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They're saying brain processes must have interacted with the nuclear spins, and those brain processes must be quantum. But everything in the brain is quantum at

by simonh 4y ago

They're saying brain processes must have interacted with the nuclear spins, and those brain processes must be quantum. But everything in the brain is quantum at some level, because all of reality is quantum. It's quite possible this is an entirely irrelevant side effect. The brain is a complex living system with all the features of biological systems completely aside from the fact it's also the organ we think with, as against the organ we breathe with, or that processes our blood. I'm not excluding the suggestion that quantum effects have macroscopic implications, but for example transistors only work due to quantum mechanical effects. That doesn't make all computers containing transistors 'quantum computers' in the accepted sense. I don't want to be reflexively negative though. One thing we are sure of is that biological systems are unbelievably complicated, and almost every aspect of biological systems has some sort of feedback loop or side effect on everything else, many of which do affect function. Everything we learn, this included, is valuable and could turn out to be significant.

fauigerzigerk 4y ago
If I understand correctly, the paper claims to have found quantum effects that correlate with cognitive processes.
- simonh 4y ago
  Yes, but very tenuously, and as we all know correlation is not causation. Heartbeat evoked potentials are like a clock signal or drum beat through brain activity. The spin of these protons is synchronised with changes in these potentials, and the potentials play a role in cognitive function. Imagine a band playing a song. The drum beat drives the rhythm and plays a central role in whole performance, but these protons may well be like sand grains bouncing on the surface of the drum. Also bear in mind that nothing they studied or observed correlates in any way with the specific quantum processes that occur in quantum computation.
  - fauigerzigerk 4y ago
    Great analogy! I understand what you mean.
  - pmoriarty 4y ago
    "as we all know correlation is not causation" What is causation?
    - slfnflctd 4y ago
      Hard to prove.
      - pmoriarty 4y ago
        Perhaps impossible.
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    I hate the abuse of this term: "correlation is not causation." That is true - but it does not say anything about the opposite, or say that the objects are not correlated, which is often forgotten, or said with an implicit "there's a 90% chance they aren't correlated" when the statement makes no judgement whatsoever on the likelihood they are correlated. There might be a 90% chance of causation, even if the statement remains accurate. Example, this statement: Grass grows the fastest when the sun shines. Correlation is not causation - the grass does not grow solely because the sun is shining. Nevertheless the statement is true. Edit: My main point is that anything can be simply hit with: "Correlation is not causation." It's a skeptic's cop-out because, who can prove causation, really? Technically speaking, is not even gravity only assured by the anecdotes of billions of people? But sometimes it is stupid to remain a skeptic even if the two aren't the same.
    - simonh 4y ago
      >But sometimes it is stupid to remain a skeptic even if the two aren't the same. Nice. There are many, many things that could be going on in these processes in the brain. The range of possible mechanisms and effects is huge, and this result gives us just a tiny bit of information, but nowhere nearly enough to determine which possibilities are more or less likely. Some journalist picked one possibility to promote because it's click-baitey, ok fine. It got me to read the article and it's interesting research so we're all good. But they've not demonstrated any quantum computational behaviour, and there are many, many other things that could be going on here that are nothing to do with quantum computation. I don't see how merely pointing out that fact is 'stupid'. Skepticism is essential to the functioning of the scientific method, it's what differentiates science from credulous and magical thinking. Yes it's a brake on selecting the best answer or result, but it's a much stronger brake on selecting incorrect answers or results and that's where it provides it's value. It's quite right and proper to put off accepting what is ultimately demonstrated to be the right answer as proven until there is no other choice.
- civilized 4y ago
  ...using "brain water".
  - coldacid 4y ago
    Yeah, what the fuck? Is that supposed to be cerebrospinal fluid or have they come up with some new sort of luminous æther of the brain?
mxkopy 4y ago
Biology is really weird. I could imagine it leveraging some fundamental property of space and matter to get, like ~7ms better latency. Or be able to guess north like 3.4% better than chance. Glue ? Nonono, you gotta use fractally dense nanoscale features that engineer the probability distributions of opposing charges. That's how you adhere to shit Apparently nature found this so trivial, Geckos lost and re-evolved this ability nine times https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gecko#Common_Traits https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gecko#Common_Traits
dekhn 4y ago
There's a big difference between saying "the brain obeys the laws of quantum chemistry" (which is a true, if vague statement) and saying the brain exploits entanglement or coherence (which are specific subset quantum phenomena).
raydiatian 4y ago
> But everything in the brain is quantum at some level, because all of reality is quantum. This is very poor reasoning, to be frank. By this logic, every computer is a quantum computer. Which is a categorically useless distinction.

