
Quantum Approaches to Consciousness (2015) - lainon
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-consciousness/
======
omalleyt
Philosophers latched onto the idea of QM in consciousness bc they thought the
randomness aspect left room for free will. Of course it doesn't, any more than
hooking up an axe over your head that will only drop if a certain atom decays
means that you can now choose the time of your death. The point being we don't
control the randomness, it evolves according to the laws of QM and therefore
there is no role at all for "choice" to play. Also observe that a rock has the
same level of access to the underlying randomness of QM and we don't say it
has free will. Even if the human brain propagates the randomness upwards to
larger systems, there is still no choice in how that is done. Theoretically,
it is possible for a rock to exhibit crazy quantum behavior every once in
awhile as well.

Of course, free will is an inconsistent notion predicated on the idea that
there is a "you" separate from "your chemicals" that would do something
different if only that dang physics would let it. But separate yourself from
your chemicals and you don't get free will, you get literally nothing. People
don't realize the implicit dualism in all of this free will stuff

~~~
Capt-RogerOver
Your views sound outdated. There is a "you" separate from "your chemicals". In
the same way a character in a video game is in fact very separate from the
transistors that power the computer that the game runs on. They live in
different worlds, by different rules and both have very different implications
for life.

There is a perfectly valid and functional world model that incorporates both
the science and it's atoms and spirituality. Functional in a sense that people
having this view can both apply their knowledge to the scientific domain
(building new mechanical machines) and also to the spiritual domain, that is
be truly happy and enlightened in the way the experience their own life.
(Seeing yourself (factually incorrectly) as ONLY a chemical machine does not
produce happiness, mission, love, etc. (nor good health for that matter,
because health is affected by psychological wellbeing a lot) without a solid
spiritual foundation.) Jordan Peterson has a very good video about this,
something about reconciling science and religion.

The point is, "Free Will" is not a scientific concept, it's a concept from
spirituality. And can very well fit with all of the science that is known to
humanity today. Free will comes not from the randomness of quantum mechanics,
but from implications of the chaos theory (which has basically killed
determinism as a means of understanding the human life experience).

~~~
jjaredsimpson
You can't really define Free Will as something different and then claim it
exists. Free Will has an agreed upon definition.

Free Will is the capacity to have done differently given the same situation.

Free Will is completely absent in a enormous number of circumstances. Are you
free to stop understanding English? Are you free to not be persuaded by a
logical argument you comprehend? When presented with a donut while on a diet
are you free to determine your level of will power to resist?

Free will conditioned on chaos theory is just jargon and ventures into "not
even wrong" territory. If free will is sensitive to initial conditions then
actors evolving in time are not free to choose their trajectories.

If your happiness is conditioned on incorrect beliefs about your essential
nature and capacities then you should reconcile your beliefs with reality, not
argue that the understanding of essential nature is incomplete or wrong.

~~~
WhitneyLand
Your response may not be as productive as you intended, it sounds a little
dismissive.

>>Free Will has an agreed upon definition

It may have definitions, but used in isolation it's actually ambiguous as
hell. Even between science and philosophy the discussions can be pretty
divergent.

>>you should reconcile your beliefs with reality, not argue that the
understanding of essential nature is incomplete or wrong

Quite wrong I would say. Our common goal is to interpret our existence in a
way that provides the best life possible for us, and hopefully for those
around us.

If a person can lead a happier life and do the most good for others only by
not accepting a scientific principle then I would not discourage them from
that.

In fact, if I could somehow unbelieve some science and be guaranteed my family
would be happier I might consider it.

Some of us are just made in a way we can only worship at the alter of
objective truth no matter what the cost or the pain. I don't think there's any
way to change that, but I certainly don't want anyone to join the club at the
expense of the most important goal we have.

~~~
jjaredsimpson
>if I could somehow unbelieve some science and be guaranteed my family would
be happier I might consider it

I don't see how this can be defended. It commits you potentially dangerous and
unethical behavior.

Suppose you were to unbelieve, "africans are humans." By not holding this
belief you might be quite able to happily own and mistreat slaves.

This example is extreme, but the point I'm making still stands. If ones
happiness is contingent on holding false beliefs then what value is the
happiness. How can self-deception through pleasure seeking mental states be
elevated in opposition to engaging with objective reality?

