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I’m a molecular biologist and this reads like pseudo science to me. Be incredibly sceptical whenever you read quantum and consciousness in one abstract. It’s al

I’m a molecular biologist and this reads like pseudo science to me. Be incredibly sceptical whenever you read quantum and consciousness in one abstract. It’s all Deepak Chopra style mysticism.

tucnak 2y ago
Thank God we have scientists rallying against Wolfram, Penrose, et al. It would be great if next-up, you guys actually had the guts to challenge your _actual_ peers, who are turning tricks of mainstream scientific literature at the highest levels of academia. Bread and butter. Western blot party for everyone!
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  Penrose is a scientist gone crackpot in the tradition of Josephson. His "I can do math because I am a thetan" shtick is based on a ridiculous misunderstanding of Godel since Godel's theorems don't apply to a piece of wetware which is by no means consistent or complete. (e.g. if he does math by being a thetan why can't he solve Collatz?) Wolfram is something else. A New Kind of Science isn't really wrong yet it's not really right. It's sad to see him spend decades looking for more systems like Rule 30 and finding systems that are similar but not so simple, not so pretty, and he never gets an insight out of it that really applies to anything else. He's like a crackpot in that he works tirelessly on a research program that's unconnected to anything else anyone else is working on, however. Maybe that comes out of being rich and not having to apply for grants. On the other hand, there are major fields of physics, such as string theory, which very well be based on a delusion, yet in that case it is a shared delusion. In the pandemic he went on a vainglorious and grandiose quest for a "theory of everything" yet he has the good judgement to base it on causal networks which I think is one of the best grounded approaches to quantum gravity (e.g. given two points in space-time aren't they spacelike or timelike or lightlike and in the last two cases isn't one of them in the future or past of the other?)
  - tucnak 2y ago
    I'm sure Wolfram is for real; it's just funny how supposed scientists would jump out of their trousers to criticise him, all the while happily ignoring fraud in their immediately field, their own faculties, etc. Talk spineless. Then the next big fraud is revealed, and they suddenly go back to the usual pikachu face routine. Surprise!
    - PaulHoule 2y ago
      Yeah, but talking about grand unification of any kind in 2024 seems to be besides the point. Newton postulated a relationship between physics on Earth and the cosmos, specifically that a single theory of gravity explains objects falling here and the moon orbiting around the Earth, planets going around the Sun, etc. Astronomical measurements show quite clearly that there either (1) there is a sector of hidden particles and fields responsible for most of the mass of the universe or (2) gravity and/or inertia (two sides of the same coin?) don't behave the same way at the galaxy scale as the solar system scale. Either way Newton's connection has broken down, so the physics we know is not the physics of the real world. The microphysics of MOND are baffling; it's not hard to imagine some particles and fields that explain dark matter but impossible to prove that any of them are for real unless we get a breakthrough in experiment that can rule some of them out.
      - tucnak 2y ago
        Thank you, it's always interesting to hear physicists talk about this stuff :-)
  - teekert 2y ago
