
Theories about a link between the human mind and quantum physics - tdurden
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170215-the-strange-link-between-the-human-mind-and-quantum-physics
======
titzer
I just don't get why smart people--even physicists!!--fall for this trap.
AFAICT, Quantum mechanics adds no explanatory power to current theories of
consciousness based on real, observable neurological phenomenon--like the
quite obvious fact there is a huge neural network information processing
system that is clearly doing the heavy lifting. No electrical activity, no
consciousness. It's been shown over and over again. So what do the quantum
superpositions add over mapping neural networks and simulating them? Does a
quantum superposition of a single molecule somehow make the nodes of this
neural network any more powerful or mysterious? Do they suddenly get a lot
more storage capacity (the human brain is already estimated at 2.5pb just
using neural connections)?

QM just doesn't add _any_ new explanations or make any predictions for
consciousness. Until it does, or we meet something we really cannot explain,
it does not make sense to obsess over it.

~~~
Koshkin
Quantum Mechanics as a physical theory that describes behavior of particles,
structure of atoms, etc. does not have much to say about behavior of larger
molecules, let alone cells such as neurons, or their interactions.

But at the core of the modern QM lies a mathematical theory that,
unfortunately, only rarely is seen as something that is independent from the
QM's concrete physical aspects. That theory is a kind of probability theory
that is different from the one that we all know and love (or hate). It is
exactly that difference that makes QM unreachable for our intuition. But as a
mathematical framework it can be expected to be useful in describing behavior
of some other systems that have nothing to do with Quantum Mechanics and which
could possibly include mechanisms of consciousness.

~~~
youdontknowtho
How would that probabilistic model be applied to consciousness? Genuinely
curious here. As far as I can tell, the definition of consciousness that
Chalmers and others use doesn't seem to have measurable aspects.

~~~
Koshkin
Well, Chalmers is a philosopher, and what philosophy does is it clarifies
problems (which often creates more problems to clarify) rather than solves
them... Whatever the exact definition, consciousness is _a function of a
living brain_ , a function required for the survival of an individual as a
part of a group, and since the environment in which an individual operates is
characterized by the high degree of uncerainty as to both its present state
and especially its future, making decisions must involve probabilistic
methods, and so must learning (because we all learn from our mistakes). The
process of learning has a physical manifestation due to changes in the brain,
which could be "measured," and if we assume the primacy of matter over
function, we have to expect that the material substrate also must behave
probabilistically. Which probability model is the best one in describing that
behavior, remains an open question.

~~~
youdontknowtho
So, I agree with you completely that consciousness is a function of a living
brain, where "living brain" is the physical substrate. I don't know if it
follows that consciousness has to be probabilistic.

The reason that I brought up Chalmers is that he, and others, will say that
physical states don't map to subjective consciousness or qualia. Don't get me
wrong, I'm much more of a "physicalist" in this regard. I'm not trained and I
don't work in the field, but I can't help but think that humans overestimate
the complexity and capabilities of consciousness. I think that there is a
brain and, like you say, there is some function of it that results in
consciousness. I think that we end up with a problem of definitions because
the thing that Chalmers et al are describing, I think, doesn't exist. BUT if
we are talking about the thing that Chalmers an co are talking about, then
no...I don't see a way that you get to qualia and consciousness from protein.