Seeking pleasure certainly does not ensure ethical behavior and in many cases
explicitly conflicts with acting ethically.

>Our common goal is to interpret our existence in a way that provides the best
life possible for us

I'm very wary of interpretation motivated for pleasure as opposed to clarity
and truth.

~~~
Capt-RogerOver
Your stance is completely true. In theory.

In practice the situation is very different, because noone knows (or has any
way of knowing) what objective reality is, and whether one's beliefs are
"false" or not. Yes, we do have the scientific method and some ways of trying
to figure things out, but ultimately it's a question of choice of right
mindset. The right framework. An experiment might get some data within a
framework. It cannot give you a framework.

With the belief "africans are humans" example, we might all agree on that.
However on the beliefs like "if it feels hard to learn this skill, it just
means I'm not cut out for this" versus "I can learn anything, universe is
friendly and will ultimately give me what I need, I'll keep trying to learn
this" \- something like that will give you hard time if you're doing solely by
scientific method and if you think that you can even know whether the belief
is truthful to some "objective reality" or not. Both of the stances can be
shown to be "truth" or "false", and they they will yield so different results
in the personal life of a human that chooses to acquire them. Is believing one
of them is self-deception? Maybe it's believing the other that is self-
deception?

>> I'm very wary of interpretation motivated for pleasure as opposed to
clarity and truth.

And it's very interesting how that has been working out for you? In most
people that I've studied it does not lead to a particularly happy life. (Not
just stable, but happy.)

I think the core issue here is that in the internal world of humans' souls,
there is no such thing as "clarity and truth". It does not work that way.
Something like pleasure (but concepts of love, compassion, greatfulness, and
others can give even better results) are just better suited. Because in the
areas where they are used (the happiness and enlightenment) those things are
just easier to find. Concepts of "truths" on the other hand are notoriously
elusive and in many ways simply non-existant. What is your life, a tragedy of
stoicism? A pointless nihilistic movie? An enlightened miracle? Which one is
the "truth"?

------
stared
Beware that in professional physics Rogers Penrose's view on QM and
consciousness are not considered mainstream (to put it mildly). I had a great
pleasure of talking him in person, and he falls into the Platonic trap. The
best antidote is to talk with some actual neurobiologists, or read philosophy
of mind (e.g. Daniel Dennett with Consciousness Explained).

At the same time I recommend reading "How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science,
Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival" by David Kaiser
([http://www.hippiessavedphysics.com/](http://www.hippiessavedphysics.com/)) -
a general reading on the beginnings of quantum information (also, why quantum
metaphysics is tempting but does not work); bear in mind it overvalues hippies
- this field has also different, Soviet roots - vide Holevo’s theorem.

Or even better - start actually interacting with some quantum mechanics,
rather than considering it mystical or esoteric. As Griffiths put it in his
Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (Chapter 4.4.1,
[https://archive.org/details/IntroductionToQuantumMechanics_7...](https://archive.org/details/IntroductionToQuantumMechanics_718)):

"To the layman, the philosopher, or the classical physicist, a statement of
the form “this particle doesn’t have a well-defined position” [...] sounds
vague, incompetent, or (worst of all) profound. It is none of these."

...an of course, play [http://quantumgame.io/](http://quantumgame.io/) :) (a
recent submit:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14432176](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14432176))

~~~
zeotroph
> Platonic trap.

i.e. is a believer in the mind & body dualism, an idea first put forth by
Aristotle and Plato, and later famously championed by Descartes. Though the
"quantum" variant is not as far out as the "soul" one. However neither are
supported by science, but the knowledge gap regarding consciousness is still
large enough that something might still hide in it.

Though Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle fell into many traps, this is probably
the relevant one.

~~~
stared
Well, once you start believing that mathematical objects (or any other
concepts) exist in some abstract sense (rather than are some kind of emergent
property of our bodies, minds and social interactions) it's an easy path to
get to ridiculous conclusions. (Cf. a very naturalistic vision of science
itself by Ludwick Fleck.)

Sure, we don't understand consciousness yet (or maybe we never will). Still,
it doesn't mean that it is good to fall into some plausible, and comforting,
mental trap. Vide Feynman's "I think it's much more interesting to live not
knowing than to have answers which might be wrong".

