. We may not get reality, a definition of the walls of our currently supraphysical container, but concepts like space and time will acquire new practical meaning based on innovative fact-gathering contexts and progressing models of causality with heavy dependence on math. I think this is a dual process, first intuition-building, then experimental demonstration, and in quantum biochemistry at least we are amazingly moving into the demonstration phase!
I'm wondering, will it ever be possible to scientifically model chaos, would it look like negligible uncertainty in a particular probability distribution?
Scientists have created mathematical models of chaotic systems, revealing internal structures and feedback loops. But these are "deterministic chaos" models, like weather patterns, wherein the outcome is predestined by the initial conditions. Although, in theory, they are predictable, the dynamics are so complex that, for all practical purposes, the system is a "black box". We can observe the initial conditions and the outcome, but what happens within is beyond our ability to calculate. So, for the time being, weather forecasters must make educated guesses beyond a week ahead. In other words, the uncertainty is far from negligible.
I mentioned that I like to think of Eternity/Infinity (no space, no time) as the ultimate black box of Chaos, with infinite potential, but completely unpredictable. That model of absolute Chaos is central to my personal theory of Creation ex nihilo. But it requires the assumption of intrinsic Intention (Will) for anything to actually happen : "Final Causality". That's why I call the ultimate Black Box "G*D". :smile:
Chaos Theory : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
I was just guessing, based on the common feature of Quantum Leaps and Phase Changes : sudden Emergence, apparently without intermediate steps. Classical Physics must assume the steps were taken, even though we can't observe them, and the time lapse seems to be instantaneous (light speed).
You are putting the cart before the horse. Before we can speculate about how future "quantum biology" is going to solve the mind-body problem, we have to precicify and operationalize such folk psychology notions as "mind" and "qualia," making them into subjects of an empirical study. To this date, we seem to be nowhere near that goal, and it is not even clear that the goal is achievable.
Vaguely reminds me of those rate of reaction problems from chemistry class. We can parse up the total reaction into sub-reactions with a rate limiting step, and these models are extremely practical, but I was always curious as to the details of what was submerged within the parameters of applied atomic theory. Similar to your description of meteorological science, we have a working knowledge of some initial states and end results, but the microscopic particularity that supposedly exists in between is fundamentally a postulated concept, not an object. Maybe quantum physics can completely revolutionize our picture of physical structure, to the extent of rendering conventionalized ideas of an atom itself a formerly intuitive illusion, though I don't know the theoretical technicalities. Anyone think a change this dramatic is possible? Seems the main stumbling block might be inability to wrap our minds around this "causality of the observer" effect.
I get what you're saying, it requires substantial research to identify a brain state and a qualitative experience, though we have rather easily correlated various brain regions with primary roles in vision, hearing, etc. Maybe the constraint isn't intrinsic unintelligibility of qualia to modeling, but simply limitations imposed by a paradigm based solely on thermodynamic chemistry, specifically diffusion, heat transfer, and three-dimensional structure. If it is accurate that perception is modulated by a higher-dimensional quantum interfacing of electromagnetic fields and biochemical matter, perhaps one facet of a total revision in our picture of the physical world, qualia will be no less ineffable subjectively because language is a separate module from perception, but we can expect models in which a physical process isn't merely correlated with for instance the sight of a particular color, but actually is the sight of that color. We may then be able to observe perception directly with some advanced fMRI-like device, integrate perception with technologies like electronics, come up with medical applications, and generally improve our concepts of mind, making them less illusory and language a possibly better approximation of reality. But like any theory or social act, we can always scrooge ourselves with it. Is human culture ethical enough for a science of qualia? It seems as if ethical issues will become critical with every future paradigm.
I have constructed an unconventional personal worldview that is intended to explain the "causality of the observer" among many other issues making Quantum Theory hard to "wrap our minds around". But I hadn't intended to get into that, because I would have to define every other term in my "explanation". It's based on the concept that Information (EnFormAction) is the cause of everything in the world, including Energy and Matter. For those with a Materialist worldview, this Idealist philosophy will sound like nonsense.
