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Just in case you are serious, or people believe you're serious: 1) Quantum mechanics operates on the quantum level. Macro objects, while composed of countless

Just in case you are serious, or people believe you're serious: 1) Quantum mechanics operates on the quantum level. Macro objects, while composed of countless quantum systems, and thus are the result of the quantum systems of probabilistic particles and waves collapsing and such, are just that: the result of the quantum systems. This isn't subjective experience; it's an underlying behavior baring forth a different level of behavior. Just as it's possible, but doesn't make sense to describe Tetris in terms of electrons flowing through copper and semiconductors, one can describe the quantum behavior of what the TV is constructed of, but that wouldn't relate a bit to the meaningful object you watch shows on. 2) Probability on the quantum scale has nothing to do with the brain making choices; even if understanding quantum mechanics turns out to be essential to understanding consciousness, the brain can't change the laws of physics; it can't decide that certain waveforms will collapse in a way that appeals to it. By the same token, if you're a rational thinker, you'd understand that yes, if one develops an accurate enough model of the universe, the base stuff it's made of, you can predict the future. That's literally what science is; developing models which will predict how certain systems behave in a given condition. However going back to bullet 1, the concept of "free will" has nothing to do meaningfully with the base stuff of the universe. It's technically possible to be described in such terms, but that's not where decisions happen. 3) Again, going back to rationality; humans are part of the same deterministic system, operating under the same deterministic rules as everything else that exists. Sure subjectivity feels different than what we imagine a computer's (non)experience to be, but that's just a result of the conscious process (and the fact that most people don't empathize with machines). 4) I honestly don't even understand what you're trying to say here :\ 5) This has nothing to do with anything at all but... you aren't the atoms that comprise you. You aren't even the -cells- that comprise you. "Seven years from now your body will be made of entirely different cells than it is now" and all that.

