The problems materialist face in science with the Conscious Observer

The Conscious Observer is persona non grata to materialist because it can't be explained away. They can't explain the Conscious Observers choice. So since Heisenberg, Bohr and Schrodinger there has been a mad dash by materialist to reduce the role of the Conscious Observer.

I remember readin David Deutsch's book The Fabric of Reality and he talked about reducing the role of the observer. This is because materialism can't explain consciousness. Schrodinger's equation tells us how the wave function evolves over time but it shot to hell when the Experimenter makes a choice to know which path information. You then have a probability distribution until the Conscious Observer makes a choice.

Why does the choice of the Conscious Observer matter so much on a macroscopic and microscopic scale? I look out the window of my apartment today and I see stores, restaurants, people in coats and hats. These things exist because a Conscious Observer made a choice to build and create these things. The Conscious Observer's choice created the world that we see and experience.

We can also see this on a microscopic level in things like the delayed choice, double slit and delayed choice quantum eraser experiment. When you carry out the double slit experiment, you would just have a wave function that evolves according to Schrodinger's equation until the Conscious Observer makes a choice to know which path information.

Say you have 3 items in front of you. A glass, a coffee cup and a plastic cup. You then make a Conscious choice to pick up the glass. Why did you make this choice? Materialism can't explain this any more than they can explain why the Conscious Observer chooses to measure angular momentum instead of position.

So where does consciousness come from?

First off, the materialist explanation is just a statement of faith and blind allegiance to materialism. They will say it must have emerged from the material brain but this is just hogwash without a shred of evidence. It just must be the case because this is what they believe.

I think serious minded folks who are not hung up on a belief system can openly look at other explanations. So far I think the Quantum Mind could be the leading candidate. To say consciousness originates in Planck scale geometries you have a basis to say everything is conscious because the universe itself is conscious. You can also show how this can be directly tied to evolution when you look at emerging areas like Quantum Biology.

There's been recent evidence that supports the Quantum Mind like quantum vibrations in microtubules which was predicted by Penrose and Hameroff. Also, there's no reason why the ability to do things like a quantum walk didn't evolve over time because these microtubules can be found in plant cells.





Here's more from Seth Lloyd:

How could tiny bacteria be performing the kind of sophisticated quantum manipulations that it takes human beings a room full of equipment to perform? Natural selection is a powerful force.

The authors also speculated that the excitons were performing a particular quantum computation algorithm called a quantum search, in which the wave-like nature of propagation allows the excitons to zero in on their target. As it turns out, the excitons were performing a different kind of quantum algorithm called a quantum walk, but the “crackpot” fact remained: Quantum computation was helping the bacteria move energy from point A to point B.

Together with Alan Aspuru-Guzik and Patrick Rebentrost at Harvard, my MIT colleague Masoud Mohseni and I constructed a general theory of how quantum walks in photosynthesis can use the wavelike nature of quantum mechanics to attain maximum efficiency. It turns out that wavelike transport is not always the best strategy. To understand why, suppose that the lilypond is full of rocks sticking up out of the water. As the wave moves through the pond, it scatters off the rocks. As a result, the wave never reaches the middle of the pond, which remains calm and protected. This is a phenomenon called destructive interference. Although the wave can propagate a short distance, eventually the random waves scattered off the rocks interfere with the overall wave’s propagation, effectively stopping it in its tracks. The quantum frog becomes completely stuck: A classical hopping strategy would have been more efficient. In the antenna photocomplex, the “rocks” are microscopic irregularities and molecular disorder that scatter the quantum wave as it tries to pass through.

www.pbs.org...

There were Scientist talking about in order to take A.I. to the next level, you might have to incorporate a quantum walk algorithm and this will make A.I. more life like.

Just think about it. If the Quantum Mind has a wave function then consciousness can be easily explained as well as things we label paranormal through things like entanglement, non locality and superposition.



Personally, I think this is simply groundbreaking. So we're not actually seeing the object as it is when we see something but the vibration of say photons when it bounces off of an object. So 99.9% of the time when we see a red car, we will see a red car but there could be times when our quantum mind sees the superposition and someone may see a blue car. They then look again and see a red car. They will simply explain it away that they were mistaken. There's thousands of examples of people saying, I could have sworn I saw X then they just explain it away and say they were mistaken. In some of these cases this could be the quantum mind seeing the superposition of an object coming from the vibrations of light as it bounces off of an object.

