Is there any good criticism or writings on this? I found the article on it on Rationalwiki but it turned out to be just some bullshit "hurr you cant comment if you dont know anything" circlejerk that's a recurring theme throughout the entire website. And likewise, the only big resource on it comes from that New Age piece of shit Chopra.
>We find that the decoherence timescale s ( ∼ 10 −13 − 10 −20 seconds) are typically much shorter than the relevant dynamical timescales ( ∼ 10 − 3 − 10 − 1 seconds), both for regular neuron firing and for kink-like polarizatio n excitations in microtubules. This conclusion disagrees with suggestions by Penrose and others that the brain acts as a quantum computer, and that quantum coherence is related to consciousness in a fundamental way.
You have to choose between believing
A) Neuronal firing has something to do with consciousness or B) Quantum computation has something to do with consciousness
Because decoherence happens way too quickly for quantum coherence to be able to influence regular neuron firing. Meaning the neurons are going to fire in exactly the same way regardless of what goes on at the quantum scale in the brain. And if the neurons fire in the same way regardless of what goes on at the quantum scale in the brain then you can't really claim there's any quantum computation going on given that everything we know about the brain tells us there's a very strong relationship between neuronal firing and consciousness.
>Can quantum physics explain consciousness?
Quantum physics has no place in explaining consciousness. It was shoehorned in there by people who thought it would be a good idea to explain one poorly understood / seemingly mysterious idea with another poorly understood / seemingly mysterious idea. The real "problem" of consciousness is that it's an abstraction of purely physical relationships between stimuli and behavior which people confuse with an actual thing that somehow needs explaining in the way electromagnetism gets explained. You'd have the same problem if you expected a physics based explanation for the convenient fiction of "money."
Bentley Ortiz
Tegmark also has stated that he believes consciousness is a state of matter, to add on to his mention.
Anyways, I wouldn't know whether quantum physics has an explanation to consciousness. Physics explains chemistry which explains biology, so it is somewhat logical to see how physics can explain biology, but not sure about quantum physics itself. I'm not qualified in either quantum physics nor neuroscience, so I'm not a final authority
If anything, whatever happens on the quantum scale shouldn't be seen as the absolute determinant in consciousness, it would make slight sense to wonder if anything at the quantum scale influences anything at the neurobiological level
Quantum biology is a thing, and it's a rising discipline.
Isaac Thompson
Pretty sure quantum consciousness has been disproven.
Nathan Lewis
I always call him Tax Smegmark for some reason.
Gabriel Roberts
Tegmarks results are not nearly as impressive as you make them seem. For starters an experiment performed on individual neurons cannot be reliably used to predict how the brain behaves as a whole.
how the fuck are you thinking this is legitimate? I'm sorry, but if I wanted medical advice, I'd go to a medical professional. If i wanted plumbing advice, I'd go to a plumber.
how the fuck are you so stupid?
Adrian Gutierrez
I bet you pay to have your oil changed because they're the experts and you know they'll do it right.
Charles Myers
>Because decoherence happens way too quickly for quantum coherence to be able to influence regular neuron firing.
Penrose BTFO.
Elijah Myers
Why do humans still think they're not brainlets?
Colton Hill
Fucking finally someone said it.
Democracy, human rights, the state, ethics, law, etc.
None of these are useful right?
Evan Russell
Are you questioning why OP doesn't like RW, or why he choose to read from RW?
I saw the article on RW, and the first sentence goes like:
> While many attempts at a theory of quantum consciousness are pseudoscientific by naively claiming the strangeness of quantum mechanics is a parallel to the strangeness of consciousness, more sophisticated quantum consciousness theories are an attempt at a solution of the "combination problem"; the problem explaining how a system of classical neurons can combine to form a single subject of experience (also referred to as the "binding problem").
Not even to the specifics of it, and they already label it as pseudoscience. It isn't like outwardly stupid shit like creationalism and flat-earth theory, yet they round all those things up like Jews, and immediately dismiss it
William Fisher
but serially, what happened to the 'metaphysical magic' consciousness troll? I miss him.