~~~
zeotroph
Is there an name for this "reality first" or "reality triumphs" concept? The
closest I can think of is _The Talos Principle_ , it is the name of a game,
but in its context the meaning is, paraphrasing: "At the end of the day, even
the mightiest thinkers and philosophers are made of flesh and bone".

On the other end, there is a Greg Egan (science fiction) novel where exactly
this does not hold and pure maths can create virtual worlds in some abstract
math universe, i.e. not running on a physical computer (though I think one was
needed to bootstrap this into perpetual existence). The name escapes me at the
moment.

You might be able to weave the consciousness problem into there by following
the simulation hypothesis and claiming that the brain (of humans or some smart
enough ancestor?) was either created with a shortcut to the underlying compute
power or that over the course of evolution (think the FPGA + evolutionary
algorithm story) this link developed, possibly independently multiple times.
And since most concepts underlying biology are understood, "Quantum-woo" is
the last holdout (see Penroses microtubuli idea).

~~~
Twisol
> The name escapes me at the moment.

You're referencing Greg Egan's "Permutation City", I think?
[http://www.gregegan.net/PERMUTATION/Permutation.html](http://www.gregegan.net/PERMUTATION/Permutation.html)

~~~
zeotroph
Exactly that one, thank you two walnut-shaped minds, both thinking alike.

Greg Egan calls this concept (see the linked FAQ there) the Dust Theory, and
again

> > How seriously do you take the Dust Theory yourself?

> Not very seriously, although I have yet to hear a convincing refutation of
> it on purely logical grounds.

it juuuust might maybe true (however unlikely).

------
macawfish
As it turns out, tools from quantum mechanics just so happen to be very useful
in modeling stuff from the human realm, like decision making in surveys,
word/concept associations, game theory, and more.

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

This is mildly controversial to people hung up on classical rationality or
uninformed "skeptics", in spite of the fact that the research is pretty
mainstream and doesn't make many philosophical assumptions about the 'reality'
of quantum theory.

There has been a yearly conference called the Quantum Interaction conference
where people have presented research using quantum theory outside of physics.
I don't know what's up with the 2017 edition, but it's been held for quite a
few years.

[http://www.quantuminteraction.org/](http://www.quantuminteraction.org/)

~~~
stared
Well, big controversy is that it uses word "quantum" (to sound it sexy and
attractive; any imply, even if implicitly, that mind has anything to do with
QM) rather than "linear algebra".

And linear algebra is a very powerful framework for describing phenomena
(including things related to cognition like word2vec, vide
[http://p.migdal.pl/2017/01/06/king-man-woman-queen-
why.html](http://p.migdal.pl/2017/01/06/king-man-woman-queen-why.html)). Also:
it is the language of Deep Learning.

~~~
macawfish
The research is more centered around a specific use of Kolmogorov's classical
probability theory, which takes context into consideration. This realization
has allowed "classical probability theory" to be used in a characteristically
"quantum" way, by paying attention to higher dimensional probability
distributions, and how "observation" tends to draw these probability
distributions through lower dimensional subspaces. Some people doing this
research also employ fancier probability theories, but to me it is profound
that classical probability theory can be used in the same basic way.

So yeah, the research relies on linear algebra, sure, but specifically in the
same way quantum theory relies on linear algebra: as a way of projecting
probability distributions into different subspaces during measurement
("collapsing the wavefunction").

------
beloch
"The original motivation in the early 20th century for relating quantum theory
to consciousness was essentially philosophical. It is fairly plausible that
conscious free decisions (“free will”) are problematic in a perfectly
deterministic world,[2] so quantum randomness might indeed open up novel
possibilities for free will. (On the other hand, randomness is problematic for
volition!)"

This is an aspect of this debate that utterly fascinates me. Many people
reading this have probably heard the argument that free will does not exist
because the human brain is just a molecular computer. If we could measure it's
state perfectly at a given moment, have knowledge of future inputs, and
possess adequate classical computational power, we could perfectly predict the
future decisions made by your brain. Hence, you are a _deterministic_ creature
with no free will.