tomp 15y ago
1) The problem that quantum mechanics has with consciousness is that you can connect macro objects (a cat) with the quantum effects on the quantum level (detector), so that we should actually observe quantum effects on macro objects. That's why Schrödinger's Cat is a paradox. 2) You can't really predict the future of a non-trivial closed system from within the closed system itself - no matter how you would "calculate" the future, you would never be able to include the state of your calculator/computer into the prediction (perfect compression does not exist). I.e., if I make a machine that predicts the future, I know the future, I can act to change it, so the future is different... and the machine does not predict the future, really. In a way, the universe is the computer that is calculating its own future all the time.
- dangrossman 15y ago
  > In a way, the universe is the computer that is calculating its own future all the time. Reminds me of this book: http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Universe-Quantum-Computer-Scientist/dp/1400040922 http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Universe-Quantum-Computer-... > Is the universe actually a giant quantum computer? According to Seth Lloyd—Professor of Quantum-Mechanical Engineering at MIT and originator of the first technologically feasible design for a working quantum computer—the answer is yes. This wonderfully accessible book illuminates the professional and personal paths that led him to this remarkable conclusion.
olalonde 15y ago
I agree with most of what you said except "Seven years from now your body will be made of entirely different cells than it is now". Some neurons in the brain are never replaced http://askanaturalist.com/do-we-replace-our-cells-every-7-or-10-years/ http://askanaturalist.com/do-we-replace-our-cells-every-7-or... (couldn't find a better reference)
- batista 15y ago
  Maybe, but still their atoms are always on the move...
drostie 15y ago
(1) There is no firm distinction between the "quantum level" and the rest of our universe; a "Heisenberg cut" needs to be placed, but where it occurs doesn't matter. And quantum mechanics is multiparticle, so rather than "countless quantum systems," these "macro objects" are a quantum system -- just one. There is a wavefunction for the universe, in principle, if you allow the clean deterministic unitary part of QM to do its thing. But the quantum behavior does really matter. The clean part of QM says that if there's an accumulation of events which would transfer my TV into my bedroom with probability 50%, my TV is described by the state matrix ½ |L><L| + ½ |B><B|, where |B> is its state in my bedroom and |L> is its state in my living room. But we don't see that state. We see |L> or we see |B>. That is the "hardest part" of quantum mechanics, where one insists that the above superposition describes many worlds or that there is a nonunitary wavefunction collapse or whatever. (2) I don't require that the brain change the laws of physics or decide that certain waveforms collapse in any particular way. However, for reference, quantum mechanics does work that way, so get used to it. A system "over here" can indeed "decide" how a system "over there" will collapse. If I have photons over here in a fiber-optic cable, I can perform a measurement which will change the result of a double-slit experiment over there. I can choose whether the people over there will see an interference pattern or not. In fact, I can choose whether it will happen after their detectors have already measured their photons. We've done this experiment, it has been confirmed, and if it weren't confirmed, QM would just be flat out wrong. [Theory details: start with (|00> + |11>) ⊗ (|0> + |1>), apply a CNOT from qubit 3 to qubit 2, then choose to measure qubit 1 in either the |0>, |1> basis or the |0> + |1>, |0> − |1> basis to destroy or restore the interference pattern at qubit 3. It's called a "delayed-choice quantum eraser."] We gave up that very sentence, "if one develops an accurate enough model of the universe, the base stuff it's made of, you can predict the future", with the advent of quantum mechanics -- at least, in the way I think you intend it. Hey, here's a nice quantum system, it's in the state |0> + |1>. You measure it in the computational basis. No matter how accurate your model is, you cannot predict which one comes out. If you could, you could do experiments to prove that nature was self-contradictory. (3) The problem is precisely that the "results of the conscious process" don't appear to be mechanical, such that we can't empathize with machines. It's not just "we don't," but that machines are so precisely understood, and so simple, that you would have to invent a "ghost in the machine" and believe in weird supernatural crap to have them really feel anything. Hell, you probably think, for all your talk of rationality, that I really believe in ghosts -- and it's for precisely this reason. Machines seem to require a "ghost" inside them to feel. What I want to say is different. If this supposition is correct, then applying it back to our own case poses a trilemma. Either (a) we don't really feel anything, or (b) we are not machines, or (c) we're stuck with weird supernatural crap. Of these three, (b) is the "easy way out;" abandon functionalism. It comes with its own problems about what we replace it with; functionalism is not easily replaced. There is an alternative (d) which is to not take the problem seriously, which many influential philosophers including Dan Dennett have made a reasonable option, but it seems unsatisfyingly to fall into the attitudes of (a) and (c) when actually practised. (4) Quantum systems sometimes form higher-order excitations which escape the parallel and the serial. Electrons in parallel only flow with resistance. Electrons in series also only flow with resistance. A Cooper pair is a two-electron excitation which flows without resistance, even though its constituent electrons could only flow with resistance. It requires a higher-order description. That is very rare in mechanics. (5) Take it one step further: classically, you aren't even the pattern of atoms that comprise you. That's what the Star Trek example proves. We could create two copies of this pattern classically, and there would suddenly be two distinct people in the universe. If someone pointed a gun at you and said, "hey, we've got to kill you, we created this identical doppelganger of you down on the planet, and now we're convinced that he's the real you," that would seem awfully disturbing to anyone. The only reason they go along with it in Star Trek is because we kill them before they can react. But quantum mechanics offers something fundamentally different. You could be the quantum pattern. Or, at least, the Star Trek thought experiment wouldn't suffice to disprove it. That's why one might be hopeful that there is something quantum about mind.

tomp 15y ago

1) The problem that quantum mechanics has with consciousness is that you can connect macro objects (a cat) with the quantum effects on the quantum level (detector), so that we should actually observe quantum effects on macro objects. That's why Schrödinger's Cat is a paradox. 2) You can't really predict the future of a non-trivial closed system from within the closed system itself - no matter how you would "calculate" the future, you would never be able to include the state of your calculator/computer into the prediction (perfect compression does not exist). I.e., if I make a machine that predicts the future, I know the future, I can act to change it, so the future is different... and the machine does not predict the future, really. In a way, the universe is the computer that is calculating its own future all the time.

dangrossman 15y ago
> In a way, the universe is the computer that is calculating its own future all the time. Reminds me of this book: http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Universe-Quantum-Computer-Scientist/dp/1400040922 http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Universe-Quantum-Computer-... > Is the universe actually a giant quantum computer? According to Seth Lloyd—Professor of Quantum-Mechanical Engineering at MIT and originator of the first technologically feasible design for a working quantum computer—the answer is yes. This wonderfully accessible book illuminates the professional and personal paths that led him to this remarkable conclusion.

