Thoughts on the Penrose-Hameroff hypothesis

Faith & Science Conversation
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Not a complete or entirely adequate explanation but where science can contribute it is alway welcome, interesting and the only thing worth arguing over. But explanations which attempt to explain consciousness as nothing more than various physiological processes are suspect. Only what can measured can be verified but the phenomenon in question can’t directly be measured, only certain of it’s supposed effects.

Descartes said “ I think therefore I am”. I’d say “ we experience and thereby we know we exist”. It is the most certain of things we can know. Perception can be fooled and the conclusions of our best thinking can go wrong. But no matter what we learn by way of science, nothing could negate the fact of experiencing even if the explicit implications we draw from it prove false. It isn’t reasonable to imagine ourselves as biological machines moving through the world carrying out a programming and nothing more.

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I know I’m not the only one who is seeing this.

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I would say that everything above the quantum level is an emergent property of the universe. What I am skeptical of is the claim that we should somehow treat consciousness differently than anything else in the universe. To use another example, photosynthesis relies on quantum effects.

So do we invent some universal photosynthesis process where all plants are connected through the Mind of God simply because it involves quantum processes?

We humans hold our mental processes in high regard, and understandably so. However, that doesn’t make them special in the universe, just special to us.

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thanks Liam Maguire, the truth is that it is the first time that I ask, the point is that from the ethical point of view if your actions are controlled by your mind and this is pure physics at least in the current sense of physics there are only two kinds of classical and quantum processes in your brain, some mechanistic and others random, and this implies the inexistence of sin, that is, either God is unjust in condemning us or Djesus died uselessly, because if our brain is physical and uses classical physics, then it is mechanistic and a computer, that is, we would be a more genetic environment, there is no blame for our actions, a dangerous interpretation for people who want to avoid responsibility for their actions and allow themselves to commit crimes at random, if the brain is quantum, even worse, it would not make sense, it would be a mere random generator and it seems to me that the actions of individuals respond to their objectives in a fairly coherent way, neither can we say that God is destiny and he obliges us to act would be hypocrisy on his part to come later to claim for our sins so eight or that is to say a naturalistic theory like us although not reductionist, nor mechanistic, nor that affirms that our actions do not make sense philosophically speaking, it is also very good the soul it has to be a physical system, although not mechanistic because it has free will, because if the soul is only mental or a kind of substance totally different from the body, we fall into the mind-body problem, that is, I believe, as Descartes said, the soul is a substance thinking that if very subtle almost imperceptible as dark matter is the other argument is evil Saint Paul said that it was the body that contained sin at least for Christians, because we know that there are also unclean spirits on the other hand it is our soul that pays for sin because this is the one that goes to hell that is why I believe that the soul is physical and sinfulness is transmitted by physical interactions body soul po On the other hand, there are the sensations and colors, if they were our machine minds, because we see colors and not zeros and ones, and on the other hand, I do not believe that things like love are mathematically understandable, they fall into incompleteness, besides, eight or similar theories would explain body interactions. soul without magic involved and from the bible we believers know that there is a soul on the other hand something like that god chose the prophets in the womb or that juan recognized jesus in the womb among other things make me from my religious position come back for life, but certainly there are stages of growth where there is no brain activity, that’s why eight or I like it, since conception occurs when the sperm and that includes its centriole, which is nothing more than a structure of microtubules, enters the egg, with that I transfer the problem from the body to the soul and say that even if there is no brain and the body is incomplete there is a soul, in any case I am a student of mathematics and I study mathematics Pure ethics, not physics or biology, only that the wave function corresponds approximately to the distribution of mass and then there are self-interactions that collapse the wave function in quantum gravity, I like it, it is very intuitive, anyway, if we mix gravity with quantum, probably be non-local, non-unitary, non-linear, non-causal, and since general relativity with dark energy already violates the conservation of energy, I suppose neither does quantum gravity, perhaps it even violates the principle of entropy, with that I explain how the brain violating the conservation of information, that’s why we are creative and we have an idea we are sources of information, our minds may have negative entropy… and with that I explain everything that is my general position, what do you think?

