78 upvotes, 4 direct replies (showing 4)
Aside from quantum effects being at the core of physics and chemistry as per the other comments, there are also some, lets say, less supported, theories.
Roger Penrose, the physicist, proposed that quantum effects are the direct mechanism (that is not via normal biochemistry) that drives consciousness. The consensus is that this is not plausible.
Then there is Deepak Chopra who likes to produce word salad with the word "quantum" thrown in. Complete garbage but hard to argue against - bacause how does one argue against random gibberish.
Comment by Redararis at 23/08/2022 at 00:12 UTC
57 upvotes, 2 direct replies
All of this pseudoscience is based on the fallacy that says “quantum mechanics are not fully understood, consciousness is not fully understood, thus quantum mechanics and consciousness are related”
Comment by [deleted] at 23/08/2022 at 12:17 UTC
11 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Roger Penrose, the physicist, proposed that quantum effects are the direct mechanism (that is not via normal biochemistry) that drives consciousness. The consensus is that this is not plausible.
Random comment relating to that, Roger Penrose has written some fantastic books that truly test one's limits of physics (and do a great job expanding it). However .... there's always that "last chapter" where he veers off into totally wild theories that have one goal: prove the existence of a Creator. Penrose is a devout Christian, and it's a shame that he can't stay away from shoehorning those sections into his books.
Comment by Chance_Programmer_54 at 28/08/2022 at 06:09 UTC*
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Roger Penrose is one the humblest people I have seen. He's a mathematician at heart. This is indeed a plausible hypothesis and a reasonable conjecture. Recently some experiments earlier this year have given more weight to his conjecture. Whether this postulate is correct, we don't know, but whether it's reasonable and worthy of further investigation, it certainly is.
Comment by Squint-Eastwood_98 at 23/08/2022 at 17:51 UTC*
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
As I understand it, Roger believes that consciousness cannot be entirely computational in the classical understanding of the word computation. He points to Godel's Incompleteness Theorem which tells us that there are known mathematical truths which cannot be classically computed. How could we reach incomputable conclusions if we were limited to classical computation? This leads to the idea that there's something in the physiology of our brains which goes beyond classical physics into quantum mechanics. I believe for the same reason that quantum computers have a qualitative edge over classical computers, that they can do things that are impossible for classical computers to do, though I'd be lying if I said I understood the distinction.
Roger, in collaboration with an anesthesiologist has put forward a candidate for a site in the brain for such quantum effects in the 'microtuble'. which is present in all cells, where it plays a role in cell division but also, as they argue, in the brain, contributing to consciousness.
Keep in mind that there's very little known by science about consciousness. Like with a shocking large number of other things in medicine, it's not actually known how anesthesia works, we just know that it does. the mechanism is unknown.. There's evidence that birds require quantum physics in how there internal compass works, and I think it's even been proven that some aspect of our sense of smell relies in part on quantum phenomena. Why not brains?
edit: I should add that roger would specify that he's talking about one component of consciousness, that of 'understanding'. That there are truths that we can understand to be true, which cannot be computed by a turing machine. also, I think that the famous Penrose tilings, which tile the infinite plane aperiodically cannot be solved algorithmically which ties in very nicely.