olalonde 15y ago

I agree with most of what you said except "Seven years from now your body will be made of entirely different cells than it is now". Some neurons in the brain are never replaced http://askanaturalist.com/do-we-replace-our-cells-every-7-or-10-years/ http://askanaturalist.com/do-we-replace-our-cells-every-7-or... (couldn't find a better reference)

batista 15y ago
Maybe, but still their atoms are always on the move...

drostie 15y ago

(1) There is no firm distinction between the "quantum level" and the rest of our universe; a "Heisenberg cut" needs to be placed, but where it occurs doesn't matter. And quantum mechanics is multiparticle, so rather than "countless quantum systems," these "macro objects" are a quantum system -- just one. There is a wavefunction for the universe, in principle, if you allow the clean deterministic unitary part of QM to do its thing. But the quantum behavior does really matter. The clean part of QM says that if there's an accumulation of events which would transfer my TV into my bedroom with probability 50%, my TV is described by the state matrix ½ |L><L| + ½ |B><B|, where |B> is its state in my bedroom and |L> is its state in my living room. But we don't see that state. We see |L> or we see |B>. That is the "hardest part" of quantum mechanics, where one insists that the above superposition describes many worlds or that there is a nonunitary wavefunction collapse or whatever. (2) I don't require that the brain change the laws of physics or decide that certain waveforms collapse in any particular way. However, for reference, quantum mechanics does work that way, so get used to it. A system "over here" can indeed "decide" how a system "over there" will collapse. If I have photons over here in a fiber-optic cable, I can perform a measurement which will change the result of a double-slit experiment over there. I can choose whether the people over there will see an interference pattern or not. In fact, I can choose whether it will happen after their detectors have already measured their photons. We've done this experiment, it has been confirmed, and if it weren't confirmed, QM would just be flat out wrong. [Theory details: start with (|00> + |11>) ⊗ (|0> + |1>), apply a CNOT from qubit 3 to qubit 2, then choose to measure qubit 1 in either the |0>, |1> basis or the |0> + |1>, |0> − |1> basis to destroy or restore the interference pattern at qubit 3. It's called a "delayed-choice quantum eraser."] We gave up that very sentence, "if one develops an accurate enough model of the universe, the base stuff it's made of, you can predict the future", with the advent of quantum mechanics -- at least, in the way I think you intend it. Hey, here's a nice quantum system, it's in the state |0> + |1>. You measure it in the computational basis. No matter how accurate your model is, you cannot predict which one comes out. If you could, you could do experiments to prove that nature was self-contradictory. (3) The problem is precisely that the "results of the conscious process" don't appear to be mechanical, such that we can't empathize with machines. It's not just "we don't," but that machines are so precisely understood, and so simple, that you would have to invent a "ghost in the machine" and believe in weird supernatural crap to have them really feel anything. Hell, you probably think, for all your talk of rationality, that I really believe in ghosts -- and it's for precisely this reason. Machines seem to require a "ghost" inside them to feel. What I want to say is different. If this supposition is correct, then applying it back to our own case poses a trilemma. Either (a) we don't really feel anything, or (b) we are not machines, or (c) we're stuck with weird supernatural crap. Of these three, (b) is the "easy way out;" abandon functionalism. It comes with its own problems about what we replace it with; functionalism is not easily replaced. There is an alternative (d) which is to not take the problem seriously, which many influential philosophers including Dan Dennett have made a reasonable option, but it seems unsatisfyingly to fall into the attitudes of (a) and (c) when actually practised. (4) Quantum systems sometimes form higher-order excitations which escape the parallel and the serial. Electrons in parallel only flow with resistance. Electrons in series also only flow with resistance. A Cooper pair is a two-electron excitation which flows without resistance, even though its constituent electrons could only flow with resistance. It requires a higher-order description. That is very rare in mechanics. (5) Take it one step further: classically, you aren't even the pattern of atoms that comprise you. That's what the Star Trek example proves. We could create two copies of this pattern classically, and there would suddenly be two distinct people in the universe. If someone pointed a gun at you and said, "hey, we've got to kill you, we created this identical doppelganger of you down on the planet, and now we're convinced that he's the real you," that would seem awfully disturbing to anyone. The only reason they go along with it in Star Trek is because we kill them before they can react. But quantum mechanics offers something fundamentally different. You could be the quantum pattern. Or, at least, the Star Trek thought experiment wouldn't suffice to disprove it. That's why one might be hopeful that there is something quantum about mind.