Monday, June 30, 2014

Stuart Hammeroff and quantum consciousness

I've keyed this video to begin in the middle, where Hammeroff speaks of the microtubules within neurons that are at the heart of his theory that consciousness arises at the quantum level...where the fate of Schrodinger's Cat is determined. Or not determined? 

Here is a good interview that further explores his ideas.


from The Large Idea Collider blog by Michel Trottier-McDonald:

"Another way of looking at the problem between quantum field theory and general relativity comes from basic knowledge of both theories. If you know something about general relativity, it is that matter and energy bend space-time. If you know something about quantum mechanics, it is that you can’t know velocity and position of a system as accurately as you want simultaneously. This fact about quantum mechanics implies that in quantum field theory, you will have arbitrary amounts of matter and energy fluctuating in and out of existence, and the smaller the scales you probe, the larger these fluctuations will become. I know this is far from a straightforward conclusion, but I’d rather be incomplete than inaccurate in my explanation. For now bear with me. Putting these two facts from both theories together, you get that at small enough scales, there will be enough matter-energy fluctuating to distort space-time, transforming space-time into some kind of fractal foam."

16 comments:

Rabel said...

When a guy lecturing on quantum field theory and general relativity can't handle powerpoint, I begin to question his conclusions.

Trooper York said...

This hurts my head.

Aridog said...

Momentary OT...hey, Chip S...please check your website's comments.

Now back to the regular programing....

Chip Ahoy said...

My time and conscious just now got bent.

Photoshop can be frustrating. It began opening each image with a grid overlain upon it. I have to shut it off with magical keystrokes for each and every image. Image after image after image for hundreds to thousands of images. Frustrating.

So I decided to put an end to it.

Photoshop itself is useless for answering the simple question "How do I get rid of the grid that opens with each image?"

By playing the little game 20 questions I can have my answer, and I
will
have
my
answer.

It only took four questions. And it was not Photoshop itself that answered, rather, another person asking the same thing who found the answer himself.

But his answer led to another question. "How do I display the workspace?"

Photoshop's answers are written to confound, not to help. They're like NYT crossword clues. The person writing the answers is a little too well chuffed with his superior position and hopes to keep it. That is their quantum. So you must remain stupid.

Eventually I manage to open a workspace window and make the necessary change. Taa daa. Grid disappears forevermore unless I tell it to, and quantum consciousness changed too.

XRay said...

He talks too fast, that Hammeroff, though of course he had lots to say and little time to do so at that venue.

But I don't know, I just can't see it strictly as an I/O issue or a 1's and 0's issue or even a combination, neither consciousness nor 'the singularity'. There's a missing piece there somehow.

Paramahansa Yogananda, Don Juan Matus, hell, even Ram Dass get closer to the source I think. Though tis true, mystical thinking holds little sway nowdays.

XRay said...

Forgot to say, nice post, Deb. Good to rough up the mind on occasion. Thanks.

deborah said...

X, the part that blows me away is not the 1/O, but that the eye and brain directly interact with photons, which are quantum particles. That is, we directly interact with the quantum level of the universe, that is we may be the universe, or that the universe is a hologram, or some such. Of COURSE I don't understand it, but that little bit is quite amazing!

rhhardin said...

Chapters 5-8 of Coleridge's Biographia Literaria prove AI is going nowhere.

rhhardin said...

Consciousness has to involve quantum mechanics because there is quantum mechanics.

That's not an explanation of consciousness though.

It's an input, not an output.

Scientists in the field are idiots in the big picture.

Aridog said...

Hi rhhardin ....MOAR pictures of "Julie" please. (Sorry for the OT remark, etc...)

deborah said...

rh, this guy is rather a nemesis to the AI guys. He tells them to start with a paramecium before they try a brain.

I think maybe the idea Hammeroff is putting across is consciousness is not about input or output, but a one-ness with the universe. The universe passes through us and we register it.

Your eyes radiate a light that shines through the mountains and rivers.
-Foyen

Thanks for the link, I'll look at it.

rhhardin said...

There's more Julie pics than you want at https://www.flickr.com/photos/rhhardin/?details=1

Aridog said...

Thanks...can never be more than I want, of Julie of Vickie.

XRay said...

Well, Deb, there is the old canard... would the universe exist if we weren't here. I believe it would, with or without us. But, nonetheless, we are mere interlopers who, as you suggest, only have the universe pass through us with no alteration of purpose, what ever that might be or mean, and it might well be nothing. There's drama, as with Don Juan, or no drama, as with Yogananda. Point is, is that we're still pretty clueless about all this shit.

rh nails it though at 8:32, if it is, then it is consciousness.

All in all a very interesting subject. Except really, the AI stuff. That's eon's in the future I believe.

deborah said...

X, rh, to be fair to Hammeroff, he is not saying it's reason and will we are registering but sheer consciousness, i.e., perhaps experiencing or witnessing or causing the collapse of the wave function. He suspects the microtubule spindles binarily record what we see.

(Read chapters 4 and 5, so far. Hume plagiarized Aquinas? That's not cricket :)

XRay said...
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