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Out of curiosity, I searched the post for a period and only found one, and it was in the middle.

Is there a law on the internet about a correlation between number of periods withinin posts in a an internet thread on quantum physics?

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I know I sound crazy when I talk about negative entropy since the entopy principle always holds, but let’s remember what it is and where it was generated as a statistical law for gases and a theory of radiation, more specifically thermal radiation, the fact If it is counter-intuitive, it does not prove anything or ask the quantum entanglement, but the cosmic egg did not necessarily have to have negative entropy and quantum gravity was not the culprit, I am not the only one who thinks so, there are articles search the internet and there they are, On the other hand, to argue that the brain is very noisy, please, it is true that there are proteins coming and going and that, as Hameroff said, they could not be dancing a quantum dance to the beat of the microtubule so as not to disturb it, the brain could not have an isolation most perfect possible and a computation far superior to the human, perhaps God did not do it and is more intelligent than all?

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One can feel that the idea of emergence is somewhat being overused here. I would draw a distinction between emergent properties which follow wholly as a consequence of the underlying mathematical order (natural law) and those which are a consequence of self-organization. The point of self organization is it doesn’t automatically follow but that its own patterns of behavior become part of the cause for what it does in the future. And yes quantum indeterminacy brought to the macroscopic level in the bifurcation of chaotic systems is usually a part of this. Though this can also happen as a consequence of symmetry breaking and both of these phenomenon are a product of instabilities which can resolve in multiple directions.

If you mean immune to a scientific explanation I quite agree with you, but… obviously different phenomenon have different scientific explanations.

I quite agree that this is wrong though I wouldn’t quite say it is unreasonable. The key question to address is what the difference is. It think the difference is that machines are a product of design and living organisms are a product of self-organization. Now it is true that different means can produce similar results and thus living systems can be highly mechanical. But these end results tend to be dead ends to some degree because they lack adaptability. Clearly I connect consciousness to the process of life and accordingly consciousness would be found in a continuing capacity for the self-organizing response. After all, self-organization can be described to some degree as self-design, so only when that capacity is maintained does the difference between living organisms and machines continue.

Well that there tends to be a highly subjective distinction. But you are right in the sense that science by definition will never be able to examine directly the subjective experience of consciousness and scientific explanations are very much about what can be examined and demonstrated. So there is an unbridgeable gap there to some degree – but one I suspect most scientists would dismiss as purely philosophical.

At least we can conclude the experiencing exists. It is ownership we feel over this experiencing which is the essence of the subjective experience of consciousness. Calling that illusory seems meaningless to me. The point is that we experience it, and I don’t think that seeking a scientific explanation for it changes this in the slightest. I feel no need to mystify it or make it magical.

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I also do not believe that God sends spirit to the body of babies, it is obvious that parents create the child and also his soul with the physical interactions between his cells

