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originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: Bedlam
You said:
Why do you think any "quantum component" of a nervous system exists at all? What proof do you have for it? Why should I invoke some invisible, uninstrumentable putative dualism construct to explain behavior? And, again, how do you explain the functioning of this invisible component? In what way does IT initiate thought?
Again, there's plenty of evidence that supports what I'm saying. The problem is there isn't a shred of evidence that supports that the material brain can initiate anything.
They will engage skeptics in a debate on the nature of consciousness, and Bandyopadhyay and his team will couple microtubule vibrations from active neurons to play Indian musical instruments.
Their reasoning appears to be, as Philosopher David Chalmers has noted, that "consciousness is mysterious and quantum mechanics is mysterious, so maybe the two mysteries have a common source".
A reader who is not convinced by Penrose's Gödelian arguments is left with little reason to accept his claims that physics is noncomputable and that quantum processes are essential to cognition, although these speculations are interesting in their own right. But even if one accepts that human behavior can be accounted for computationally, there is still the question of human consciousness, which after all is Penrose's ultimate target.
Penrose is clear that the puzzle of consciousness is one of his central motivations. Indeed, one reason for his skepticism about AI is that it is so hard to see how the mere enaction of a computation should give rise to an inner subjective life. Why couldn't all the computation go in the dark, without consciousness? So Penrose postulates that we to appeal to physics instead, and suggests that the locus of consciousness may be a quantum gravity process in microtubules. But this seems to suffer from exactly the same problem. Why should quantum processes in microtubules give rise to consciousness, any more than computational processes should? Neither suggestion seems appreciably better off than the other.
Well that is the 'nature' of water in this system right? It falls to the lowest possible spot.
originally posted by: ChaoticOrder
a reply to: neoholographic
First, I didn't say consciousness was undefinable. I said it can't be defined or confined by materialism or any silly notion of an algorithm.
If it cannot be defined with mathematics then it cannot be defined with any tools we have. There is nothing silly about saying consciousness can be defined as an information processing system (aka an algorithm). It's fine if you want to say that consciousness is an emergent property of the information processing, but you're saying the processing it's self cannot be defined because it some how transcends all natural logic and math. What you are promoting is pseudo-science and you should understand that the researchers you are quoting are not exactly mainstream scientists. It doesn't matter how many times you repeat their mumbo jumbo, it doesn't make it any truer.
Daegene Song obtained his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Oxford and now works at Chungbuk National University in Korea as an assistant professor. To learn more about Song's research, see his published work: D. Song, Non-computability of Consciousness, NeuroQuantology, Volume 5, pages 382~391 (2007). arxiv.org...
Most of them affect sodium channels in the neuron, and their mechanism of action is well-known.
I think it's a leap of illogic to say "I don't know what function this serves...therefore quantum soul is doing it".
Also, that's not ultrafast, especially for a QM vibration. Recall, any molecule does this, it's how we get IR and microwave spectroscopy. Usually this happens in the THz range. So it's probably a structural thing with a microtubule that can get it down that slow, actually.
Human consciousness, the human soul, the human mind, human subjective feelings have been a matter of concern, not only for philosophers and theologians, but recently also for neuroscientists, physicists and others. Our approach to understanding this problem is based on the fact that even the simplest brain functions depend on the activity of an enormous number of neurons, on their synaptic connections and on associated ionic and electrical events. The synaptic delay in each of those synapses is at least 0.5 ms and therefore the parallel and serial interactions between millions of neurons would take a very long time, too long for the individual.s adequate interaction with the environment. Therefore, there must be some other mechanism governing the interactions of large numbers of neurons, located even in remote parts of the brain. However, the neuronal function - with a spreading of depolarizations, hyperpolarizations and repolarizations, graded and ungraded electrical potentials, ionic movements and small local electrical fields - creates a unique and very complicated system of the movements of subatomic particles. When moving from one position to another, each electron fills a large space and its precise position cannot be exactly determined. Thus brain function depends on the movements of an enormous number of electrons which influence each other at the subatomic level, even though their position cannot be determined. Therefore, beside relatively slow "classical" electrochemical interactions, rapid quantum interactions originating in functioning cell membranes may participate in many, perhaps in all, brain functions. Together, all the moving electrons produce a non-local system which we call the Real Human Soul, RHS, which is created by the functioning neurons and, at the same time, can also influence other neurons. Thus, it creates a connection between all functioning parts of the brain. The brain then functions as a unified system in which everything is interconnected and is able to interact. Viewed thus, the brain functions as a quantum computer.
This system, the RHS, is not identical with consciousness. Only under certain conditions does some area of the brain create subjective consciousness, which may be one of the products of the RHS. Subjective consciousness is probably based on simple particle communication, their .proto-consciousness., but is much more complex, due to the neuronal analysis of sensory input and other cognitive functions of the CNS.