For mild curiosity, the link below will take you to a brief overview. But a complete understanding of Enformationism will require a commitment similar to 20th century physicists trying to understand the quantum queerness that was revealed by splitting the atom. I think of my thesis as a continuation of the post-quantum revolution in Physics and Meta-Physics. But then, I have no credentials. So my ideas will have to stand on their own. That's why I discuss them only with open-minded philosophers, not professional physicists, who still think in terms of classical reality (atoms), even as they use Quantum mathematics to solve real-world problems. :nerd:
EnFormAction : http://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html
As I noted in my reply to Enrique, I didn't intend to get this thread off-track by introducing my personal cosmology into the discussion. All of my comments on this forum are coming from that unique perspective, and I have tried to explain bits & pieces of it. But Enformationism is a sort of 21st century update to ancient notions of Idealism and Panpsychism, and is intended to be an alternative to Pre-Quantum Materialism, and Pre-scientific Spiritualism. So, the whole system is more than the sum of bits & pieces.
I have answers to all of your questions, but you wouldn't understand them without a long digression into defining terms. The BothAnd Blog may be a more appropriate venue for getting into the nitty-gritty.
Now, back to your original thread . . . .
Enformationism : http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/page2%20Welcome.html
BothAnd Blog Glossary : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html
Chaos : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page12.html#Chaos
The problem here is that Quantum "mechanics" is not mechanical. Quantum Leaps, Entanglement, & Superposition are not mechanical. So applying objective mechanical analogies to subjective metaphysical experience will get you nowhere. A different perspective will be necessary.
Quantum Approaches to Consciousness : https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-consciousness/
As was somewhat clarified in my next post, I shouldn't say explain subjective experience in its common sense connotation, as if a description can be identical to the phenomenon, but we may be able to model the nature of certain experiences with participation from quantum physics in such a way that perception is theorizable with extreme precision, predictably observable with instrumentation and technologically implementable, and this is very mechanistic, though as you suggested the systematic math is completely disjuncted from conventional particle concepts.
Superposition is mathematically modelled as overlapping wave phases using the Schrodinger equation. The entanglement of photons is detectable as a statistically significant relationship between their phase states predicted by theory. The concept of diffuse electron wavicles pursuing multiple routes simultaneously within biochemical pathways works as a model of electron transport chains in photosynthesis. Experiments have been designed supporting the idea that the extremely rapid reaction rate of enzyme catalysis results from quantum tunneling in active sites. These are some more preliminary instances of quantum mechanisms besides what I described in my original post, the possibilities are largely untapped. Applied quantum theory will certainly be extremely diverse in its constituent forms and probably encompass the entirety of nature. If information isn't the foundation of our known universe already, it will become so, assuming theory, technology, and communal rationality can continue to progress. Very idealistic!
My personal worldview, and my understanding of Consciousness, is based on the assumption that Information is indeed the foundation of the universe. But, it's not just me. A lot of physicists, and especially quantum physicists, have come to the same conclusion. One consequence of that axiom is that I began to give more credence to Plato's theory of Ideal Forms. But that doesn't mean that I have to abandon the materialistic notion of Realism. Instead, at the core of my thesis is the BothAnd Principle. Which grew out of the Quantum theory revelation that matter (substance) is made of energy (causation), and energy is made of Information. So, Information is Causation in both physical and metaphysical senses.
Generic Information is both Energy and Matter, both Cause and Effect. Therefore, it should not be surprising that the ability to know Information could arise from a system comprised of both Matter (brain) and Energy (the power to enform). However, those who seek to explain immaterial Consciousness in terms of material neurons (neural correlates of consciousness) are missing the other half of the correlation, the other half of the E=MC\2 equation. Our world is both Real (material; mechanical) and Ideal (mental, quantum continuum). So, progress in the science of Consciousness should follow the adoption of more Idealistic philosophical attitudes, but correlated to Realistic scientific skepticism.
BothAnd Principle : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html
The Case Against Reality : Why Evolution Hid the Truth From Our Eyes
Donald Hoffman, professor of Cognitive Science
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-evolutionary-argument-against-reality-20160421/
Reality Is Not What It Seems :
Carlo Rovelli, physicist/poet
https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/02/01/512798209/reality-is-not-what-we-can-see
One minor point that I don't think was addressed relates to the practical application or analogy to cognitive science's view of our 'stream of consciousness'. These concepts seem analogous.
QM, indeterminacy, randomness, occurring in physics has a strange parallel to how the stream of consciousness is perceived/apprehended. Random thoughts that occur during everydayness closely resemble indeterminacy in physics relative to our experiencing that conscious phenomena.