Like I said, materialist have tried to kill consciousness with gobbledy gook about emergence that belongs alongside the Hobbits in middle earth.

a reply to: neoholographic

I can totally get behind this, for on some level it is intuitive in its conclusions.

Concsiousness has been shrouded in mystery for so long, the irony when a possible explanation is posited that it is shot down and dismissed so readily is not lost here.

20 years ago no-one had any idea, now we have a starting point, it may not be provable, but then I don't think any theory relating to consciousness could ever stand up to scrutiny....sometimes we have to take a leap of faith, not in the religious sense, but on an intuitive level.

This for me is why quantum computers can be dangerous, I think it is the key to creating self aware A.I.

a reply to: neoholographic

Isn't materialism already dead?

In a scientific sense, isn't it forces which control physicality / what is seen, and not what is seen which controls forces?

Is any force considered to be physical or seen?

Where does science actually stand on that?

IMO the biggest problems materials face is the fact that they want to measure everything. I know that is what science is about, but if you restrict yourself to things that you can only see in the psychical world, you could miss out on a lot of things. Metaphysical things.....

a reply to: neoholographic

Good post. When you're talking about this stuff, you are really getting to the core of what's going on. I listen to ATSers share their experiences, and some amount of the weirdness can be attributed to the nasty human actions going on, but some amount of the high weirdness is a part of a much deeper conspiracy, a conspiracy of which we are all part of through out mutual connection and entanglement and dreams, without being fully aware. This is the true quantum conspiracy. It goes where it goes, and we can feel it and we are all a part of it through our actions, and indeed, our thoughts.

QM does weird things. I love the Feynman talks: Protons are real things on strait paths, the waves that go out are the possibilities of where they can go. Yet photons know about them before they go. This is frustrated spontaneous emission I'm talking about, amongst other things:
quantummoxie.wordpress.com...
Its part of a larger view of QM that describes things like Quantum watched pot/Zeno effect. Its part of the view that through experiments like Kim et all 2000:
en.wikipedia.org...
points to retrocausality - things in the future effecting the past - to any clear minded person who takes the time to thing it through.

I remember reading Leonard Susskind's new book (QM theoretical minimum) and getting an idea about a qubit: its an undifferentiated sphere. When you measure it from a certain direction, it collapses to a pole, maybe pointing to the direction you measured it from, (1) or the opposite direction (-1) but no where in between. A pole of absolute binary duality, yin or yang.

It was all mental and heavy, so I went to study far out mystical stuff for a break. I came upon classic Chinese Taiji philosophy, which described this undifferentiated sphere called Wuji, which through intent, collapsed into the "ridgepole" of duality, called Taiji. It was the exact same thing I was reading about in the QM text, but dated hundreds and hundreds of years from the earliest physics texts. I think it may be retrocausality. There may be a force in this world that projects its power not just into its present and future, but deep into its past, which is where we currently reside, and QM is its bread and butter.

Top thinkers have described this as a scary possible thought, but I look at the bright side. A world where that's possible is a world we have some degree of connection not to the universe as it is, but all throughout the history of the universe. In that regard its an affirmation of our power and connection to a world that stretches beyond us not only is space, but also in time. Its possible that we all have WAY more power than we think...

originally posted by: neoholographic
Why does the choice of the Conscious Observer matter so much on a macroscopic and microscopic scale? I look out the window of my apartment today and I see stores, restaurants, people in coats and hats. These things exist because a Conscious Observer made a choice to build and create these things.

We first formulated a hypothesis about the relationship between the collapse of the wave function and conscious
perception. Our subsequent analyses lead to the conclusion that this hypothesis is already falsified by the existing empirical results, which forced us to conclude the following: Conscious access to the information
about the outcome of a measurement is not necessary for the collapse of the wave function – a conclusion similar to those suggested elsewhere

In conclusion, the available evidence does not indicate that the observer’s explicit phenomenal representation
about the outcome of a measurement plays a role in collapsing the wave function. Thus, the idea that
by mere observation the experimenter creates physical reality does not seem viable.

Source

originally posted by: neoholographic

First off, the materialist explanation is just a statement of faith and blind allegiance to materialism. They will say it must have emerged from the material brain but this is just hogwash without a shred of evidence.

