61–67 of 67 posts
I'm very interested in any theoretical connections between interactions of conscious beings and quantum physics. I've read a number of physicists discounting any such possibility, but it's clear to me nobody understands these things well enough to know. Personally I think consciousness, perception, and free will are a great unknown, and likely involve the makeup of the cosmos including quantum interactions. If anyone…
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That's like saying "you can't calculate x on a cell phone because it's slower than on a desktop". Yes, there's an exponential slowdown, but that doesn't mean impossible.
I think that this is a poor analogy. Saying that a problem suffers an "exponential slowdown" is making a statement about how the performance suffers relative to the size of the problem. As the amount of data to be processed increases, the time required increases exponentially . The type of slowdown you would get just from moving to a system with a weaker processor (like a cell phone) should be approximately linear. Y…
We don't know that, because not all algorithms have been invented. Furthermore, P=NP is an open problem.
I'm very interested in any theoretical connections between interactions of conscious beings and quantum physics. I've read a number of physicists discounting any such possibility, but it's clear to me nobody understands these things well enough to know. Personally I think consciousness, perception, and free will are a great unknown, and likely involve the makeup of the cosmos including quantum interactions. If anyone…
Personally I think consciousness, perception, and free will are a great unknown, and likely involve the makeup of the cosmos including quantum interactions. They are not great unknowns. They are kinda dull knowns and they get more known-er by the year. Nothing in the brain (or the "cosmos") requires quantum juju for our conscious experience. There's lots written about perception: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_…
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Roger Penrose has famously speculated on the connection between quantum physics and consciousness in his book "The emperor's new mind" and follow-ups, but as far as I know, the idea is not very highly regarded in the scientific community and the book is not very convincing either (IMHO).
I could not in good conscience recommend The Emperor's New Mind to anyone. It is front-loaded with science and math and topped off with rubbish conjectures masquerading as truth. Yay for Penrose tiles and all that but steer clear of this book. There is no science of consciousness because there is no science of subjectivity because science deals with objective reality, the world of objects. So we need to extend the sc…
I'd also say that there is an objectivity to subjective perception; for example, if two travelers in space find that the distance between themselves is shrinking, while either party may justly argue that it is the opposing side that is moving, and that we are standing still (or some other possible combination), we can still both make objective agreements on what the other party may subjectively see.
We can objectively know that the other party is equally clueless as us in determining our velocities.
I personally think there is an enormous benefit to science to understanding subjective perception. I imagine the problem of distributed AI's having different perceptions, and having to make sense of their different perceptions in order to solve problems.
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I could not in good conscience recommend The Emperor's New Mind to anyone. It is front-loaded with science and math and topped off with rubbish conjectures masquerading as truth. Yay for Penrose tiles and all that but steer clear of this book. There is no science of consciousness because there is no science of subjectivity because science deals with objective reality, the world of objects. So we need to extend the sc…
There is indeed a science of consciousness, such as with anesthesiology or pharmacology. These sciences are concerned with the space of awareness of a subject. I'd also say that there is an objectivity to subjective perception; for example, if two travelers in space find that the distance between themselves is shrinking, while either party may justly argue that it is the opposing side that is moving, and that we are…
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There is indeed a science of consciousness, such as with anesthesiology or pharmacology. These sciences are concerned with the space of awareness of a subject. I'd also say that there is an objectivity to subjective perception; for example, if two travelers in space find that the distance between themselves is shrinking, while either party may justly argue that it is the opposing side that is moving, and that we are…
I meant consciousness as reflexive self-awareness, not in the sense of being alert and awake as opposed to asleep or anesthetized or in a coma or whatnot but these mental 'states' are interesting as well.
I still maintain that there is an objective study to subjectivity, and that the few examples I talked about are of good relevance to our understanding of consciousness.
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Presumably you mean not disproving quantum involvement in consciousness doesn't imply it's existence. That's far more than this snipey comment deserves in the way of response, but feel free to form a thought here.
I was commenting (tersely but not with intentional snip) on this: >Personally I think consciousness, perception, and free will are a great unknown, and likely involve the makeup of the cosmos including quantum interactions. You're taking a whole slew of things we're ignorant about, waving your hands and saying,"They must be related to some great truth hidden in particle physics!" I find this kind of thinking bizarre.
I think your discounting of such questioning and speculation is bizarre.
Consciousness is either entirely made up of "particle physics" or it is made from something even further into the field of speculation. Why would speculating about a connection between particle physics and consciousness be remotely "bizarre"? It seems quite likely to me that quantum mechanics is at least in some way involved in consciousness, given that that quantum physics governs the behavior of the matter of our brains.