I wonder what you mean by "higher-dimensional quantum interfacing of electromagnetic fields and biochemical matter" here? Space in mathematical modeling does not necessarily represent space in the usual sense (the physical space in quantum mechanics is still the 3+1-dimensional Minkowski space of Special Relativity). Often it is a phase space constructed out of independent state variables, or it can represent other things. Quantum mechanics in its vector formulation employs infinite-dimensional function spaces (Hilbert spaces). But other theories, including classical mechanics and thermodynamics, also make use of higher-dimensional spaces, so this is not something uniquely quantum.
More to the point, there are something like 10[sup]10[/sup] neurons and 10[sup]14[/sup] synapses in the cortex, and as you probably know, this isn't just a network of simple binary switches and connectors either: each of these neurons and synapses is a complex analog system, and the entire network constantly mutates and rewires itself. This is an enormous amount of dynamical structural complexity, located many orders of magnitude closer to the scale of interest than quantum fields, and we have barely even scratched its surface. So I think that before we start speculating about what we will discover when we drill down all the way to the quantum scale - and barring a few sketchy results here and there, these are mostly wild speculations at this point - we should start with this lower hanging fruit (I won't say low, because even this "fruit" may prove to be out of our intellectual and technological reach).
The properties of neuron synapsing are certainly key to an understanding of mental processes. Thousands of different types of neurons have been identified, the von Economo neuronal system linked with self-awareness, mirror neurons involved in perceiving mental states, certainly important for theories of perception. But I don't think biochemistry alone is ever going to be more than correlated with for instance a qualitative mental image, its going to require a comprehension of quantum effects in both cells and the natural environment to model perception directly. I've never learned exactly how mathematical concepts, observational contexts such as experimental designs, and structural models generally converge in quantum theory, but it would be nice if someone could find a way to make that common knowledge. We spend too much effort rhetorically promoting hugely simplified accounts of theories at the expense of explaining the details that enable their innovation and make them valid. I suppose that's what graduate school is for if you've got the money.
I am not sure what you think the role of quantum effects are going to be in modeling perception "directly." I mean, quantum fields aren't qualitatively different from, say, classical fields, nor is quantum mechanics that much more complex or information-dense than classical mechanics. There is no mystery stuff there, it's the same kind physics.
Like I touched upon, subatomic particles, ions, and small atoms have weird properties under many conditions, as diffuse wavicles that can tunnel across relatively large distances nearly instantaneously, adopt the form of multiple superposed phase states, morph in response to thermodynamically negligible amounts of energy, interact without direct contact, exist and move in higher dimensions than space-time such that the classical model of sequential causality might obsolesce, and more strangeness. I imagine scientists finding instances of quantum behavior to be so pervasive that atomic theory will be completely transformed, especially as we gain an improved understanding of entanglement, synchronicity effects and retroactive causality in both organic and inorganic settings, but this is currently all reasonable speculation.
I'm conjecturing that the synthetic fluidity of perception can only be explained with quantum entanglement or some kind of quantum mechanism. If chemical reactions are the totality of mental processes, this lack of real integration would be mirrored by experience, but qualia in essence contrast with the time-lagged efficient causality of thermodynamic chemistry distributed in three-dimensional space. Mind seems to be caused by a phenomenon beyond mere concepts of spherical particles. As far as I can discern, these dynamics will be modelled both as emergent from atomic biochemistry and in contradiction to traditional principles of matter.
I agree with your intuition that the Qualia of Subjective Consciousness may be somehow related to the mystery of Quantum Entanglement. Unfortunately, we don't have a good theory for how entanglement works. So, for all practical purposes, it's magical. That's why some scientists and philosophers are offended by appeals to Quantum Magic.
I have my own hypothesis to explain the "spooky action at a distance" of Entanglement. But it involves Infinity and Eternity. So It will also be offensive to those who prefer to remain within the familiar bounds of Reality. That's probably why even Roger Penrose proposes a material medium (quantum tubules) to explain how matter can become mind. :chin:
Quantum physics: Our study suggests objective reality doesn't exist
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-quantum-physics-reality-doesnt.html
A minor detail, but I'm not a fan of the suggestion that reality is not objective, I think this is a confusion of the issue. Objective reality should be defined as cultural practice based on collective models, a social function, not as a brain state, some perceptual entity, or physical objects. The more accurate view of quantum theory is probably that it does not yet provide for investigators to arbitrate between multiple possible objective interpretations, not that it implies reality is essentially subjective.