There's plenty of evidence. Why does diddling awake brains with electrodes during epilepsy surgery produce conscious phenomena? Why do simulations of connectionist networks often produce phenomena and mistakes which are similar to patterns seen in psychological testing?

It just must be the case because this is what they believe.

I think serious minded folks who are not hung up on a belief system can openly look at other explanations. So far I think the Quantum Mind could be the leading candidate. To say consciousness originates in Planck scale geometries you have a basis to say everything is conscious because the universe itself is conscious.

Well then this sort of 'consciousness' has no good meaning because it means my coffee cup is as conscious as an adult awake human, and yet what they do are completely different.

You can also show how this can be directly tied to evolution when you look at emerging areas like Quantum Biology.

There's been recent evidence that supports the Quantum Mind like quantum vibrations in microtubules which was predicted by Penrose and Hameroff.

Where is the actual evidence? I've read speculation and hypotheses, not evidence.

The authors also speculated that the excitons were performing a particular quantum computation algorithm called a quantum search, in which the wave-like nature of propagation allows the excitons to zero in on their target. As it turns out, the excitons were performing a different kind of quantum algorithm called a quantum walk, but the “crackpot” fact remained: Quantum computation was helping the bacteria move energy from point A to point B.

You mean efficiency of chemical reactions in a molecule? Yes quantum effects (not computation) obviously might be significant.

Just think about it. If the Quantum Mind has a wave function then consciousness can be easily explained as well as things we label paranormal through things like entanglement, non locality and superposition.

This is putting all the 'woo' in a basket and looking for something else convenient and unintuitive, quantum mechanics, and slapping it on top.

Personally, I think this is simply groundbreaking. So we're not actually seeing the object as it is when we see something but the vibration of say photons when it bounces off of an object. So 99.9% of the time when we see a red car, we will see a red car but there could be times when our quantum mind sees the superposition and someone may see a blue car. They then look again and see a red car. They will simply explain it away that they were mistaken. There's thousands of examples of people saying, I could have sworn I saw X then they just explain it away and say they were mistaken. In some of these cases this could be the quantum mind seeing the superposition of an object coming from the vibrations of light as it bounces off of an object.

That's almost surely never happened. There isn't any significant superposition of red car and blue car for macroscopic human sized cars.

Like I said, materialist have tried to kill consciousness with gobbledy gook about emergence that belongs alongside the Hobbits in middle earth.

You mean the stuff that can be tested and seems to be working?

Versus quantum assumptions unsupported by evidence? Where is the evidence for quantum mechanics in consciousness?

QM superpositions are very fragile at body temperature. Seems evolutionarily disadvantageous to rely on them significantly.

a reply to: mbkennel

It's like you wrote a post and didn't bother to read anything. You give the typical "woo" response and then type a bunch of nothing that has anything to do with what I posted. You said:

Where is the evidence for quantum mechanics in consciousness?

This is typical. You keep asking for evidence but when evidence is presented, you just keep asking the same questions. There's plenty of evidence alongside the emerging field of Quantum Biology. People once assumed that biology was too warm and wet of a place for classical organisms to to take advantage of quantum superposition but Scientist are discovering that's not the case. Like I said the evidence is growing but I suspect you will not read any of it because of blind faith in materialism. Since you asked for evidence, here you go.

Here's some of the threads I've started.

New Study Favors the Quantum Mind
www.abovetopsecret.com...

The accumulation of evidence in support of Quantum Consciousness
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Meta Analysis of Bem says Precognition is a real effect
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Scientist say the wave function is a non physical reality
www.abovetopsecret.com...

It has been proven that Conscious Intention interacts with random systems
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Biocentrism and the illusion of out there
www.abovetopsecret.com...

New Evidence Corroborates the Quantum Mind
www.abovetopsecret.com...

New Study shows the Choice of the Observer Creates Reality
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Here's a thread recently started by another member.

Our brains are quantum computers and consciousness is not a biochemical process
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Here's a website of published papers on Quantum Conscious. You will find titles like this:

Consciousness in the universe: a review of the 'Orch OR' theory.

Quantum walks in brain microtubules--a biomolecular basis for quantum cognition?

Time, Consciousness and Quantum Events in Fundamental Spacetime Geometry

Quantum computation in brain microtubules?

