Can panpsychism be explained by QED and quantum consciousness?

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by mayagaia, Jun 30, 2006.

  1. mayagaia Registered Senior Member

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    Is there any scientific foundation for a panpsychism hypothesis that involves electromagnetic radiation entanglement with our brain's neurophoton fields to constitute a universal conscious matrix?

    The advent of theoretical quantum physics and QED has created an ontology by which such events are considered in scientific discussion particularly in regards to the fields of quantum mind and consciousness. Although the subject involves fundamental philosophical issues, the topic raises specifically scientific questions which are unlikely to find answers in a philosophy forum so I'm hoping the thread can be considered in the physics forum.

    Reaction to anecdotes of transcendent episodes range from dismissive characterizations as psychotic events to conviction that they are authentic testaments to a direct experience with a panpsychic consciousness- the professional skeptics which include the science orthodoxy favoring the first view with experiencers (which includes some scientists) convinced of the latter.

    Some years ago I experienced what can fairly be described as a classical transcendent episode (spontaneously triggered by an ecstatic sexual orgasm). Features included a transport in a plasma-like stream of energy- a confrontation with a cosmic consciousness to choose between returning or accepting death and continuing- annihilation of my corporal and ego selfness-
    union with a cosmic consciousness of light, bliss and love- and finally returning through a filimentous cord winding down to where it was attached to the top of the head of my "sleeping" body. At the time I was agnostic and totally naive about metaphysical or paranormal events but in an attempt to integrate the experience, researched those subjects plus concepts in Vedantic mysticism. I discovered enough corallary in these various sources to confirm that I had experienced an archetypal mystical event uncontaminated by any of the infinite variety of religious metaphores or occult artifacts that often arise in accounts of this nature. The episode is described as classical in the sense that its scenario closely replicated Vedic,
    Buddhist and Taoist descriptions of transcendence. Also because it was free of any of the religious artifacts or metaphores that often appear in NDE and OOB accounts.

    An account of my transcendent experience along with a discussion with links to mostly quantum electromagnetism theorists including Daniel R. Hankins, Gottfried Leibniz, Peter Russell, Susan Pockett, Dean Radin, Fred H. Thaheld, Richard P. Feynman, Johnjoe McFadden, Karl Simanonok and others can be found at:

    http://geocities.com/maya-gaia/mysticalexp.html

    What follows is a synopsis of features in my account which may be tenatively explained by a synthesis of quantum theory emerging from fields of cosmology, electrodynamics, nuerophoton and consciousness research that I've taken from online resources that I've provided more links to at

    http://geocities.com/maya-gaia/emcu_appendix.html.

    It takes about eight minutes for light to go from our Sun to Earth. That is a reasonable approximation of both my remembered impression of time and the phenomenal (approximate) time that it took for me to first launch into the stream of energy and become joined with cosmic entireity. (My ecstacy occurred around 11pm and after I completed my journey I had no memory of
    time beyond then until awaking around 8am but assumed the major portion of the total passage of time was spent in unconscious sleep after my journey had ended.)

    Another phenomenal light source is our next nearest star Proxima Centauri but its light takes over 4 years to reach us. Of course one can theorize an infinite number of options for metaphysical signals to exceed light speed applying scenarios involving wormholes, multiverses, entanglement and other quantum processes that completely ignore the rules of spacetime separation. However, if we stay within conventional concepts of time and accept Einstein's Special Relativity theory that information events don't exceed the speed of light, we have a startling coincidence that suggests both the "real" time and the remembered time are a good match to the time frame for a trip from Earth to our Sun at light speed. One could argue that if my consciousness (neurophoton field) traveled at the speed of light that I should have no remembered sense of time during my transport- which I had. It suggests that a field of information can retain a coherent sense of time even at light speed. In describing my feelings building up to and at the moment of being launched on my journey I use the term "electric" three times. Is this an intuitively accurate description of my bodily sensations as my consciousness became transformed from an explicate to an implicate state? While in a state of cosmic consciousness, my memory was that there was "an outer limit" and that "other similar systems were out there". This clearly evokes a model of our Sun as the phenomenal element which I directly experienced with an interconnection to a conscious matrix involving other stars.

    Could such a simplistic and unoriginal notion- our Sun along with the heavenly spectacle- a holy reality, a core belief in the religions of civilizations going back thousands of years, be reclaimed by modern science by a holistic scientific theory which explains transcendence experiences as an orchestration by a cosmic consciousness manifested in the electromagnetic spectrum emitted by our Sun and universe via entanglement with our neurophoton fields?

    I realize the challenge for developing a coherent hypothsis out of such ephemeral evidence but hoped the forum might generate more scientifically sophisticated insights.

    I'll repeat the topic here as follows: Is there any scientific foundation for a panpsychism hypothesis that involves electromagnetic radiation entanglement with our brain's neurophoton fields to constitute a universal conscious matrix?
     