The way that concepts of subjectivity are usually invoked misleads. "Subjectivity" results from distinctions between perception and description in the individual mind, not incommensurability of human perspectives. We are subjective to ourselves, but we invent a communal objectivity that can transcend subjectivity, and that's what makes civilized institutions even possible. We commonly reinforce social divisiveness with deceitful or flawed collectivity in the guise of proposed "objectivity" or "subjectivity", and this can sabotage the entire theoretical project, but we've got to be reasonable for this truth to be implemented behaviorally.
I suspect that the article's title was intentionally provocative. All they did was to come to the same conclusion that Schrodinger did in his Cat-in-the-Box thought experiment. When a particle is in a so-called "state of superposition", it only exists in a statistical sense as a probability. Actually, the "state" may tell us more about the Mind than the Matter.
We can't observe the virtual particle's physical properties in the usual way. That's because properties (Qualia) are in the mind of the beholder (ideas). On the macro scale, we can act as-if redness is in the apple. But on the Quantum level, it's like the bald kid in The Matrix said, "there is no spoon (apple)". It's only mathematical probabilities (ideas).
Obviously, human mammals are not evolved to relate to abstract statistics, but to concrete things. Yet, for practical scientific purposes we can, and must, assume that objective reality is out there. But for theoretical philosophical purposes, we must admit that all we know about Reality is our personal subjective opinions. Just as I can't know your mind, I can't know your reality. Hence, objectivity is merely a social convention.That's why, in my personal worldview, I assert that our world is both Real and Ideal, depending on your perspective (relativity).
Quoting Enrique
It appears that the reasoning for your conjecture is summed up by the following flawed but rather common line:
Please correct me if I got the wrong impression, but I don't see much more than that in what you have written. You name-check various counterintuitive or just interesting-sounding QM tidbits, like entanglement and "higher dimensions" (I am still not sure what that is about), but you don't suggest how they may be related to consciousness.
Quoting Enrique
Considering that modern atomic theory is already built on quantum foundations, I don't see how it could be completely transformed with the current quantum theory. Generally, as more fundamental theories are worked out, existing higher-level theories are not so much overturned or transformed as complemented, fine-grained, and corrected in a few places. But by and large, they remain functional and far more practicable in most cases.
Quoting Enrique
As cognitive experiments show, our conscious awareness is actually quite sluggish (even by classical neurochemical standards) and patchy, heavily leaning on prediction and interpolation to create the perception of a continuous real-time flow.
I'm not exactly making a formal logical argument, I'm stating some weird facts about quantum mechanics and conjecturing that a theoretical accounting of these phenomena might revolutionize atomic theory. Maybe the subatomic constituents of separate atoms are entangled such that the notion of atoms as discrete units will change, perhaps electrons and photons move in higher dimensions than space-time. All of this centers on deriving the best structural model of the math, and when it comes to that issue I'm the student. Basically scientists have to hypothesize possible structures as mechanisms by utilizing geometrical forms and then construct experiments that will verify or refute their hypotheses.
My hypothesis regarding consciousness is that the electromagnetic field of the brain interacts with cells by way of extremely sensitive quantum states in many molecules. I don't dispute that the biochemistry of the brain has a role in the structure of perception, as a hierarchical nesting of functional cell groupings that correlates with the orientation of more specific qualia, like an object's peripheral border as a two dimensional line positioned in space, to more general qualia, such as the total object. In Kant's terminology, we could call this various layers of a priori synthetic phenomena.
I will venture to claim that perceptual patchiness is probably an artifact of laboratory tinkering or lesions. Natural perception is at its core a fully integrated multiplicity, and in the context of biochemistry alone, what exists to be interpolated? All simultaneous synapsing of neurons consists of time-lagged relationships between cells, but perception is not time-lagged. I'm guessing electromagnetic fields and maybe entanglement effects combine as a further layer of modellable causality beyond thermodynamic motions and reactions that makes perception a more cohesive, synthetic unity than traditional biochemistry can be, not time-lagged like the behavior of spherical particles. Perception can be inaccurate, variable, and damaged, but it isn't fundamentally an illusion, its real. Perception isn't approximation of an absolute reality of particles, its the mind, and theoretical particularity is its conditional concept, with progress towards better and possibly revolutionary mechanistic concepts intuitively seeming inevitable.
