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It is widely accepted that consciousness or, more generally, mental activity is in some way correlated to the behavior of the material brain. Since quantum theory is the most fundamental theory of matter that is currently available, it is a legitimate question to ask whether quantum theory can help us to understand consciousness. Several programmatic approaches answering this question affirmatively, proposed in recent decades, will be surveyed. It will be pointed out that they make different epistemological assumptions, refer to different neurophysiological levels of description, and use quantum theory in different ways. For each of the approaches discussed, problematic and promising features will be equally highlighted.
Originally posted by Kashai
reply to post by ImaFungi
Given quantum entanglement everything is potentially one.
It is widely accepted that consciousness or, more generally, mental activity is in some way correlated to the behavior of the material brain. Since quantum theory is the most fundamental theory of matter that is currently available, it is a legitimate question to ask whether quantum theory can help us to understand consciousness. Several programmatic approaches answering this question affirmatively, proposed in recent decades, will be surveyed. It will be pointed out that they make different epistemological assumptions, refer to different neurophysiological levels of description, and use quantum theory in different ways. For each of the approaches discussed, problematic and promising features will be equally highlighted.
Quantum Approaches to Consciousness
Further
Its not very hard to understand how knowing what a person is thinking without the use of classical means to do so, involves quantum entanglement.
As it is also very easy to understand that God created separateness so as to allow consciousness to develop.
edit on 21-7-2013 by Kashai because: Added content
Originally posted by Kashai
reply to post by NorEaster
Search Friedrich Hayek, with respect to Emergence.
The interesting thing about Emergence is that it is very apparent in all aspects of nature.For me there is also the matter of consciousness as a factor that presents a non-random effect upon the randomness that is apparent in quantum mechanics.
edit on 22-7-2013 by Kashai because: modifed content
Originally posted by Kashai
To be clear this is not just with respect to the issue's of Quantum Consciousness but also with relation to the mechanics inherent to biology as we understand it.
When a person brain process's information in such an ordered way as in Mankind how does that affect the quantum nature of his or her "environment".
As an example in relation to quantum entanglement.
Originally posted by TheSubversiveOne
reply to post by NorEaster
Awesome.
Another quantum foolery I find seduces the easily seduced is the idea that atoms are mostly empty space, leaving some solipsists to proclaim, quite wrongly, that everything is mostly empty space. This, of course, is refutable by walking into a wall or biting into a rock. But nonetheless, the view that we are mostly empty space is perpetuated in spiritual woo woo (Osho for instance). Sure, there is mostly empty space in an atom, but it is still an atom, and we are composed of atoms, with very little empty space between them. A bundle of balloons is composed of a bundle of balloons, not the air that keeps them solid.
Quantum mechanics, though interesting, is creating a religious revival of sorts, with implications such as "God particles", "quantum entanglement", "Quantum observer effect", and so fourth.
Originally posted by elysiumfire
AdJebsen:
If, mathematically, we can say that we don't know the state of a particle until it is observed, and therefore it, mathematically, simultaneously holds both states...
Of course, you are referring to the situation of not being able to 'measure' and 'know' both a particle's position and its momentum simultaneously. We can know one at the forfeit of knowing the other. The measurement is an act of observation by an observer. Yes, we can indeed provide an abstraction of the situation prior to making a measurement of a particle's position, or alternatively, a measurement of its momentum using mathematics, which will state in the abstract that the particle must be in both states simultaneously until an act of observation is made upon it.
This abstraction is not, however, stating anything 'real' about the particles existential reality. All particles have the potential to be in one of three states: rest phase; excited phase; and momentum when kicked out of position by a sufficient external energy...it cannot be in more than one phase at a time, no matter how abstract a statement mathematics conceptualizes.
Of course, you will claim I am only perceiving things in the classical macro sense, but the truth is, there is only ever classical mechanics involved.
Schrödinger's cat in the box is indeed to our expectation either alive or dead, but because we have not made an observation to determine the cat's actual state by opening the box to see, it is useful to some degree to assume that it is both 'alive' and 'dead' at the same time. This is not an abstraction of the cat's reality, it is an abstraction of the limit of our knowing. The cat, of course, cannot be both alive and dead in reality, but one or the other, and our making an observation upon it does not determine its state, it only determines what we come to know of its state (either alive or dead), only.
Schrödinger's cat is a conceptualized ontological puzzle that shows quite starkly the absurdity of the idea of superposition in real terms of existence. Nature would not allow for 'superposition' as such a state would be being and non-being, existence and non-existence simultaneously, and as information cannot be exchanged (energy interaction) between the two states, it's absurdity is plain to see.
We have to be vary cautious when we are dealing with conceptual ideas, and insure we do not treat them as factual without the empirical evidence and scientific measurement to support them.edit on 19/7/13 by elysiumfire because: (no reason given)edit on 19/7/13 by elysiumfire because: (no reason given)edit on 19/7/13 by elysiumfire because: (no reason given)
Your survival as a material human being absolutely hinges on your mind's devotion to that very simple, yet witheringly relentless and endless process. If you think that your own survival is less important to your own consciousness than what's happening at the quantum level.
Originally posted by NorEaster
Since a person's experience of consciousness is always delayed - from a half second to a full seven seconds -
Originally posted by ImaFungi
reply to post by samaka
When you have time can you describe the general theory as to how entanglement works, the physical mechanism that is occurring in space and time, with the matter, and what at its most basic, it means physically for matter to be 'entangled'?