Quantum processes underlie all classical processes, not unlike how the physics
of individual water molecules underlie the behaviour of a river. While
individual molecules or even drops of water can do bizarre things, the course
of a river is easy to predict. A coin toss or weather patterns may seem
random, but they're classical systems that would be utterly predictable if we
had a perfect measurement of their current state, knowledge of input from
outside the system in question, and the computational resources to work out
their future evolution. As with a river, the weather, or a coin toss, quantum
weirdness should average out on the scale of a human brain, leaving only
classical predictability behind.

Or does it?

One aspect of this quantum weirdness I'm referring to is truly random
behaviour. Single quanta (e.g. photons or atoms) can be manipulated to produce
measurements with truly random results that are, according to quantum theory
and every experiment conducted to date, impossible to predict, even with
perfect knowledge of the system, knowledge of all inputs, and infinite
computational resources. Free will and being unpredictable are intrinsically
linked. If your brain is just a classical machine behaving according to the
laws of chemistry and physics, you are predictable and have no free will. If
your brain amplifies the results of quantum outcomes to a macroscopic level,
your brain may be inherently unpredictable and thus you may possess free will.

Fascinating stuff!

~~~
dghf
> Free will and being unpredictable are intrinsically linked. If your brain is
> just a classical machine behaving according to the laws of chemistry and
> physics, you are predictable and have no free will. If your brain amplifies
> the results of quantum outcomes to a macroscopic level, your brain may be
> inherently unpredictable and thus you may possess free will.

But how do you address the last part of the quote you lead with ("randomness
is problematic for volition")? How is your will any more free if it depends on
random physical processes rather than deterministic ones?

~~~
rothron
The type of free will people often talk about is the type where if you rewind
time to give you a second chance there is a potential for you to chose
differently.

But whatever decision you want to make will ultimately be a function of your
state of mind. How can you will something that isn't a result of your
experiences? What else informs your will? The type of counter-causal free will
people think they want probably doesn't exist.

You have free will, but it is determined. It's a result of physical processes.
How we think may be difficult to computationally reduce, so it still might not
be predictable. Counter-causal free will would force you to look outside the
universe for causes. You get duality. Quantum randomness is not an escape for
this.

------
bcherny
I'm currently on the Free Will chapter of Aaronson's Quantum Computing Since
Democritus [0], where he treats this question directly in the context of
computational complexity theory. Highly recommended to anyone interested in
this stuff!

[0] [https://smile.amazon.com/Quantum-Computing-since-
Democritus-...](https://smile.amazon.com/Quantum-Computing-since-Democritus-
Aaronson/dp/0521199565)

------
WhitneyLand
Would it be difficult to to use this start a religious cult? Something like:

1) Lead with content that for some people mixes science and spirituality:
Quantum Approaches to Consciousness

2) Add context using sources here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mysticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mysticism)

3) Add self-serving message (give me your money, I am the messiah, etc)

2) Coup de grâce: Hold up domain from an institution of high reputation:
stanford.edu

------
scotty79
For me the best way to think about consciousness is that it's a function of
the brain, one of the organs of the body (that's pretty much a fact as far as
we can test it).

If some statement seems profound when it refers to consciousness it's best to
replace it with another function of another organ, for example digestion.

Suddenly "Quantum Approaches to Digestion" and "What happens to your digestion
when you die?" sound way less profound.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
>the best way to think about consciousness is that it's a function of the
brain, one of the organs of the body (that's pretty much a fact as far as we
can test it).