Regarding ethical implications, I'm of the opinion that these new mechanisms along with many additional practical ideas can be made almost universally intelligible and acceptable to human beings, not at all obliging society to an information-based class oppression, though it seems many might disagree. This is a difficult issue because of prejudice, psychological struggle and eras of social conflict.
Are you aware of any mathematical models of entanglement that would yield geometric structures? It seems to me that the key characteristic of entanglement is lack of internal structure. By that I mean, when particles are in the wave-form state, they are no longer discrete parts, but somehow merge or blend into a whole system. I too, suspect that this transition from grainy particularism to fluid holism is a major factor in the emergence of Consciousness from Matter. But the current models are unable to describe what-is-going-on (mechanism) inside the "black box" of entanglement. :worry:
I'm not aware of any direct models of biologically occurring quantum phenomena as mechanisms with geometric architecture. Experimenting with enzymes, scientists have shown that catalytic reaction rates in supercooled solutions plateau rather than continuously decrease, suggesting the process has quantum features, some kind of tunneling behavior independent of heat. Scientists also have demonstrated in experiments that enzyme catalytic rates are sensitive to minute changes in particle size. Replacing the typical, neutron-lacking form of hydrogen in reactive molecules with deuterium, one neutron hydrogen, measurably reduces the productivity of some enzymatic processes. The speculative conclusion was that quantum tunneling of sub-atomic particles in active sites had been inhibited by larger particle size. Researchers seem to be working around quantum tunneling, gathering circumstantial evidence of its probable existence in nature, but its structural form is a mystery. I've never come across any proven images of quantum tunneling in active sites, but plenty of you guys likely know more than me.
The closest anyone had come to modeling quantum effects in biochemistry as of a couple years ago was as statistical data indicating levels of efficiency, speed, or sensitivity in bioactive chemical reactions that can be better accounted for with quantum concepts than thermodynamic concepts. I got the impression that research was progressing rapidly, so its not unlikely that major advancements have been made since then.
I'm not familiar with the details of the wave function concept, what exact quantitative information it represents. Maybe a simple inquiry, easy to address, would help explain it. What is the relationship between the form of the wave function and scale? Can a quantum wave have any size at all, or what constraints exist?
Off topic. I just happened upon this post on Quora Forum, which claims to show a structural geometrical proof of God. It's an interesting concept, but he offers no argument to make the connection between the pretty torus/mandala pattern of Magnetism and divine design. Based on the poster's name, I'd guess that his god is Allah. :grin:
Proof that God exists : https://www.quora.com/Is-there-proof-that-God-exists-1
Like I said, atomic theory is already quantum. If memory serves, we have analytical fully quantum solutions for the hydrogen atom in special cases, and numerical solutions for more complex systems. However, these quantum analyses treat the nucleus semi-classically, and even outside of the nucleus, more complex systems are also usually treated with semi-classical and even semi-empirical models - not because we don't have the theory (we do), and not only because it is hard to pull off, but because there isn't much need for a fully quantum treatment. The analyses, such as they are, already agree with experiments, so there would be nothing to gain from further refinements of the model. You have to smash atoms in colliders in order to get beyond the comfort zone of those approximate models. And that's my point: revolutions happen where we haven't looked before or where we have outstanding problems. They don't happen where we already have adequate solutions.
Quoting Enrique
We learn about the psychology of perception not just from brain pathologies, but from non-intrusive measurements and even rather simple psychological experiments, such as those involving perceptual illusions and illusions of attention. Our visual field, for example, is not at all what it seems: a wide, almost 180 degree window that we perceive all at once. It is instead a narrow patch that darts hither and thither, painting a partial, time-lagged and sometimes not entirely accurate picture. The feeling of instantaneous integrated perception is created by the analytical machinery of your brain that fills in the gaps with interpolation and prediction and cleverly directs the actual visual attention only where it is needed most. (Much of your brain's impressive capacity is allocated not on contemplating Kant but on such mundane unconscious tasks.)
