Quantum Consciousness Makes A Comback. Again.

[JimC]

You mean 'consciousness' is the kind of consciousness that knows it's conscious: sentience + rational subjective reflection?

Even with that definition (which I think is reasonable), there are hints that some higher non-human organism have at least the beginnings of a sense of self, to the extent that shows in understanding the social motivation of others, so that the jump from the cognitive structures of such creatures to full human consciousness is a matter of scale, not a totally different ball game. Added to that is considering the sweep of human ancestors; the development of consciousness over hominid evolutionary history must have been a continuum, unless you wish to posit a hominid suddenly receiving an instant dose of consciousness - shades of a god-given soul...

[Brian Peacock]

But I'm not talking about a specifically human brand of consciousness, I'm just trying to pin rEv down a bit. Which raises another spectre that often looms from out of the crypt in these kinds of discussions: we often assume that 'consciousness' is human consciousness, and that that is a special kind of consciousness. That definition above could cover higher apes, elephants, dogs and horses, and a lot more, as comprehensively as it covers humans, if 'rational' was taken for 'thinking'. But again, when we talk about 'consciousness' we often mean 'thought', where thought it the kind of ongoing lauguage-ridden internal narrative structure we're so familiar with from our own incorrigible experience. We might not know what occupies a chimp or a dog or a horse's mind, but that they think is not disputed.

Now, if consciousness has a quantum component than it's an evolved thing and it's traces are surely written throughout the spectrum, that is; it isn't just a bolted on extra for humans. We've observed the quantum collapse of photons in mammalian, bird and insect vision as well as in the cell biology of the leaf - I'm just waiting for something substantial on how quantum effect might play out in specific areas of (shall we presume, mammalian) cognition. As with cell activation by photon it probably has something to do with a particular kind of chemical relationship, but I'll reserve judgement until there's more info to go on - which might take a few years.

[pErvinalia]

You mean 'consciousness' is the kind of consciousness that knows it's conscious: sentience + rational subjective reflection?

I guess that is a good description. Subjectivity is going to be essential, as of course is sentience ("feeling" experience). It's premature to say how (or if) consciousness exists in other animals. Because none of them can self report, as far as I am aware. And you certainly can't look at a scan and identify consciousness. The only way we can hope to tell with most species is via behaviour. But then you get into the territory of p-zombies (philosophical zombies) where you have no way to really tell if they are conscious or just behave autonomously as if they are.

[pErvinalia]

Going back to the subject of quantum consciousness, it's never very apparent to me what exactly quantum weirdness adds to a solution. Let's say we do have quantum mechanics influencing our thoughts. How does that relate to subjective awareness and sentience?

[JimC]

Going back to the subject of quantum consciousness, it's never very apparent to me what exactly quantum weirdness adds to a solution. Let's say we do have quantum mechanics influencing our thoughts. How does that relate to subjective awareness and sentience?

By analogy to the future possibilities of quantum computing, I think that the (rather vague) hope is that some form of "quantum weirdness" will vastly multiply the possible number of potential solutions to any given cognitive computation, and thus make consciousness more possible, virtually by brute force.

Not convinced.

[pErvinalia]

You mean 'consciousness' is the kind of consciousness that knows it's conscious: sentience + rational subjective reflection?

I guess that is a good description. Subjectivity is going to be essential, as of course is sentience ("feeling" experience). It's premature to say how (or if) consciousness exists in other animals. Because none of them can self report, as far as I am aware. And you certainly can't look at a scan and identify consciousness. The only way we can hope to tell with most species is via behaviour. But then you get into the territory of p-zombies (philosophical zombies) where you have no way to really tell if they are conscious or just behave autonomously as if they are.

I should add, included in the p-zombie thought experiment is that any individual can't tell if any other human individual is actually conscious as well. So we default to believing that they experience the same sort of conscious phenomenon as we do. As Jim said, it's unlikely consciousness is a switch that happens to be on for us and not on for other animals (particularly with other apes, whales, dolphins, elephants etc). So it seems reasonable that if certain animal species show behaviours consistent with consciousness that we likewise assume they possess some form of consciousness.

[rainbow]

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1505/1505.00774.pdf

Modelling Microtubules in the Brain as
n-qudit Quantum Hopfield Network and Beyond

[pErvinalia]

My head exploded just reading the title.

[Brian Peacock]

Saying that we can't be assured that dogs or horses or other people are conscious because we don't have access to their incorrigible interiors actually kills all discussion of consciousness stone dead.

Cheers for the link rainboss

[pErvinalia]

Not really. It's the same as methodological naturalism as a philosophy of science. We just make assumptions and continue on from there.

[rainbow]

Saying that we can't be assured that dogs or horses or other people are conscious because we don't have access to their incorrigible interiors actually kills all discussion of consciousness stone dead.

Cheers for the link rainboss

A pleasure as always.

However I have to question whether Diosi-Penrose Objective Reduction
can be linked to Hameroff Consciousness. Perhaps a leap of Faith?

[Brian Peacock]

Indeed.