    You're downvoted but Penrose has really deteriorated indeed, he's way out of his field of expertise nowadays. It's not science, the people downvoting you are probably not scientists and need to think again about who they trust. The original article makes huge leaps from quantum effects in Microtubuli to consciousness with no real science in between. Here is a real scientist on this mumbo jumbo [0]. Please don't take any of that "medicine should interact with your body on a quantum vibration level, a rock can be medicine"-crap, which is the category that TFA we are discussing falls into. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1wqUCATYUA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1wqUCATYUA "My brain tells me my brain is special, and my brain is an excellent measurement device of specialness! Now all we need is science to prove my brain was right about my brain! After all: Quantum mechanics is weird. Consciousness is weird. There must be a relation!"
- teekert 2y ago
  Those scandals are an absolute disgrace indeed, but please remember it's a very small percentage of scientists involved (I hope!). I have to say it makes me feel bad that as soon as I identify as a biologist, I get smacked in the face with western blot scandals. My god, the damage these frauds have done to our reputation. I'm so sorry for it.
vixen99 2y ago
So it's a case of 'Take it from me, I'm an expert and it's nonsense' is it? Presumably no one needs to read any further on this topic. A relief to many no doubt.
- teekert 2y ago
  Basically… yes. I mean I have an internal model in the making since I started my biochemistry bachelor in 1999, I moved through a molecular biology master into a biophysics PhD (where I also disrupted microtubules to investigate molecular processes of GPCRs), then into a professional career as a bioinformatician in the genomics field. And when I read this: “Wiest and his research team found that when they gave rats a drug that binds to microtubules, it took the rats significantly longer to fall unconscious under an anesthetic gas. The research team's microtubule-binding drug interfered with the anesthetic action, thus supporting the idea that the anesthetic acts on microtubules to cause unconsciousness.” It certainly sounds probable microtubule disruption would do that but there are so insanely many ways that this could be explained using classical, non-quantum hypotheses (that need testing!), and microtubules serve so many different functions in cells, that the quantum theory falls completely outside of the possibilities of my internal models. I have no need of such an outlandish hypothesis. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and this paper is not it. Sure there is a small chance I’m going to be wrong but Bayes would agree with me it’s an exceedingly small chance given all priors. Just the scale difference between microtubules and whatever gives our brain that sense of consciousness is so unimaginably vast and complex that simple statements such as in TFA are really hinting at (feigned for attention?) ignorance. Trust me.
  - aeonik 2y ago
    I like your take here, but I just want to say, that I'm not sure claiming that consciousness has a quantum basia is that extraordinary. We deal with lots of things that are quantum in nature on a daily basis. Once you get down to a certain size, it's essentially a guarantee, and nature has taken advantage of quantum effects before, like photo synthesis. My take is that there isn't good evidence yet. One result doesn't make it. Once I can plug my brain into a super conscious-net like the matrix with technology engineered on top of the theory, THAT'S when we have it figured out.