Quoting Enrique
How could you possibly know this? Your visual time resolution is on the order of tens of milliseconds (hence the 24 frames per second movie looks like a continuous image stream - a perceptual illusion). Audio resolution is a little better, sensory resolution - much worse.
Quoting Enrique
It is tautologically true that your experiences, your qualia are not illusory, in the sense that you cannot be mistaken about having experiences at the time when they occur, but it is also demonstrably true that your interpretation of experiences can be mistaken (e.g. mistaking a discreet sequence of images for a continuous stream).
It probably depends on what human beings are willing to introspectively assert regarding their own minds. Qualitative experiences happen that contradict a thermodynamic interpretation of nature, and some of this has been empirically observed in systematic experiments, like synchronicity in the brainwaves of meditators, but we may find some major perceptual variability, so we have to carefully navigate around our susceptibility to prejudice when we model mental capacities. Theorizing qualia can help immensely, medically for instance, but it can also divide sub-cultures. Maybe understanding the brain mechanistically such that qualia are modellable will actually make us more tolerant. Instead of locking up ol' Phineas Gage in an institution or punching him in the nose, we ethically study him, help him and everyone else better understand and deal with what is going on, and even repair his brain.
Perhaps the substance interactions in some supposedly thermodynamic systems create temporary conditions where a model of quantum entanglement might be relevant, with a failure of traditional lab equipment to record this fluxing into unintuitive quantum states resulting from the reliance of technology's structure on the assumptions of more traditional models. Science might be seeing what it expects to see in some way, our instrumentation arbitrarily selecting unrepresentative, entirely non-quantum states of matter as it measures the environment because it is not finely grained enough, or maybe even inducing classical states as it operates. If scientists could find a way to record quantum behavior in a beaker of standard solution or a gas-filled container, that would be huge progress.
It's a big and to my mind unjustified leap from reported "synchronicity in the brainwaves" to "contradict a thermodynamic interpretation of nature." I am quite willing to entertain the possibility of some quantum effects coming to the fore as neuroscience details its models, but I wouldn't base specific conjectures on such a shaky foundation.
As for entanglement, it is very difficult to maintain at a distance between isolated particles, even in laboratory conditions. A single photon interaction is all it takes to break it. That entangled states could somehow (?!) come into existence between particles embedded in separate bodies and then persist over time is completely implausible. This looks like very loose analogical thinking ("synchronicity" <-> "entanglement").
The mechanisms are mysterious, its going to require a lot of hypothesis testing to find ways of observing quantum coherence. Maybe particles in natural settings coordinate their motions or phase states at a distance or in bulk without being technically entangled, conditions that aren't currently measurable.
Thinking about the relationship of human vision to qualia, it seems eyesight does involve patchiness from saccading that is partially organized neuronally pre-awareness, but this seems to be distinct structurally from what we would consider our synthetic qualitative experience. Research shows that the vast majority of neuronal activity is directed towards the senses rather than into the brain. The mind is not a passive representation of the environment, it independently generates qualia beyond the influence of a sensing that is in its basics peripheral and subsidiary to the forms of perceptual consciousness.
Glial cells compose the vast majority of the brain, perhaps it is possible that they have a role in generating qualia via an alternate process to neuron synapsing. This would explain why fiddling with neurotransmitter concentrations does not drastically alter the essentials of qualitative experience. Makes me curious what the chemical composition of glial cells is like. Maybe these cells contain molecules with similar properties to the cryptochrome pigment I mentioned with its fast triplet reaction sensitivity to magnetic fields. It would be interesting to study the effects of hallucinogenic substances on glial cells, though I'm not sure how that would be possible. Maybe this would identify some functional classes of molecules.
How would that work?
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the model could.
Would we then have downright disproven solipsism, be able to determine that someone/thing is self-aware, have "redness" (the experience) somehow fall out of a mathematical equation, ...?
On the other hand, I suppose quantum mechanics might provide some additional insights or (correlative) explanations.
Perhaps like psychology/iatry, biology (and evolution), neurology, etc.
And such insights surely remain worthwhile in their own right; "mysterious'ism" is hardly a goal onto itself in this context.
No, they are not. If you are talking about QM, and entanglement specifically, the mechanisms have been laid out out in theory decades ago, and have since been very precisely measured and confirmed. "Entanglement" is not a metaphor, it's a very specific feature of QM.