I'm kind of rambling. Sorry, it this isn't very coherent.

~~~
Koshkin
The problem is (not) realizing that our consciousness is as much a function of
our brain as it is generated by our interaction with other human beings. I
agree with your point about the overestimating. Indeed, social behavior by
necessity is rather simple, and, therefore, so is our consciousness.
Complicated systems are unreliable, which is why we try to keep things simple
- things that we can personally control anyway. And so when things, in their
natural progression, get complicated - which they inevitably do, - we give up
and submit ourselves to an even simpler, purely social, form of consciousness
(by asking for advice, participating in all kinds of social gatherings, etc.),
where "qualia" all but disappear. From this perspective it is indeed
unrealistic to try to explain human consciousness _only_ as a function of the
brain of a particular isolated person.

------
neom
I spend pretty much every weekend watching (super dyslexic) hours and hours of
"stuff" about quantum, form quantum biology to physics to astro, here are some
good ones around humans and the universe. Some may not seem totally relevant
but give foundational knowledge, suggest watching in order:

\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YycAzdtUIko](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YycAzdtUIko)
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YFrISfN7jo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YFrISfN7jo)
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-MNSLsjjdo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-MNSLsjjdo)
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLeEsYDlXJk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLeEsYDlXJk)
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADiql3FG5is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADiql3FG5is)
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWfRWdeuPb4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWfRWdeuPb4)
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stXhGMVJuqA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stXhGMVJuqA)
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atMuFCpxnUQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atMuFCpxnUQ)

~~~
Rainymood
Good post, I made it a bit more legible

Are Space and Time An Illusion? | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YycAzdtUIko](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YycAzdtUIko)

The Geometry of Causality | Space Time

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YFrISfN7jo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YFrISfN7jo)

The Quantum Experiment that Broke Reality | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-MNSLsjjdo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-MNSLsjjdo)

Quantum Biology: An Introduction

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLeEsYDlXJk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLeEsYDlXJk)

Quantum Biology: The Hidden Nature of Nature

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADiql3FG5is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADiql3FG5is)

Consciousness: Explored and Explained

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWfRWdeuPb4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWfRWdeuPb4)

The Mind After Midnight: Where Do You Go When You Go to Sleep?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stXhGMVJuqA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stXhGMVJuqA)

Rebooting the Cosmos: Is the Universe the Ultimate Computer?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atMuFCpxnUQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atMuFCpxnUQ)

~~~
lisivka
Double slit experiment is already explained:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsaUX48t0w8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsaUX48t0w8)
.

------
camtarn
"Might it be that, just as quantum objects can apparently be in two places at
once, so a quantum brain can hold onto two mutually-exclusive ideas at the
same time?"

Argh. Brain-hurting levels of bad science writing.

~~~
dekhn
It's a paraphrase of Penrose's "The Emperor's New Mind".

------
mlechha
Those who find connecting quantum mechanics and the brain repulsive should
check out Quantum Cognition
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum)
Cognition.

For some reason the mathematics of QM is extremely good at explaining counter
intuitive phenomena that classical probability theory cannot (necker cube is a
good example, where the mental state can be said to be in a superposition of
the two cube orientations).

Mind you, this doesn't say anything about the actual mechanism. It could or
couldn't be quantum but we'll never know if we just shrug the entire thing off
as crackpottery.

------
smashu
Please just read this brilliant comic together with this article:
[http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3](http://www.smbc-
comics.com/comic/the-talk-3)

The answer is there, in the last panel ;)

------
ape4
Computer hardware (like harddrives and memory) has to take quantum mechanical
effects into account. Or they could not be so compact. Makes sense that human
memory would evolve to it optimize these effects too. Nothing magical about
it.

------
mtuckah
In the "delayed choice" experiment described, measuring the path of particles
after they have traversed the slits forces their super position to collapse
and yields no interference pattern on the detection screen. If that is the
case, why doesn't the detection screen itself, which also measures the
position of electrons, also force their super position to collapse? What is
special about the detection screen as a measuring device?

~~~
pif
> measuring the _path_ of particles... > ... > the detection screen itself,
> which also measures the _position_ of electrons,

Alarm bells ringing around! Path and position are not the same thing, and
that's quite an important distinction in quantum mechanics!

~~~
dave_sullivan
For those who don't know, it would be useful to explain "why" or include a
reference.

------
CuriouslyC
Consciousness is certainly a quantum phenomenon, because at the end of the day
our reality is quantum mechanics writ large. We don't really understand the
transition from wave-like behavior to classical particle behavior, and our
current theories are at least incomplete if not plain wrong. Given that,
mechanistic speculation on the relationship between quantum physics and
consciousness seems premature.

~~~
frede
The physical theory is close to perfect, it's the interpretation that leaves
room for questions.