I’m a molecular biologist and this reads like pseudo science to me. Be incredibly sceptical whenever you read quantum and consciousness in one abstract. It’s all Deepak Chopra style mysticism.

tucnak 2y ago

Thank God we have scientists rallying against Wolfram, Penrose, et al. It would be great if next-up, you guys actually had the guts to challenge your _actual_ peers, who are turning tricks of mainstream scientific literature at the highest levels of academia. Bread and butter. Western blot party for everyone!

PaulHoule 2y ago
Penrose is a scientist gone crackpot in the tradition of Josephson. His "I can do math because I am a thetan" shtick is based on a ridiculous misunderstanding of Godel since Godel's theorems don't apply to a piece of wetware which is by no means consistent or complete. (e.g. if he does math by being a thetan why can't he solve Collatz?) Wolfram is something else. A New Kind of Science isn't really wrong yet it's not really right. It's sad to see him spend decades looking for more systems like Rule 30 and finding systems that are similar but not so simple, not so pretty, and he never gets an insight out of it that really applies to anything else. He's like a crackpot in that he works tirelessly on a research program that's unconnected to anything else anyone else is working on, however. Maybe that comes out of being rich and not having to apply for grants. On the other hand, there are major fields of physics, such as string theory, which very well be based on a delusion, yet in that case it is a shared delusion. In the pandemic he went on a vainglorious and grandiose quest for a "theory of everything" yet he has the good judgement to base it on causal networks which I think is one of the best grounded approaches to quantum gravity (e.g. given two points in space-time aren't they spacelike or timelike or lightlike and in the last two cases isn't one of them in the future or past of the other?)
- tucnak 2y ago
  I'm sure Wolfram is for real; it's just funny how supposed scientists would jump out of their trousers to criticise him, all the while happily ignoring fraud in their immediately field, their own faculties, etc. Talk spineless. Then the next big fraud is revealed, and they suddenly go back to the usual pikachu face routine. Surprise!
  - PaulHoule 2y ago
    Yeah, but talking about grand unification of any kind in 2024 seems to be besides the point. Newton postulated a relationship between physics on Earth and the cosmos, specifically that a single theory of gravity explains objects falling here and the moon orbiting around the Earth, planets going around the Sun, etc. Astronomical measurements show quite clearly that there either (1) there is a sector of hidden particles and fields responsible for most of the mass of the universe or (2) gravity and/or inertia (two sides of the same coin?) don't behave the same way at the galaxy scale as the solar system scale. Either way Newton's connection has broken down, so the physics we know is not the physics of the real world. The microphysics of MOND are baffling; it's not hard to imagine some particles and fields that explain dark matter but impossible to prove that any of them are for real unless we get a breakthrough in experiment that can rule some of them out.
    - tucnak 2y ago
      Thank you, it's always interesting to hear physicists talk about this stuff :-)
- teekert 2y ago
  You're downvoted but Penrose has really deteriorated indeed, he's way out of his field of expertise nowadays. It's not science, the people downvoting you are probably not scientists and need to think again about who they trust. The original article makes huge leaps from quantum effects in Microtubuli to consciousness with no real science in between. Here is a real scientist on this mumbo jumbo [0]. Please don't take any of that "medicine should interact with your body on a quantum vibration level, a rock can be medicine"-crap, which is the category that TFA we are discussing falls into. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1wqUCATYUA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1wqUCATYUA "My brain tells me my brain is special, and my brain is an excellent measurement device of specialness! Now all we need is science to prove my brain was right about my brain! After all: Quantum mechanics is weird. Consciousness is weird. There must be a relation!"
teekert 2y ago
Those scandals are an absolute disgrace indeed, but please remember it's a very small percentage of scientists involved (I hope!). I have to say it makes me feel bad that as soon as I identify as a biologist, I get smacked in the face with western blot scandals. My god, the damage these frauds have done to our reputation. I'm so sorry for it.

vixen99 2y ago

So it's a case of 'Take it from me, I'm an expert and it's nonsense' is it? Presumably no one needs to read any further on this topic. A relief to many no doubt.

teekert 2y ago
Basically… yes. I mean I have an internal model in the making since I started my biochemistry bachelor in 1999, I moved through a molecular biology master into a biophysics PhD (where I also disrupted microtubules to investigate molecular processes of GPCRs), then into a professional career as a bioinformatician in the genomics field. And when I read this: “Wiest and his research team found that when they gave rats a drug that binds to microtubules, it took the rats significantly longer to fall unconscious under an anesthetic gas. The research team's microtubule-binding drug interfered with the anesthetic action, thus supporting the idea that the anesthetic acts on microtubules to cause unconsciousness.” It certainly sounds probable microtubule disruption would do that but there are so insanely many ways that this could be explained using classical, non-quantum hypotheses (that need testing!), and microtubules serve so many different functions in cells, that the quantum theory falls completely outside of the possibilities of my internal models. I have no need of such an outlandish hypothesis. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and this paper is not it. Sure there is a small chance I’m going to be wrong but Bayes would agree with me it’s an exceedingly small chance given all priors. Just the scale difference between microtubules and whatever gives our brain that sense of consciousness is so unimaginably vast and complex that simple statements such as in TFA are really hinting at (feigned for attention?) ignorance. Trust me.
- aeonik 2y ago
  I like your take here, but I just want to say, that I'm not sure claiming that consciousness has a quantum basia is that extraordinary. We deal with lots of things that are quantum in nature on a daily basis. Once you get down to a certain size, it's essentially a guarantee, and nature has taken advantage of quantum effects before, like photo synthesis. My take is that there isn't good evidence yet. One result doesn't make it. Once I can plug my brain into a super conscious-net like the matrix with technology engineered on top of the theory, THAT'S when we have it figured out.