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> I believe it's not in serious doubt that an intelligent computer is possible - although it may be extremely complicated, and perhaps far beyond current techno

> I believe it's not in serious doubt that an intelligent computer is possible - although it may be extremely complicated, and perhaps far beyond current technology - and current naysayers will one day seem much like the vitalists. Physicists (and this guy is one of them) certainly do have a robust set of taboos against considering consciousness as a quantum phenomena (whatever that might mean.) It's unfortunate because there is a huge resurgence going on in the physics of quantum many-body entanglement, quantum computers, foundations of quantum, etc. Alot of this meandering was just sidelined in the 1940s when world affairs intervened. However, in light of these new discoveries it's time to revisit the old vitalist arguments. Imho.

TTPrograms 11y ago
If consciousness is a quantum phenomenon it has coherence scales orders of magnitude beyond what we can achieve in labs at ~1 Kelvin. That is, it's pretty unlikely that quantum effects are having macro scale effects on the brain.
- mathgenius 11y ago
  Yes, this is certainly the prevailing opinion among practicing physicists. I would like to point out though, that this is a comparison between a few years of tinkering in the lab with billions of years of evolution.
  - TTPrograms 11y ago
    That's a good point. We should probably not trust this "lab tinkering" because it's so new - nature already figured everything out already. I'll go back to hunting and gathering now...
habitue 11y ago
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that intelligence requires quantum effects to work. I don't see how going back to vitalist arguments will aid us in any way. Researching the phenomena, following evidence, making inferences from that evidence... that's how progress on that subject would be made. Not by going back to arguments made by people with less information than we have now. Specifically, if we follow the evidence, and find that somehow, beyond all odds, the vitalists were correct (once you add "quantumness!" to the mix), then it's clearly only by lucky guess they were right. It would be something we could look back at and say "wow, that's an interesting coincidence" rather than "wow, those vitalists had it right all along, we should have paid closer attention".
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Its often by intuition that we know where to look. Lets not be arrogant and claim "ok, you guessed it right, but its only true if I measure it and prove its true". That's correct but disingenuous.
  - habitue 11y ago
    That's what I meant by rational inference, but if we look at it from the point of view of intuition, I'm saying our intuitions will be better because we have much better information now. We have no particular reason to weight heavily the intuitions of the vitalists in our search.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Intuition can be correct, and it can be wildly wrong. Science is how we separate the correct, the mildly wrong, and the wildly wrong intuitions. Its not an alternative to intuition -- intuition is where hypotheses come from. (OTOH, vitalism isn't a hypothesis, simply an intuition that some aspects of living things are outside the domain of science. Its not testable -- if correct, its completely indistinguishable from some of the relevant aspects of living things simply not being sufficiently well modeled by the current state of science at any given time. So, its an intuition that is neither confirmable nor useful in any way.)
  - gnaritas 11y ago
    That's still simply luck; unfounded intuition is meaningless as it's wrong more often than not. That's it's occasionally correct is coincidence.
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      I guess all scientific progress has been by coincidence then? That's what I mean by disingenuous; some credit has to be given to those that are right. There are an infinite number of wrong intuitions.
      - 11y ago
cousin_it 11y ago
If intelligence is based on magic juju, it's achievable by a computer that uses magic juju. To have a situation where intelligent humans are possible but intelligent computers are impossible, you need a decree from Cthulhu saying humans are special. I don't think that's likely.
gnaritas 11y ago
> Physicists (and this guy is one of them) certainly do have a robust set of taboos against considering consciousness as a quantum phenomena They really don't, but they do have taboos again ignoring the fact that there's no evidence for such a hypothesis, as do all scientists. Science is empirical and scientists don't generally just like to make shit up because it sounds cool.

TTPrograms 11y ago

If consciousness is a quantum phenomenon it has coherence scales orders of magnitude beyond what we can achieve in labs at ~1 Kelvin. That is, it's pretty unlikely that quantum effects are having macro scale effects on the brain.

mathgenius 11y ago
Yes, this is certainly the prevailing opinion among practicing physicists. I would like to point out though, that this is a comparison between a few years of tinkering in the lab with billions of years of evolution.
- TTPrograms 11y ago
  That's a good point. We should probably not trust this "lab tinkering" because it's so new - nature already figured everything out already. I'll go back to hunting and gathering now...

habitue 11y ago

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that intelligence requires quantum effects to work. I don't see how going back to vitalist arguments will aid us in any way. Researching the phenomena, following evidence, making inferences from that evidence... that's how progress on that subject would be made. Not by going back to arguments made by people with less information than we have now. Specifically, if we follow the evidence, and find that somehow, beyond all odds, the vitalists were correct (once you add "quantumness!" to the mix), then it's clearly only by lucky guess they were right. It would be something we could look back at and say "wow, that's an interesting coincidence" rather than "wow, those vitalists had it right all along, we should have paid closer attention".

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Its often by intuition that we know where to look. Lets not be arrogant and claim "ok, you guessed it right, but its only true if I measure it and prove its true". That's correct but disingenuous.
- habitue 11y ago
  That's what I meant by rational inference, but if we look at it from the point of view of intuition, I'm saying our intuitions will be better because we have much better information now. We have no particular reason to weight heavily the intuitions of the vitalists in our search.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Intuition can be correct, and it can be wildly wrong. Science is how we separate the correct, the mildly wrong, and the wildly wrong intuitions. Its not an alternative to intuition -- intuition is where hypotheses come from. (OTOH, vitalism isn't a hypothesis, simply an intuition that some aspects of living things are outside the domain of science. Its not testable -- if correct, its completely indistinguishable from some of the relevant aspects of living things simply not being sufficiently well modeled by the current state of science at any given time. So, its an intuition that is neither confirmable nor useful in any way.)
- gnaritas 11y ago
  That's still simply luck; unfounded intuition is meaningless as it's wrong more often than not. That's it's occasionally correct is coincidence.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    I guess all scientific progress has been by coincidence then? That's what I mean by disingenuous; some credit has to be given to those that are right. There are an infinite number of wrong intuitions.
    - 11y ago

cousin_it 11y ago

If intelligence is based on magic juju, it's achievable by a computer that uses magic juju. To have a situation where intelligent humans are possible but intelligent computers are impossible, you need a decree from Cthulhu saying humans are special. I don't think that's likely.

gnaritas 11y ago

> Physicists (and this guy is one of them) certainly do have a robust set of taboos against considering consciousness as a quantum phenomena They really don't, but they do have taboos again ignoring the fact that there's no evidence for such a hypothesis, as do all scientists. Science is empirical and scientists don't generally just like to make shit up because it sounds cool.