by simonh 4y ago

fauigerzigerk 4y ago

If I understand correctly, the paper claims to have found quantum effects that correlate with cognitive processes.

simonh 4y ago
Yes, but very tenuously, and as we all know correlation is not causation. Heartbeat evoked potentials are like a clock signal or drum beat through brain activity. The spin of these protons is synchronised with changes in these potentials, and the potentials play a role in cognitive function. Imagine a band playing a song. The drum beat drives the rhythm and plays a central role in whole performance, but these protons may well be like sand grains bouncing on the surface of the drum. Also bear in mind that nothing they studied or observed correlates in any way with the specific quantum processes that occur in quantum computation.
- fauigerzigerk 4y ago
  Great analogy! I understand what you mean.
- pmoriarty 4y ago
  "as we all know correlation is not causation" What is causation?
  - slfnflctd 4y ago
    Hard to prove.
    - pmoriarty 4y ago
      Perhaps impossible.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  I hate the abuse of this term: "correlation is not causation." That is true - but it does not say anything about the opposite, or say that the objects are not correlated, which is often forgotten, or said with an implicit "there's a 90% chance they aren't correlated" when the statement makes no judgement whatsoever on the likelihood they are correlated. There might be a 90% chance of causation, even if the statement remains accurate. Example, this statement: Grass grows the fastest when the sun shines. Correlation is not causation - the grass does not grow solely because the sun is shining. Nevertheless the statement is true. Edit: My main point is that anything can be simply hit with: "Correlation is not causation." It's a skeptic's cop-out because, who can prove causation, really? Technically speaking, is not even gravity only assured by the anecdotes of billions of people? But sometimes it is stupid to remain a skeptic even if the two aren't the same.
  - simonh 4y ago
    >But sometimes it is stupid to remain a skeptic even if the two aren't the same. Nice. There are many, many things that could be going on in these processes in the brain. The range of possible mechanisms and effects is huge, and this result gives us just a tiny bit of information, but nowhere nearly enough to determine which possibilities are more or less likely. Some journalist picked one possibility to promote because it's click-baitey, ok fine. It got me to read the article and it's interesting research so we're all good. But they've not demonstrated any quantum computational behaviour, and there are many, many other things that could be going on here that are nothing to do with quantum computation. I don't see how merely pointing out that fact is 'stupid'. Skepticism is essential to the functioning of the scientific method, it's what differentiates science from credulous and magical thinking. Yes it's a brake on selecting the best answer or result, but it's a much stronger brake on selecting incorrect answers or results and that's where it provides it's value. It's quite right and proper to put off accepting what is ultimately demonstrated to be the right answer as proven until there is no other choice.
civilized 4y ago
...using "brain water".
- coldacid 4y ago
  Yeah, what the fuck? Is that supposed to be cerebrospinal fluid or have they come up with some new sort of luminous æther of the brain?

mxkopy 4y ago

Biology is really weird. I could imagine it leveraging some fundamental property of space and matter to get, like ~7ms better latency. Or be able to guess north like 3.4% better than chance. Glue ? Nonono, you gotta use fractally dense nanoscale features that engineer the probability distributions of opposing charges. That's how you adhere to shit Apparently nature found this so trivial, Geckos lost and re-evolved this ability nine times https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gecko#Common_Traits https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gecko#Common_Traits

dekhn 4y ago

There's a big difference between saying "the brain obeys the laws of quantum chemistry" (which is a true, if vague statement) and saying the brain exploits entanglement or coherence (which are specific subset quantum phenomena).

raydiatian 4y ago

> But everything in the brain is quantum at some level, because all of reality is quantum. This is very poor reasoning, to be frank. By this logic, every computer is a quantum computer. Which is a categorically useless distinction.