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A “quantum brain” could solve the hard problem of consciousness, new research suggest

#1
C C Offline
https://thedebrief.org/a-quantum-brain-c...-suggests/

EXCERPTS: In an intriguing new study, physicists using modified MRI machines say they may have found quantum entanglement between the heart and brain. These results suggest that the human brain operating like a quantum system could be the ticket to eventually solving the elusive, hard problem of consciousness

“I actually was working on this for a long time,” Dr. Christian Kerskens, the lead physicist at the Institute of Neurosciences at Trinity College Dublin, told Salon. “I think if you ask, most neuroscientists — or even physicists — they would say that it’s not possible to find entanglement in the brain. [However] when I studied the dynamics of blood flow, I thought something [is] going on there that you can’t really explain with just classical physics.”

[...] Understanding the realm of quantum mechanics is equally a mysterious and vexing conundrum as the baffling hard problem of consciousness. 

At the macroscopic scale or the larger world we interact with daily, objects are well-defined and can be accurately measured by the principles of classical physics. 

However, at the microscopic level, things suddenly become unpredictable, with atoms, electrons, or particles demonstrating the ability to display characteristics of both waves and particles without fixed location. This is the bizarre world of quantum mechanics. 

Under a proposition called “quantum mind theory,” some have proposed that quantum mechanics, and bizarre phenomena like entanglement and superposition, may ultimately hold the key to answering the hard problem of consciousness. 

This theory has yet to gain much traction in the greater scientific community, with most neuroscientists or physicists believing that consciousness occurs through classical physics and not on the quantum level. 

Testing quantum mind theory is also a challenging venture because it requires being able to measure brain activity at the microscopic level. 

Undeterred by this daunting challenge, Dr. Kerskens and his co-author Dr. David López Pérez of the Polish Academy of Sciences, decided to borrow an experimental model typically used to explore quantum gravity to see if the evidence of quantum behavior could be detected in the brain... (MORE - missing details)
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#2
Magical Realist Offline
I admittedly didn't read the entire article, but I don't see how quantum theory would solve the hard problem. There will still be the materialistic reliance on an objective state of matter which consciousness seems to be inherently beyond. Nothing is solved in terms of explaining the subjective nature of the mind, as a phenomenon in itself. Explaining a mystery with another mystery is never a good idea.
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#3
C C Offline
(Dec 7, 2022 10:15 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I admittedly didn't read the entire article, but I don't see how quantum theory would solve the hard problem. There will still be the materialistic reliance on an objective state of matter which consciousness seems to be inherently beyond. Nothing is solved in terms of explaining the subjective nature of the mind, as a phenomenon in itself. Explaining a mystery with another mystery is never a good idea.

Yeah, as Chalmers once pointed out, quantum theories of consciousness merely relocate the ultimate origin of qualia from the neural level to the more fundamental level of spacetime geometry (see excerpt at bottom). He's since become an advocate of "panpsychism" or "panprotopsychims" himself, however -- though is not necessarily committed to any so-called quantum version of it, like Penrose's and Hameroff's. 

But that does solve the problem of what the complex experiences of the brain emerge from -- the latter now have precursors (just as biological bodies have atoms and molecules to constitute them) rather than the brain's manifestations being magically conjured by the correct electrochemical dance.

The addition of Russelian monism provides an explanation of why deformations at the Planck scale (or anything else) might correspond to qualitative properties or proto-experiences. Which is to say, that's what matter normally is to itself, rather than the artificial, abstract descriptions of physics (physicalism) -- the "invented by humans" system of symbols/rules and the "invented by biological evolution" outer appearances of an effective, but still purely represented world.

Lee Smolin: "The problem of consciousness is an aspect of the question of what the world really is. We don't know what a rock really is, or an atom, or an electron. We can only observe how they interact with other things and thereby describe their relational properties. Perhaps everything has external and internal aspects. The external properties are those that science can capture and describe through interactions, in terms of relationships. The internal aspect is the intrinsic essence; it is the reality that is not expressible in the language of interactions and relations. Consciousness, whatever it is, is an aspect of the intrinsic essence of brains." --Time Reborn ... page 270 

The mistake, however, is classifying those primitive manifestations under the label of "panpsychism" or "proto-consciousness". They're just simple, ontological properties and don't become "psychological" until recruited and orchestrated by a brain or equivalent cognitive apparatus to form representations. There is no memory-based system at the micro-scale for conceptually identifying and understanding those elemental manifestations as even presenting themselves -- as even "being there". 

Erwin Schrödinger: The world is a construct of our sensations, perceptions, memories. It is convenient to regard it as existing objectively on its own. But it certainly does not become manifest by its mere existence. Its becoming manifest is conditional on very special goings-on in very special parts of this very world, namely on certain events that happen in a brain. That is an inordinately peculiar kind of implication, which prompts the question: What particular properties distinguish these brain processes and enable them to produce the manifestation? Can we guess which material processes have this power, which not? Or simple: What kind of material process is directly associated with consciousness? --What is Life? Mind and Matter

And again, the panprotopsychism view is not dependent upon Penrose and Hameroff's version below, and its emphasis on microtubules (there are other approaches to panprotopsychism).

Consciousness Connects Our Brains to the Fundamental Level of the Universe
https://www.kurzweilai.net/consciousness...e-universe

EXCERPT: What is empty space? Historically, empty space has been described as either an absolute void or a pattern of fundamental geometry. Democritus and the Michaelson-Morley results argued for “nothingness” while Aristotle (“plenum”) and Maxwell (“ether”) rejected the notion of emptiness in favor of “something”–a background pattern. Einstein weighed in on both sides of this debate, initially supporting the concept of a void with his theory of special relativity but then reversing himself in his theory of general relativity and its curved space and geometric distortions-the space-time metric. Could proto-conscious qualia be properties of the metric, fundamental space-time geometry?

What is fundamental space-time geometry? We know that at extremely small scales, space-time is not smooth, but granular, or quantized. This occurs at the infinitesimal Planck scale (10-33 cm, 10-43 secs). The fundamental level of spacetime geometry is described through quantum gravity. A final theory of quantum gravity could unite quantum theory and general relativity, the great divide in modern physics.

At the basic level, this granularity has been modeled by Roger Penrose as a dynamic web of quantum spins. These “spin networks” create an array of geometric volumes and configurations at the Planck scale which dynamically evolve and define space-time geometry. Other approaches to this problem include “string theory ,” but regardless of which explanation best characterizes the fundamental level and the basis for quantum gravity, if panpsychist (or pan-protopsychist, or pan-experiential) philosophical approaches are correct, the fundamental level (Planck scale) the “funda-mental” level could provide the basis for qualia or proto-conscious experience. Further, if qualia are embedded at the Planck scale, then perhaps (as suggested by Roger Penrose) Platonic values like mathematical truth and aesthetic values are embedded there as well.

If proto-conscious information and Platonic values are embedded at the Planck scale, how could they be linked to biology? How could our brains access, or be influenced by these infinitesimal features? A possible solution comes through quantum mechanics, or quantum theory.
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#4
Kornee Offline
The extraordinary steps needed to maintain even a few qubit entanglements from decohering in milliseconds or less in current rudimentary quantum computers, makes the notion of functioning quantum brain-heart connections laughable.
There is disputed evidence for very short range entanglement processes in say photosynthesis, within a molecule, over femtosecond timescales, but that seems to be about the realistic limit of applicability to biological systems:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_en...ed_systems

Weak correlations have imo been confused with causation by the 'quantum brain' researchers.
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