If you are talking about some hypothetical future physics, then of course all bets are off (but don't expect to see anything much different where we have already done a lot of experimental research). But I don't see much point in such unconstrained speculation, to be honest.
Quoting Enrique
And pretty much all of this sensory processing flies under the radar of our introspection, which I think is a major reason to be skeptical of naive interpretations of "qualia" - I find that illusionists have a good point here.
When I said the mechanisms of quantum behavior are mysterious, I meant as they occur in natural environments, not research settings. What's the relationship of entanglement to coherence? Could some kind of coherence be a naturally occurring or evolutionarily sculpted entanglement system? Does an alternate possible quantum mechanism exist for coherence, perhaps hinted at by laboratory results you've heard of?
What exactly are you referring to when you say "sensory processing" and "naïve interpretations of qualia"?
If quantum behavior is different in natural settings and in research settings, then it is not not the quantum behavior that we know from quantum physics. Quantum physics is supposed to be universal, so that quantum physics in natural environments is no more mysterious than quantum physics in research settings. This then goes in the "future physics" file. At this time there is no reason to suspect anything of the sort - which of course doesn't mean that it couldn't still be true, but that's just the usual fallibilist disclaimer that we attach to almost everything.
Quoting Enrique
Probably none, if we are talking about quantum physics, as opposed to something completely speculative.
Note the difference between the cases of chemical magnetoreception in birds and reported brain wave synchronization between different individuals. In the former case the radical pair chemistry, which is hypothesized as one of the mechanisms, takes place on a molecular spacial scale and over the duration of a chemical reaction. That's a far cry from quantum entanglement somehow getting established and maintained over vast distances and durations (by quantum measures) and in extremely noisy environment.
Quoting Enrique
I mean that we cannot introspect much about the way our senses work just from the way they feel to us. They may feel like something immediate and intimately familiar, but in reality there is a lot of brain activity involved in producing that sensation, and that activity is itself is quite opaque to introspection. Being the subjects of perception doesn't give us all that much privileged knowledge about the nature of perception.
Quoting SophistiCat
Sophisticat is in complete denial of the reality of human ignorance. 'There's nothing unknown out there, we already know it all.'
Neuroscience shows that initial steps in the process of sensing occur beyond our awareness. But I think a disjunct probably exists between qualia and sensing that makes these almost incomparable domains. Qualia are the components of consciousness, while sensing consists of naturally selected unconscious relationships between bodies and features of ecosystems, and interfacing of these domains is more conditional function than representation, a biological abbreviation making a narrow array of particularly key behaviors, reflexes for instance, more efficient. Neuroscience can generate facts about sensing that are inaccessible to naked introspection, and introspection can elucidate consciousness in ways that material science alone is incapable of. Introspection can be more perceptive as a purposeful integration of and experimentation with qualia than our senses. Actually, even science seems to essentially be a method for proving introspections by collective analysis. I'm curious how you would combine this with the common idea that introspection is illusory.
We have models of how qualia are stimulated by sensory organs and associated with some neuronal complexes, and we can correlate electrode activation of very specific brain regions to qualia with a lot of trial and error, but the spontaneous manifestation of qualia apart from these contexts has not been described. In general, explanations for qualia are mostly lacking. It seems to me that an entirely new set of physical processes in the brain and the environment must be identified to address qualia. If mechanisms differing from thermodynamic biochemistry, such as quantum effects, were located, color or perhaps any qualitative phenomenon could become more modellable.
We might be able to correlate color itself with a particular complex of molecules, perhaps together with a total revision in our comprehension of what molecules are, figuring out how matter subsists in higher dimensions than space-time, which would be heavily dependent on the mathematics of quantum physics, applying our equations to the invention of instruments that measure naturally occurring retroactive causality of photons etc., near instantaneous tunneling of particles, and coherence.
An entirely new vocabulary would enter common usage for reference to these novel conceptual intuitions of how mind and matter work. Qualia would still be ineffable in a sense because the verbiage is not identical to the experience itself, but from the standpoint of theory, we might arrive at a full explanation, where no phenomenon of qualia remains mysterious. Of course our enhanced observations and theoretical accounts could conceivably lead to further degrees of unintuitive causality that are presently not even imaginable.
At least that's how it appears to me.