~~~
CuriouslyC
The mathematical model is what is close to perfect. To me, theory implies a
knowledge of actual process. I suppose that is a semantic point.

------
justifier
> even if that observation should not disturb the particle's motion

this claim has always frustrated me

can someone who agrees with it defend it from first principles?

~~~
XorNot
If a particle is strictly a point like entity then we expect it to be
localised. In space. And that means an observation which probes somewhere it
isn't shouldn't affect it.

However, single photon double slit experiments don't show this - the particles
act as though they are interfering with each other even though a photon
detector will show photons arriving one at a time, at a rate which shows only
one photon could have been traversing the apparatus at a time.

~~~
justifier
maybe I should have included the whole quote, but this is regarding the double
slit experiment stead delayed choice quantum eraser experiments, where you
measure over here but seem to affect over there

> If we place a detector inside or just behind one slit, we can find out
> whether any given particle goes through it or not. In that case, however,
> the interference vanishes. Simply by observing a particle's path – even if
> that observation should not disturb the particle's motion – we change the
> outcome.

when we place an observer at one of the slits we lose the previously ambiguous
diffraction and instead get a clump pattern, but we are definitely probing
where it is

------
rrggrr
Better article from the Atlantic in 2016:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/quantum-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/quantum-
brain/506768/)

------
tjansen
As a software dev, without having any knowledge about quantum physics, reading
about 'delayed-choice' particles, I'd say they are using some kind of lazy
evaluation. Maybe the universe is actually a software simulation...

------
senectus1
damn that was painful reading...

almost as silly as a chiropractor making adjustments on a turtle:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=693MsUkQzsA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=693MsUkQzsA)

------
asciimo
Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology by Johnjoe McFadden
([https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RKO0KWM/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RKO0KWM/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)) concludes with speculation about the role of
quantum mechanics in consciousness. He's clear that it's just theory, but the
entire book paves a credible path toward considering the idea.

------
pif
The only link I may imagine, classic mechanics is too deterministic to explain
free will. Quantum mechanics, on the other side, has uncertainty as its
fundamental principle.

~~~
forthefuture
Is free will not understood? I haven't seen a human make a decision in 25
years that wasn't based exactly on their prime motivations.

~~~
dwringer
That's no more meaningful than saying "I haven't seen a particle behave in 25
years that wasn't based exactly on the laws of physics"

------
NikolaNovak
To quote a stand-up comedian Pete Holmes on laymen explaining Magic acts: "I
don't understand magnets... and I don't understand this... this is magnets!"
[1]

The writer watched some Big Bang theory for well-known physics concepts,
mashed in some Deepak Chopra, and ensured all the relevant sentences are
phrased as questions.

Be warned it is a difficult read, not because of complicated concepts (there
are many mentioned, but they are certainly not examined), but because of lack
of any cohesive or binding logic between the smattering of phrases.

[1] [https://youtu.be/lK8G_VAuEnk?t=3m1s](https://youtu.be/lK8G_VAuEnk?t=3m1s)

~~~
kordless
A thing may not "know" itself without recursion. Thus, some unknowns, contrary
to popular logic, are still unknowns. We don't know how magnets work and it
may be that our brains use how they do work in a specific way to do what they
do.

On the other hand, they may not. It's the concept of holding both of these
"facts" as eventual truths (irrationally resolved in the future) in one's mind
at the same time that leads to dissonance. That's a good excuse for the
scientific process, if there ever was one.

------
lngnmn
Human brain is bound and conditioned by the shared physical environment. The
process of evolution accumulates so-called hard-wired heuristics which reflect
what usually happens in the environment. This is the machinery behind of some
intuitions or Kant's "apriory knowledge". The "knowledge" is represented as a
structure (circuitry), not information.

What is obvious, anything which could not be captured by the senses _and_ does
not directly influence the chances of survival and reproduction cannot be
represented into a brain structure and cannot be the source of related
intuitions.

Abstract concepts and generalized notions would necessarily reflect observable
empirical phenomena, not imaginable.

In other words, this is another hipster's nonsense.