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In addition, evolution is probabilistically inconsistent and let’s not get crazy like the space brain, the quantum multiverse, the anthropic principle that is not science, or something like life is Rasell’s teapot, evolution could be explained with Hameroff’s protoconscious events , also the protoconscious events observe and are the ones that prevent the universe from becoming a wave function and disappear, it is a very useful explanation, even I would say unifying, it also suggests that quantum gravity could be a psychophysical theory with infinite non-protoconscious events computable throughout the space-time continuum caused by the self-interactions of the dimension, which would explain the difficulty of quantum gravity.It also adequately explains how drugs intervene in our sensations and how neurotransmitters alter feelings, something that I believe should be part of the soul, with quantum interactions of these chemicals with mt.also how could we ignore a theory that claims to be a revolution in quantum computing, physics and biology?Previous people like von Neumann have already considered how the inert quantum world generates the conscious macroscopic world. Isn’t looking for an answer, however rare it may be, better than continuing with useless models such as the theory of neural networks that have only created stupid machines?How can a paramecium without a neural network present complex behaviors, it is obvious that the theory of biological neural networks misses something.In addition, like Penrose who, together with Hawking and Uruh, found the temperature of the black hole, the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics, creator of the twistors, how useful they are, and hameroff the professor of psychology and anesthesiology at the University of Arizona, being completely crazy.It is also known that microtubulin a and b may not be either but both, that is, be in superposition of quantum states.It is also a falsifiable hypothesis. It would be enough to simulate the cell in a quantum computer and prove that it works or to carry out experiments with laboratory mice playing with their genetics and their cells and brains, although that will take a while, also not because a hypothesis is rare. scientific or ask the madness that other physicists invent, I believe that the computational theories of the mind are the same as the predictive epicycles, yes, more or less, but not for that reason true.In addition, conventional biology is ugly, not like the rest of the universe, which is mathematically beautiful. It seems to me that there are certain things such as consciousness that do not fit into that theory, which historically is a posteriori, that is, it is not a predictive theory like the quantum field theory, that is, I think it may be incomplete at least I do not think that monstrosity explains consciousness something so superior, beautiful, beautiful and perfect.

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Where would something like the hexagonal shape of water crystals fit into this?

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Since all matter interacts through quantum effects at some level, does all matter and energy have a soul?

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yes and no it can only become conscious in the brain by means of a resonance that extends the quantum entanglement by a structure on the scale of nanometers or even micrometers this is the difference the mt is supposed to have the characteristics analogous to a superconductor at room temperature and it would suffice that the interlacing occurs in some sono and then connects everything so yes and no, only in the brain is consciousness outside is proto-consciousness, but it is already a valid observer, it makes the universe not become a gigantic wave function, the The question is that given the scale at which it occurs in the brain, it may have the power to spread to all or a good part of the brain, used as two percent at a time, only the minimum necessary at that time is used due to energy limitations, but as long as it extends from one point to the entire brain, great because that would explain that consciousness is unique and without parts, because everything is connected mathematically speaking Or would it be a single object despite the fact that they occupy multiple places at the same time, when they die, then part of that system survives and basically floats out, it doesn’t matter, the important thing is that your memories do not disappear due to the principle of conservation of dimension, even if the soul is in another dimension it wouldn’t matter because quantum entanglement is non-local it works automatically at infinite distance it doesn’t have the limit of the speed of light that’s why einstein called it spooky action at a distance.

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This connects to a fundamental logical problem with the idea of free will. If we cause our actions then our actions follow from what we are which means our actions are not free. But if we are not the cause of our actions then how can we be said to will them at all. There is nothing which can rescue this notion of free will from this logical contradiction within the premise of time-ordered causality. And appealing to some non-physical cause like a soul doesn’t accomplish anything.

But when I look at how people make choices, I see people choosing their reasons for their choice along with the what they choose. This doesn’t look like time-ordered causality to me at all. The cause/reason is as much a result of the choice event as the action we have chosen, and since the reason we have chosen is a part of who we become as a result of our choice then we are only the cause of our action in what we have become rather than what we were.

But how would this look within a worldview based upon time ordered causality? It seems obvious to me that this would mean there are events without a cause in the pre-existing conditions. And that is exactly what we see in quantum physics. Now it is true that the laws of physics depend on quantum events abiding by the probability distributions we calculate. But that is only a constraint on the large scale behavior of many many events and not the individual events themselves. But we know from chaotic dynamics that one event (like a butterfly wing) can alter the course of macroscopic events.

Therefore I think you are looking at things a bit backwards. Of course you are not going to find free will in the laws of nature. But if you turn it around and ask what you would expect to see in the laws of nature if free will exists then that is another matter entirely.