Quantum effects in the understanding of consciousness.

Discovery of quantum vibrations in microtubules inside brain neurons corroborates controversial 20-year-old theory of consciousness

www.quantumconsciousness.org...

The problem with a lot of materialist is that materialism has become a belief. So to you, everyone is just making things up and there's no evidence. Sadly for you, it doesn't matter how many times you stick your head in the sand and say there isn't any evidence that doesn't make it true.

I will make a prediction, you will eventually return to the thread without actually reading anything with an open mind and you will make the same asinine statement that there isn't any evidence.

a reply to: neoholographic

Maybe reality works something like this:

If when you lay your head upon your pillow tonight, you could choose to slip into a dream dimension where time would literally expand, so much so that you could live out an entire other lifetime within it as a person “designed” by you from head to toe, even choosing your name and who your parents would be. Where every single day you’d be pushed on to greatness, every single challenge would invite you to become more, and all of your dreams could come true. Where, no matter how things may ever seem, you’d be bathed in love, surrounded by friends, safe and sound in your very own bed. And where, upon waking, all that you loved and learned in that lifetime would remain with you, and all that scared and threatened you would only have prepared you for even more love and learning in the near future.

Would you choose to go there just for one night, on the condition that during the dream itself you mustn’t have any recollection of how you got there, its purpose, or what might happen next?

Of course you would, you’re a supercoolhappylovething!

Which begs the question, “How do you know, then, this isn’t that dream?

Mike Dooley - Note's From the Universe

a reply to: neoholographic

Those are evidence for quantum mechanics in biology (plus some speculation or woo), not clear evidence for quantum mechanics, and quantum mechanical computational properties not in classical physics, as essential in natural consciousness.

Quantum microtubules are a hypothesis.

Even if QM is important in dynamics of microtubules, it still does NOT mean that quantum mechanical properties---QM computational models beyond classical models---are essential for consciousness! Do you understand the difference? Take it this way---the physics of semiconductors cannot be explained in a purely classical physics model and needs quantum mechanics for its operation. Semiconductors are essential to computation in all current practical devices. Does this mean that their operation is essentially "quantum mechanical" in its computational model? No.

Exactly the same applies to quantum mechanics, microtubules, and natural brain operation, one part of which is consciousness.

The discussion of various quantum experiments you mention is not evidence for an essential role for QM in creating consciousness, you misunderstood the implications of the experiments.

a reply to: mbkennel

You're making me look like a psychic. You did exactly what I said you would do. You're not interested in reading any evidence because you come back a day later and you respond to nothing I posted and you make the claim that there's no evidence.

Of course there's evidence and it's growing but you made an interesting comment that shows you're not interested in looking into these things, you have a belief and everything must fit into your belief. You said:

The discussion of various quantum experiments you mention is not evidence for an essential role for QM in creating consciousness, you misunderstood the implications of the experiments.

This says it all. It reminds me of a Jehovah's Witness that knocked on my door a year ago. We were debating and nothing I said mattered because he already understood everything and everything had to fit his belief system.

So of course you're the only one that can understand the implications of any experiment because every experiment must fit your materialist belief system.

Like I said there's plenty of evidence and I listed some of it in the above post which you basically ignored.

The evidence for quantum consciousness is growing. Scientist made predictions based on their theory of quantum consciousness and some of these predictions are being confirmed by experiments.

I have a newsflash for you, this is how science works.

The difference with quantum consciousness and things like string theory, cosmic inflation and Hawking radiation is that quantum consciousness has growing EVIDENCE to corroborate the predictions made by the theory.

Again, this is how Science works. Here's more.

Discovery of quantum vibrations in microtubules inside brain neurons corroborates controversial 20-year-old theory of consciousness

The recent discovery of quantum vibrations in microtubules inside brain neurons corroborates this theory, according to review authors Stuart Hameroff and Sir Roger Penrose. They suggest that EEG rhythms (brain waves) also derive from deeper level microtubule vibrations, and that from a practical standpoint, treating brain microtubule vibrations could benefit a host of mental, neurological, and cognitive conditions.

The recent discovery of warm-temperature quantum vibrations in microtubules inside brain neurons by the research group led by Anirban Bandyopadhyay, PhD, at the National Institute of Material Sciences in Tsukuba, Japan (and now at MIT), corroborates the pair’s theory and suggests that EEG rhythms also derive from deeper level microtubule vibrations.

