Can human brain functioning be modeled purely on the basis of classical Newtonian physics?

So I'm thinking that maybe the lowest - so elementary particles working on the basis of pure quantum mechanics, and the highest known forms of abstraction - human brain featuring still not fully understood phenomena like intelligence and consciousness both deal with inherent uncertainty? Is this assumption defensible according to our current knowledge? Or maybe just usual pop-sci gibberish?

Is the brain a "normal", Newtonian machine?

Other urls found in this thread:

nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/roger-penrose-on-why-consciousness-does-not-compute
theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/quantum-brain/506768/
arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9907009.pdf
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22412364
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

if you mean maxwellian physics then yes . as with any other system when you're using the classical approximation eventually you'll get different results then expected but you can make as good of a model of the brain as we currently have of anything .

its not the physics of the brain that are a problem to understand its the overall structure and how\why it forms in the way that it forms over human development.

>intelligence and consciousness both deal with inherent uncertainty
Pop-sci gibberish, I'm afraid.

Well as of now we are unable to accurately predict the behaviour of an individual, we can only use statistical models for entire populations.

I think most researchers would say "Newtonian is sufficient". Of course, life is a mess of interacting chemical reactions and you need quantum theory to understand chemistry.

There ARE a few dissidents, like Roger Penrose, who think quantum mechanics are an ESSENTIAL part of "thinking"; i.e, an intelligent computer could not be built without utilizing structures analogous to micro-tubules on organic brains.

Finally some knowledgeable answer, ty.

>Can human brain functioning be modeled purely on the basis of classical Newtonian physics?
yes it can, but using state-of-the-art physics improves the model, understandably

Yes. But there is no indication that this has anything to do with inherent uncertainty, just a limited understanding of the processes involved.

Of course, the accuracy of Newtonian physics predictions is accurate enough to model such large particles as proteins

You're welcome.
I try to answer questions seriously -- provided I know something about the subject.
Sadly, all too often Veeky Forums threads just prove to be flamebait by someone who really doesn't care and just wants to promote "flat Earthism" or some-such.
So it's nice to know help was appreciated.

We don't know how brains work.

Are you referencing how microtubule assembly involves quantum entanglement?

There is an entire field of study called biophysics...

What?

That's my understanding.
See what Penrose has to say for himself. nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/roger-penrose-on-why-consciousness-does-not-compute
Then there's theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/quantum-brain/506768/

If you can simulate a neuron with a macrocscopic, newtonian device, and then you can (hypothetically) simulate a human brain with these newtonian neurons, then quantum effects are purely circumstantial and have nothing to do with the actual functionality of the brain itself.

Of course a human brain doesn't work without quantum due to the fact that it's built using self-replicating naonmachinery, but I don't think that's what OP is asking.

We don't know much about the specifics, but we have a solid understanding of the basic principles and the general layout.

It's a complex, intricate structure to unravel and analyze but we can still make rather confident statements about it even without perfectly understanding the whole. Sort of how you can make pretty accurate guesses regarding the general capabilities of a CPU chip without having perfect understanding of the specific architecture down to every last transistor.

I entirely agree with you. Newtonian is sufficient.
Just pointed out that not EVERYBODY agrees with us. Hardly any neuroscientists think quantum effects are essential to consciousness -- it's just that Penrose IS brilliant and we can't (yet) prove he's wrong, so the door remains open.

Neuroscientists better get a move on, then, because I'm tired of the endless barrage of pop sci garbage jacking off about quantum consciousness and whatnot

And the first task assigned to the newly-developed AIs should be moderating Veeky Forums to kick off the trolls and know-nothings (but only those who are happy knowing nothing. The genuinely curious can stay.)

You bet your ass we can model the brain with newtonian mechanics. In fact coarse grained molecular dynamics can be used to model stuff using bits of mass with crazy potentials. Even though the potentials are crazy it still works out to just masses and springs. We can even model proteins like actin this way.

Max Tegmark published a proof against the "quantum consciousness" idea:
arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9907009.pdf
>Based on a calculation of neural decoherence rates, we argue that that the degrees of freedom of the human brain that relate to cognitive processes should be thought of as a classical rather than quantum system, i.e., that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the current classical approach to neural network simulations. 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.

Considering modern artificial neural networks and how well they perform, there is a very high likelihood you can model the human brain using Newtonian mechanics.

newtonians beat the fuck out

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22412364