Miguel Nicolelis, a top neuroscientist at Duke University, says computers will never replicate the human brain and that the technological Singularity is “a bunch of hot air.”
“The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,” says Nicolelis, author of several pioneering papers on brain-machine interfaces.
But Nicolelis is in a camp that thinks that human consciousness (and if you believe in it, the soul) simply can’t be replicated in silicon. That’s because its most important features are the result of unpredictable, nonlinear interactions among billions of cells, Nicolelis says.
“You can’t predict whether the stock market will go up or down because you can’t compute it,” he says. “You could have all the computer chips ever in the world and you won’t create a consciousness.”
Similarly, Nicolelis thinks in the future humans with brain implants might be able to sense x-rays, operate distant machines, or navigate in virtual space with their thoughts, since the brain will accommodate foreign objects including computers as part of itself.
So you will not create some silly self aware android based on a mysterious algorithm. This is because the way the brain integrates information and the way the mind recalls and interacts with this information is unpredictable and non computable.
You will have intelligent machines that can become more powerful than humans. They will not have human consciousness but they will evolve in their own way and will be a separate species and we will probably have to augment our brains and bodies through technology or die out in the face of these intelligent machines.
Asked and answered over and over.
So it's either materialism or nothing and that sounds dogmatic. You should be knocking on doors with Jehovah Witnesses.
Do what computations? When a person recalls a specific memory exactly what computations are being done and please present the scientific evidence and not more fantasies about self aware androids.
originally posted by: FlySolo
Nope. That where your wrong. It's not known at all, still.
Isoflurane induces a reduction in junctional conductance by decreasing gap junction channel opening times and increasing gap junction channel closing times. Isoflurane also activates calcium dependent ATPase in the sarcoplasmic reticulum by increasing the fluidity of the lipid membrane. Also appears to bind the D subunit of ATP synthase and NADH dehydogenase. Isoflurane also binds to the GABA receptor, the large conductance Ca2+ activated potassium channel, the glutamate receptor and the glycine receptor.
It's not really a leap if you look at cymatics. Ultra high vibrations create extremely complex geometry. Why?
Where do those designs come from?
What makes them?
Why do they change design as you change frequency?
Again, self-organizing symbiotic relationships with sound? Something needed to create a 'rule' for a lack of a better term, but it wasn't the sound that did it.
Nope, not according to this abstract:
A top-down algorithm is specific to the solution of some particular problem, and it provides a definite procedure that is known to solve that problem. A bottom-up algorithm is one that is not specific to any particular problem but is more loosely organized, so that it learns by experience and gradually improves, eventually giving a good solution to the problem at hand. Many people have the idea that bottom-up systems rather than top-down, programmed algorithmic systems are the way the brain works. I apply the Gödel argument to bottom-up systems too, in my most recent book, Shadows of the Mind. I make a strong case that bottom-up systems also won't get around the Gödel argument. Thus, I'm claiming, there's something in our conscious understanding that simply isn't computational; it's something different.
Is Consciousness Computable? Quantifying Integrated Information Using Algorithmic Information Theory
In this article we review Tononi's (2008) theory of consciousness as integrated information. We argue that previous formalizations of integrated information (e.g. Griffith, 2014) depend on information loss. Since lossy integration would necessitate continuous damage to existing memories, we propose it is more natural to frame consciousness as a lossless integrative process and provide a formalization of this idea using algorithmic information theory. We prove that complete lossless integration requires noncomputable functions. This result implies that if unitary consciousness exists, it cannot be modelled computationally.
The central part of their new work is to describe the mathematical properties of a system that can store integrated information in this way but without it leaking away. And this leads them to their central proof. “The implications of this proof are that we have to abandon either the idea that people enjoy genuinely [integrated] consciousness or that brain processes can be modelled computationally,” say Maguire and co.
Since Tononi’s main assumption is that consciousness is the experience of integrated information, it is the second idea that must be abandoned: brain processes cannot be modelled computationally.
Nope, what's absurd is your persistence to make these wild outlandish claims and not present a shred of evidence to support it. Don't you realize you're living in a fantasy world? I have asked you time and again to provide some scientific evidence and you provide nothing but the same hyperbole.
I never said the brain has nothing to do with it, I said consciousness doesn't emerge from the brain and the brain needs an operator to navigate and operate the information that the brain processes. I then provided scientific evidence that points in this direction.
You think asking what will stop us from replicating the human brain works to build your self aware android and I have showed you time and again. You act like your position without a shred of evidence should be the default position because this is what you believe.
The fact that the brain integrates information in a unpredictable way and consciousness interacts with and navigates this information in a way that's non computable totally destroys any notion of some mystery algorithm producing your imaginary self aware androids.