In addition, work from the laboratory of Roderick G. Eckenhoff, MD, at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that anesthesia, which selectively erases consciousness while sparing non-conscious brain activities, acts via microtubules in brain neurons.

“The origin of consciousness reflects our place in the universe, the nature of our existence. Did consciousness evolve from complex computations among brain neurons, as most scientists assert? Or has consciousness, in some sense, been here all along, as spiritual approaches maintain?” ask Hameroff and Penrose in the current review.

“This opens a potential Pandora’s Box, but our theory accommodates both these views, suggesting consciousness derives from quantum vibrations in microtubules (protein polymers inside brain neurons), which govern neuronal and synaptic function, and also connect brain processes to self-organizing processes in the fine scale, ‘proto-conscious’ quantum structure of reality.”

After 20 years of skeptical criticism, “the evidence now clearly supports Orch OR,” continue Hameroff and Penrose. “Our new paper updates the evidence, clarifies Orch OR quantum bits, or “qubits,” as helical pathways in microtubule lattices, rebuts critics, and reviews 20 testable predictions of Orch OR published in 1998 — of these, six are confirmed and none refuted.”

www.kurzweilai.net... ousness

You will read this and say there's no evidence. Of course there's evidence and it's growing. So Penrose and Hameroff may not have the final answer if there is one. We're still debating gravity and things like is it an emergent or fundamental property of nature. So I suspects these debates will continue but the notion that consciousness somehow magically emerges from the material brain is just laughable.

The problem people will have in trying to refute quantum consciousness is they will have to explain why nature couldn't select quantum coherence in order to give our species a huge advantage. For years materialist have been telling us the natural selection can do all things no matter how convoluted it sounds, but now when we find biological systems using quantum coherence in order to be more efficient they want to prohibit this from being a feature of consciousness.

This is again laughable. Here's more from the article above.

Orch OR was harshly criticized from its inception, as the brain was considered too “warm, wet, and noisy” for seemingly delicate quantum processes. However, evidence has now shown warm quantum coherence in plant photosynthesis, bird brain navigation, our sense of smell, and brain microtubules.

MIT Professor Seth Lloyd who specializes in quantum computers said:

How could tiny bacteria be performing the kind of sophisticated quantum manipulations that it takes human beings a room full of equipment to perform? Natural selection is a powerful force.

www.pbs.org...

Here's an interesting talk by Lloyd on Quantum Life



The question here is why does Quantum Life have to stop at the human brain? The answer is it doesn't.

At the end of the day, like the Jehovah's Witness you will not see any evidence that contradicts what you already believe. This is fine when it comes to Religion but horrible in the realms of Science.

I couldn't blame science for being the hard asses about the elusive nature consciousness and not believing it. Science needs materialism to work with so that it can make repeat observations, and even proof to others that they were right after all.

Consciousness could have an underlying materialistic nature to it for all we know.

However, that is the problem with science, where they like to take small steps to make sure they understand all they could and are right. Also, main stream science seem to be more focused about space and it mechanical workings, I mean they still have a hard time trying to figure out how gravity works or how matter has weight to it, and these are questions that have been going around since Einsteins time.

Consciousness can be simple, but often times incredibly complex, and continuously perplexing. Stuff like Deja Vu for example, where if one has a deja vu dream, where the questions go towards "are they peering into the future?" Was that dream just a recorded image made by the brain in a later point of time, where its telling itself this will happen at some point of time?

Not to mention what chain reactions that would go off in the brain, to have perceived something that going to happen, way before it happens is quite brain f*****g.

Science just wants the big picture first, then the little ones later. Also the fact they always want to be right, where they say they told you so, too.

It's a very interesting topic. I've often wondered why living organisms on this planet evolved with so little ability to see and understand nature. Fortunately, we have curiousity to force us forward. But think of it - why shouldn't the quantum world be self evident on some level naturally? Why aren't we born with the innate ability to do mathematics? Maybe that's the next big thing in evolution - true recognition of self.

I don't know if QM is entirely responsible for consciousness, but on some level it has to play a role.

And what lies beneath QM? Will the quantum computer tell us that? It will probably come back with an answer that we're merely a figment of our own imaginations!