91–100 of 127 posts
Interesting insight on olfaction. Quantum involvement (e.g. selective wave-form collapse) is about the only viable possibility I can see for escaping determinism and allowing free will (and even then we're pushing current physics firmly into pop-sci fiction).
Tl;dr Biology is applied chemistry, chemistry is applied quantum physics and in some cases chemistry is a leaky abstraction and does not perfectly explain what is going on in organisms. Three examples - photosynthesis being more efficient than expected, birds sensing Earth's magnetic field by an unknown mechanism and a lack of understanding how olfaction works in detail - are presented but besides that there are no n…
I was under the assumption that the working theory is birds share a similar feature as fruit flies and possibly foxes. The cones that allow us to see blue light actually work as compasses when suspended in a fluid, and they are not attached to the retina of a fruit fly but are suspended in their eye and thus shape incoming visual patterns around magnetic fields https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoreception
Only somewhat related: I'm currently reading Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I'm nearing the end of the book, and the concept that human brains might use quantum processes in the decision-making process is a very important and prevalent idea in the novel. [Although he takes some artistic license --- it is only a novel, afterall]. So I've been thinking, at least passively, about organisms being quantum machines quite a bi…
While it's certainly possible that neural networks involve some non-trivial quantum-mechanical effects, it's also much more likely that (in the context of the brain), this notion arose from people expecting the brain and consciousness to be mysterious and inscrutable, hence "maybe consciousness is quantum!". In the absence of a concrete theory and testable experiment, that sentence has about as much meaning as "maybe…
Interesting insight on olfaction. Quantum involvement (e.g. selective wave-form collapse) is about the only viable possibility I can see for escaping determinism and allowing free will (and even then we're pushing current physics firmly into pop-sci fiction).
"What Gives Gold that Mellow Glow?"
Interesting insight on olfaction. Quantum involvement (e.g. selective wave-form collapse) is about the only viable possibility I can see for escaping determinism and allowing free will (and even then we're pushing current physics firmly into pop-sci fiction).
Quantum does not rescue free will. "Random" is "free" in the sense that a wheel has "three degrees of freedom" when it's not attached to the axle.
Determinism (in most accounts) precludes free will. Therefore randomness is necessary but not sufficient for free will. Quantum mechanics is the only avenue we have for randomness/non-determinism, so if free will does exist, it's going to have to involve some sort of quantum "magic".
It's certainly possible to imagine consciousness based on quantum mechanics (ala Penrose) that facilitates some level of choice by selectively collapsing wave-forms (not just randomly collapsing them) and is still compatible with a macro-deterministic universe.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tha's what Roger Penrose argued in "Shadows of the Mind" where he theorizes about quantum effects in the human brain and how they might give rise to conciousness [1]. There's some criticism about it, because the brain is pretty warm and decoherence should disturb all quantum states so much taht they become unusable, but it is still a research topic if "warm" quantum states can exist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…
The novel was based on Penrose's Earlier book I believe.
- -1st century: the brain is 'magic' - 15th century: the brain is the creation of a divine being - 17th century: the brain is a clockwork - 20th century: the brain is an electrical computer - 21th century: the brain is a quantum device - 22th century: the brain is a ?? It's an interesting thought though, and I especially like Neil Stephenson's idea that the brain is a quantum device that 'leaks out' into parallel uni…
However, we don't have any reason to suppose that quantum computation is involved or relevant in any of the processes mentioned in the article, and we don't really have any evidence or reason to suppose that the brain is a quantum device. It might be one, but for all that we've seen until now it might as well be an electrochemical computer, that is sufficient to explain all observed phenomena.