The literature on IIT is too big to do it justice in a blog post. Strikingly, in addition to the “primary” literature, there’s now even a “secondary” literature, which treats IIT as a sort of established base on which to build further speculations about consciousness. Besides the Tegmark paper linked to above, see for example this paper by Maguire et al., and associated popular article. (Ironically, Maguire et al. use IIT to argue for the Penrose-like view that consciousness might have uncomputable aspects—a use diametrically opposed to Tegmark’s.)
Now, I regard IIT as a serious, honorable attempt to grapple with the Pretty-Hard Problem of Consciousness: something concrete enough to move the discussion forward. But I also regard IIT as a failed attempt on the problem. And I wish people would recognize its failure, learn from it, and move on.
In my view, IIT fails to solve the Pretty-Hard Problem because it unavoidably predicts vast amounts of consciousness in physical systems that no sane person would regard as particularly “conscious” at all: indeed, systems that do nothing but apply a low-density parity-check code, or other simple transformations of their input data. Moreover, IIT predicts not merely that these systems are “slightly” conscious (which would be fine), but that they can be unboundedly more conscious than humans are.
As humans, we seem to have the intuition that global integration of information is such a powerful property that no “simple” or “mundane” computational process could possibly achieve it. But our intuition is wrong. If it were right, then we wouldn’t have linear-size superconcentrators or LDPC codes.
I should mention that I had the privilege of briefly speaking with Giulio Tononi (as well as his collaborator, Christof Koch) this winter at an FQXi conference in Puerto Rico. At that time, I challenged Tononi with a much cruder, handwavier version of some of the same points that I made above. Tononi’s response, as best as I can reconstruct it, was that it’s wrong to approach IIT like a mathematician; instead one needs to start “from the inside,” with the phenomenology of consciousness, and only then try to build general theories that can be tested against counterexamples. This response perplexed me: of course you can start from phenomenology, or from anything else you like, when constructing your theory of consciousness. However, once your theory has been constructed, surely it’s then fair game for others to try to refute it with counterexamples? And surely the theory should be judged, like anything else in science or philosophy, by how well it withstands such attacks?
But let me end on a positive note. In my opinion, the fact that Integrated Information Theory is wrong—demonstrably wrong, for reasons that go to its core—puts it in something like the top 2% of all mathematical theories of consciousness ever proposed. Almost all competing theories of consciousness, it seems to me, have been so vague, fluffy, and malleable that they can only aspire to wrongness.
I have presented you evidence on top of evidence on top of evidence that points to how consciousness works and it just doesn't support an interpretation that has no evidence that says consciousness must emerge from the material brain.
You then called all of these things "out of the mainstream" and "pseudoscience" when I'm quoting people like Roger Penrose. This again shows how weak your position is.
You simply ignored all of the other evidence I have listed on this thread and went fishing on Google for an article you can post that you don't understand.
First off Tegmark is trying to show that consciousness is computable and there's nothing wrong with having this belief
This tells you I don't agree with ITT either. I agree that the brain integrates information but I don't think this integrated information is the cause of consciousness because consciousness is non computable and that's where the evidence has been pointing and that's why I have listed evidence on top of evidence that you haven't responded to.
Counterfactual quantum cryptography (CQC) is used here as a tool to assess the status of the quantum state: Is it real/ontic (an objective state of Nature) or epistemic (a state of the observer's knowledge)? In contrast to recent approaches to wave function ontology, that are based on realist models of quantum theory, here we recast the question as a problem of communication between a sender (Bob), who uses interaction-free measurements, and a receiver (Alice), who observes an interference pattern in a Mach-Zehnder set-up. An advantage of our approach is that it allows us to define the concept of "physical", apart from "real". In instances of counterfactual quantum communication, reality is ascribed to the interaction-freely measured wave function (ψ) because Alice deterministically infers Bob's measurement. On the other hand, ψ does not correspond to the physical transmission of a particle because it produced no detection on Bob's apparatus. We therefore conclude that the wave function in this case (and by extension, generally) is real, but not physical. Characteristically for classical phenomena, the reality and physicality of objects are equivalent, whereas for quantum phenomena, the former is strictly weaker. As a concrete application of this idea, the nonphysical reality of the wavefunction is shown to be the basic nonclassical phenomenon that underlies the security of CQC.
Why would the operator need to produce conscious when the operator is consciousness itself?
The problem here is, peopl think that consciousness MUST originate from some material process. There's zero evidence to support this and I have listed evidence that points in another direction.
So know, you don't need a regression of operators when you're dealing with nonphysical consciousness. We already have scientist saying the wave function is a nonphysical reality that can transmit information.
I never said a machine can't have an operator but that doesn't mean the machine will be conscious in the same way humans are. This is because consciousness is non computable.