~~~
CuriouslyC
Kind of ironic to throw around Kant then call something hipster nonsense ;)

~~~
lngnmn
Why, Kant has been explicit that such kind of knowledge must be there prior to
the sensory conditioning of the mind (through which each baby goes), hundreds
of years before modern machine learning algorithms, so he is an extraordinary
thinker indeed.

He just attributed it to some metaphysical abstractions, perhaps due to being
prejudiced by all the religious dogmatic nonsense, and the social consensus
which refused to consider a man being mere a machine and everything in the
universe as an unfolding of one _single_ process.

------
AndrewKemendo
There is no link. This is 1000 words of pseudoscientific nonsense.

~~~
gadders
It's a weird concept, but Roger Penrose is a well-respected mathematician.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose)

~~~
sweeneyrod
Yes, the idea that quantum mechanics are involved in producing consciousness
is not crazy (although I think Penrose would admit it is pretty speculative).
His book The Emperor's New Mind discusses it. But the idea that consciousness
produces quantum mechanical effects is (I'm fairly sure) nonsense.

~~~
late2part
Just because it's not provable or falsifiable doesn't make it nonsense - just
a theory - albeit in this case a weak one.

Many untestable, unprovable theories in the past were considered nonsense and
later proven true.

~~~
nickdavidhaynes
>just a theory

I think the way you're using the word "theory" here dilutes its technical
meaning. More accurate to call it speculation or philosophizing.

------
cyborgx7
This bullshit again. Could we please just stop giving these cranks attention
until they produce at least a somewhat plausible mechanism for how quantum
mechanics and conciousness are related, and not just a bunch of unscentifeic
speculative mumbojumbo that falls appart if you even take a cursory look at
it?

~~~
CuriouslyC
I'd argue that even bad articles can stimulate good discussion.

~~~
lisivka
You asked.

Good discussion from bad article.

I found surprising link between quantum objects and socks. Socks can be left,
or right. They cannot be partially left, or partially right, but they can be
left and right at same time! Trust me, I checked that.

Moreover, when nobody is watching, socks are spreading in the room in wave-
like pattern. It demonstrates wave-particle duality of socks. However, if
somebody watching, socks are demonstrating particle only behavior. Moreover,
they are demonstrating particle only behavior even if somebody will watch them
in future!

Socks can be entangled, so if one sock is the right sock, then other one is
instantaneously collapses to the left sock via spooky action at distance. This
feature of socks can be used for FTL communication.

I have theory, it's called «string theory». In this theory, our Universe is
made of little strings, which are creating space-time fabric, in which socks
are living. In the process of entanglement, socks are somewhat connected by a
string, which allows them to communicate via large distances.

Can anybody suggest me how to create a powerful theory from that, e.g. x in
power of 10 at least?

~~~
CuriouslyC
That is awesome, I am totally going to steal it :)

~~~
lisivka
You are welcome! I'm not a native speaker, so it's better to rewrite text into
something readable.

------
nonidit
tl;dr; please?

------
bykovich
Serious question: why does everyone love the hard, mathematical reductionism
that currently prevails so much? It's plagued by serious explanatory
difficulties and terribly limited philosophical support, and seems to really
contribute nothing of great value -- what the hell is the appeal?

~~~
balfirevic
Not that you are correct about your view on limitations of reductionism - but
even if you were the answer is: because the alternative is magic. Thanks but
no thanks.

~~~
bykovich
That's an unconvincing response. The alternatives are not necessarily magic
(it's terribly unclear what you mean by "magic" here, but I'm making some
reasonable assumptions) -- but if they were, why would that be so terrible?
You're certainly free to denounce whatever you want as "magic" \-- but that
doesn't tell me why it's bad.