Using consciousness to determine the nature of consciousness...how is that not
fallacious? Like trying to see if fire burns things by burning fire with fire.

~~~
scotty79
Using physics to investigate physics. Fallacy!

------
albertTJames
wow, working in the field, i must say this is the best written piece of bs I
have ever encountered.

"The most discussed counterarguments against the validity of such strong
reductionist approaches are qualia arguments, which emphasize the
impossibility for materialist accounts to properly incorporate the quality of
the subjective experience of a mental state, the “what it is like” (Nagel
1974) to be in that state"

If that is the most discussed counterargument you probably could have stopped
there, it is not a counter argument at all. The apparent immediateness and
reflexive nature of consciousness is in no way proof of its immaterial or
"quantic" nature. Consciousness is a seemingly unitary process, a monade, an
indivisible phenomena, but it is not. It is partial, biased, composed of
continuous unconscious preprocessing steps, of attentional, memory retrieval,
reflective post-processing that can be measured, deconstructed, and tempered
with through experimentation. Their argument is that a qualia appears to be
more than the sum of its parts. All evidences would actually favor the
opposite, consciousness, and the information it holds is less than the sum of
its part. I will not delve into the details, because I am depressed/frustrated
by the fact HN comments disappear so fast in the abyss, and time is precious,
but i will give an example.

Taking a simple psychophysical GO task, let's say click on a button every time
you see a dog in a series of fast pace images appearing on the screen. While
performing the task sometime a dog will appear and not produce a conscious
recognition nor a motor response, but recording the brain using EEG, you would
usually be able on those trial to detect error signals. Those signal appears
for rare events of interest -here the dog. Although this error information is
present at a subconscious level, and implied already a load of preprocessing
steps (proportional of the delay between stimulus and the error signal), it
did not reach full consciousness to produce the motor response. A machine
then, trained to recognize such error signals on both correct trials and
errors of omission will be able to detect the dog, when the human did not,
using the signal of the human's brain. This is proof that consciousness is
less than the sum of its part, it is using a final filtered hyper relevant
representation of your inner and environmental reality. Not to talk about the
monadic indivisible view of consciousness which is even more absurd: just look
at heminegligence. Functions is lost, but the brain even forgets it had ever
access to this function, it forgets it had a left side, that there is a side
side in the room. This is not an isolated syndrome, focal neurological
deficits are often associated with some degree of negligence of the loss
functions. Wernicke's Aphasia for example produce a syndrome in which patient
do not realize they are saying or hearing non-sense, what could be there
qualia then ? If you believe your consciousness is more that the sum of its
part, and monadic, just take an LSD trip and you will see what your brain has
in store for you, what it filters out, what it can enhance or produce by
itself - but also what is your consciousness then, is it not different above
and beyond any information processing? But maybe then you will say LSD
molecules are in resonance with a central string of the universe, it is the
gateway to the quantic perception !

The brain has nothing to do with qualia, it works at the opposite of what a
monade or a qualia is supposed to represent. The brain use distributed
computation, distributed representation, multiple neurons for one concept, and
each neurons participating in various concepts. Multiple brain regions for a
function, and each brain region participating to a function. Conscious
experience arise from these distributed networks interaction, make the mental
experiment of killing one neuron one by one (leave the pons and medulla alone)
and you will not see the qualia disappear abruptly, but you will see part of
the experience, part of the function, of what constitute the notion of self
first slightly disfunction then progressively disappear at different
unpredictable pace with complex interactions between functions.

"As a consequence, it is inessential whether a detector or the human brain is
ultimately referred to as the “observer”"

From a dualistic view arise false premises. The brain is not an observer, you
are not observing the state of your brain, or collapsing any function. You are
your brain, living in an illusion created by the interaction of systems inside
your brain. It is all well packaged with your sense of self, which is an
illusion, a function that can be altered: depersonalization, derealization.

And I wonder, in their view, which animal nervous networks have access to such
quantic wonders? The worm ? the ant ? The squid ? The dog ? The chimp ? Or
just us ?

You do not need anything but distributed computation to explain everything
about the brain.

But I guess everybody needs to believe in something, at least he is not
teaching creationism, and seems open to debate.

~~~
chimprich
> This is proof that consciousness is less than the sum of its part, it is
> using a final filtered hyper relevant representation of your inner and
> environmental reality.

I don't really see how this experiment "proves" that consciousness is not an
"indivisible phenomenon", just that it relies on lower-level functions to
exist. Some preprocessing clearly goes on in the brain before making it to
"consciousness" level, but I don't think that the existence of non-conscious
processes really show consciousness is divisible - any more than the
processing of information in the eye does.

~~~
albertTJames
This example was to illustrate that consciousness is less than the sum of its
parts.

The other examples were taken to illustrate the illusion of indivisibility.

------
mcbruiser3
the universe is deterministic. it might not seem like that because of the
massive scale, but it is therefore free will is an illusion