Then you have abandoned the unsupportable Neoplatonic notion of a nonphysical entity operating the body like a puppet. But see not reason at all to believe in the Gnostic rational soul of Greek philosophy which some have rewritten to Bible to fit into. Nor do I believe in any transmission of sin or sinfulness. I see no basis for either of these in the Bible.

I don’t think there is any conservation of information in the way you imply.

Mixing these terms we have for things we do not understand in science like an alchemist mixing different metals to make gold, sounds to me like a “God of the gaps” type thinking.

The hexagonal shape of water crystals is wholly a consequence of the angle between the two chemical bonds in the water molecule (due to the atomic p orbitals of the oxygen atom, I think). But the shape of snow flakes is an example of how an indeterminant instability can result in unpredictable diversity. The latter is a self-organizing phenomenon as the first placement of a set of water molecules in the lattice guides the placement of subsequent molecules in that set to create a symmetrical pattern (mostly, since this isn’t always perfect).

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I had to stop reading there and comment.

The action is caused. The issue is whether a person can act without being caused.

Let’s get this ever so basic premise untangled.

Reminds me of a junior college intro to philosophy. The professor said causality was the view that everything is caused, and I had to interrupt him and explain, it’s the view that every effect has a cause.

That was a long time ago. Now I’m more careful to avoid so trivial a tautology. The issue is whether happenings can occur without cause. Maybe yes and maybe no. It depends on who’s causing it, right?

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Of course, my actions are not free, they are a function of my being, but if I, in turn, am a function of the brain, which is obviously mechanistic, at least the neural network, my actions end up depending on something external to me, while free will should to be free, there may be external pressure, there may be previous psychological conditions, but they do not affect the final result, they affect it with a certain probability depending on my willpower, to me the dilemma seems to me to be a trap of language, free in free will does not mean the self-determination of the action if not that I am capable of freely manipulating my actions and that I is something non-computational and non-mechanistic therefore, despite being a physicist, the role of the laws of physics is limited, at most they predispose or if they interfere it is destroying the system my decision is still physical, but if you want the soul to remain spiritual I don’t know this explanation is the least magical currently possible and it is so subtle that it only controls whether the wave function collapses or not, because somehow the observer collapses the wave function as if the observer is his mind and that is not physical, let’s say that the act of observing causes an explosion of decoherence in the brain or something like that.Although almost everything has quantum gravity that causes a similar effect, perhaps the dimension itself causes it, since the macroscopic world is classical and not quantum, it is the fault of the random quantum gravity events of the world that are in turn more subtle than the of the brain are not at the level of thinking but you can already observe these cause decoherence everywhere.

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but what are we to begin with now that I see it, the computational theory of mind is the guarantor of genocide because if we humans are our mind and this is our brain and this is a computer, whether classical or quantum or a mixture of both, killing a human being is the same to throw away my laptop, I mean we need an alternative.

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I’m a theist who believes that I am contingent in being, and necessary with respect to my action.

I also have little understanding for determinists who question whether they have the ability to act, but I give them the benefit of the doubt.

While we are determined to act in any number of ways: psychology, biology, genetics, prior trauma, etc. All it takes is a single instance of a single person determining an action, for determinism to be false.

It’s also absolutely wrong to treat another person like they don’t exist, when you believe they do.

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You are absolutely right on the ethical question, but it is unacceptable because it admits that a human being is the same as a cell phone, it is exactly the same and all cell phones are worth the same, I mean, you can throw them away whenever you want, I am not saying that as a scientific hypothesis, no be valid, because it is valid until the contrary is proven, but its philosophical implications are evil I can say we are all cell phones and I want to destroy other cell phones according to my internal program it is a waste yes, but not a homicide it is horrible in what it can finish all this.

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That is one big “if” and not at all obvious that brains are mechanistic. A single celled slime mold is a thing of wonder, our brains even more so. But not all brains register this wonder.

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