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wait so TLDR they printed a sierpinski triangle on a chip and then photons demonstrated quantum behavior? I'm not a physicist or a consciousness researcher, bu

wait so TLDR they printed a sierpinski triangle on a chip and then photons demonstrated quantum behavior? I'm not a physicist or a consciousness researcher, but I'm not sure what the discovery is here. Unless they used fractal patterns to produce quantum effects at macroscales? But the article doesn't say what the scale is, and 'printed on a chip' + 'injected a photon' sounds pretty small.

mannykannot 5y ago
The argument is pretty thin, but it seems to go like this: Penrose and Hameroff have speculated that specifically quantum effects (i.e. those for which classical physics does not give a close approximation), arising within supposedly fractal structures of neurons, may be necessary to explain consciousness. The experiment demonstrates some specifically quantum effects in a fractal structure. This, therefore, can be seen as supporting evidence for the Penrose-Hamerof hypothesis, but only for an uncontested part. No advance in understanding consciousness has been made here.
- awinter-py 5y ago
  but this team hasn't shown any quantum effects in their fractal chip that you wouldn't expect from a normal chip, right? this is analogous to saying that 'all hexagons turn to ice when frozen' and then freezing a hexagon made of water. we already knew that water freezes to ice, we haven't discovered a novel property of hexagons
  - mannykannot 5y ago
    I do not know if this gave results compatible with prior calculations, or whether the size of the setup was too large for calculating an expected outcome, but either way, if they had found something unexpected, I do not know why they would not mention it. All they say in the abstract of the paper is "Our experiment allows the verification of physical laws in a quantitative manner and reveals the transport dynamics in great detail", and to me "verification of physical laws" seems to be the opposite of finding anything unusual. There is value in demonstrating that our suppositions hold, but, by their very nature, such confirmations are unlikely to herald breakthroughs. They do not seem to have demonstrated anything specific to the Penrose - Hamerof hypothesis.

mannykannot 5y ago

The argument is pretty thin, but it seems to go like this: Penrose and Hameroff have speculated that specifically quantum effects (i.e. those for which classical physics does not give a close approximation), arising within supposedly fractal structures of neurons, may be necessary to explain consciousness. The experiment demonstrates some specifically quantum effects in a fractal structure. This, therefore, can be seen as supporting evidence for the Penrose-Hamerof hypothesis, but only for an uncontested part. No advance in understanding consciousness has been made here.

awinter-py 5y ago
but this team hasn't shown any quantum effects in their fractal chip that you wouldn't expect from a normal chip, right? this is analogous to saying that 'all hexagons turn to ice when frozen' and then freezing a hexagon made of water. we already knew that water freezes to ice, we haven't discovered a novel property of hexagons
- mannykannot 5y ago
  I do not know if this gave results compatible with prior calculations, or whether the size of the setup was too large for calculating an expected outcome, but either way, if they had found something unexpected, I do not know why they would not mention it. All they say in the abstract of the paper is "Our experiment allows the verification of physical laws in a quantitative manner and reveals the transport dynamics in great detail", and to me "verification of physical laws" seems to be the opposite of finding anything unusual. There is value in demonstrating that our suppositions hold, but, by their very nature, such confirmations are unlikely to herald breakthroughs. They do not seem to have demonstrated anything specific to the Penrose - Hamerof hypothesis.