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  3. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    There’s an important point that most people who like to try to use quantum physics and entanglement to explain things tend to forget: information passed through entanglement is totally random.
     
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  5. mayagaia Registered Senior Member

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    Yet science accept that mutations that are totally random organize results in the evolutionary process?
     
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  7. Communist Hamster Cricetulus griseus leninus Valued Senior Member

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    If you thought about that for even a moment you would realise that the two concepts are irrelevant to each other.
     
  8. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Before one tries to explain a mechanism, perhaps there should be some reason to believe in panpsychism.

    Any thoughts on why it should be explained? Do we need an explanation for the magical effects of Pixie dust?
     
  9. DaleSpam TANSTAAFL Registered Senior Member

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    Random mutation would not yield evolution without the non-random natural selection.

    -Dale
     
  10. mayagaia Registered Senior Member

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  11. mayagaia Registered Senior Member

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    Actually that was an intuitive response and I've since struggled over what I agree seems to be a total lack of rationality in that comparison. Overnight it came to me that in current skeptical thinking, if something appears random then it has no cause, period. No further investigation required. You have summarized the problem exactly.

    But given that mutations were random, until Darwin articulated his theory of natural selection there was no scientific explanation for the notion of life evolving into more advanced forms. Mutations were random so there was no reason to pursue that subject to explain the diversication of life. Perhaps there is an undiscovered process analogous to natural selection in evolution which could explain how entaglement radomly manages to synthesize biofields and a universal electromagnetic ground.

    Hoping the discussion does not bog down in dismissal of panpsychism out-of-hand but can challenge some proto-scientific opinions regarding electromagnetic and/or quantum ideas.
     
  12. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    MayaGaia: Concepts should be dismissed or at least ignored until there is at least some reason to consider them.

    Life is too short to waste time on every notion that somebody presents.

    I believe that other people are conscious only because I believe that I am and I further do not believe that I am somehow unique in this respect.

    The above provides some basis for my belief that others are conscious. On what can anyone base a belief that inanimate objects or quantum entities are conscious?
     
  13. mayagaia Registered Senior Member

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    Not only is there evidence that human consciousness may be necessary to conclude wave function experiments but there is lively hypothesizing going on in both the scientific and proto-scientific communities as to how far the relationship between matter and some form of consciousness can be taken.

    For examples of relations between quantum theory and new ideas on consciousness and reality see>

    http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=324178

    and particularly Gao Shan's papers on Quantum collapse, Consciousness and Superluminal Communication

    Of course none of this suggests anything except that the notion of particles having some form of consciousness is within the realm of scientific inquiry in an attempt to explain a fundamental paradox of quantum physics.
     
  14. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Mayagaia: You and those who are writing on this subject seem to be misinterpreting various aspects of quantum theory.

    Quantum entanglement does not provide a mechanism by which a person can communicate at FTL speeds. It only allows a person to know the results of distant measurements.
    • If I measure some property on one member of a pair of entangled particles, I will have knowledge of the results of a measurement made on the other member of the pair, which might be very far away.

      Since the properties being measured are random, an experimenter has no control over the properties being measured. Hence, the phenomenon cannot be used for FTL transmission of data about the weather, the stock market, et cetera.
    The article cited in your post shows a lack of understanding on this issue.

    Various descriptions of quantum phenomena seem to place importance on the actions or knowledge of a conscious observer.
    • The so called collapse of the wave function would occur even if the experimenters paid no attention to their measuring equipment and never became aware of the results of an experiment.

      The so called collapse occurs when any macro world object is affected by some quantum phenomenon. The object affected need not result in some conscious person obtaining information about the quantum phenomenon.
    The term collapse of the wave function is misleading. It is jargon meaning something like the following.
    • The wave function describes the probabilities associated with many mutually exclusive events, which might occur.

      One of the many possibilities is expected to occur and when it does, we say that The wave function has collapsed.
    The phrase could similarly be used in reference to a table of probabilities associated with throwing dice.
    • Before the dice are thrown, the table lists the probability associated with each possible total. When the dice are actually thrown, one total occurs. It could be said that The probability table has collapsed. to that total.
    The quantum theory jargon is analogous to the above description of a dice throw.

    I do not consider myself an expert on quantum theory. On a scale of 0 to 100, with 95-100 being an expert, I might rate at 55-65. There are a few much more knowledgeable than I who post here at SciForums. I do not however, make major misinterpretations of statements made by experts in this field. Many who post here and many who write articles/books do make such misinterpretations. I often wonder if those individuals knowing make erroneous statements rather than merely misunderstanding some aspect of Quantum theory.

    I remember a book called The Jupiter Effect. It was written by knowledgeable scientists and contained utter nonsense. I suppose the authors hoped to make money on the book at the cost of their academic reputations. I suspect that various authors who propose nonsensical theories are similarly motivated, although some of them might merely be ignorant.
     
  15. mayagaia Registered Senior Member

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    Admittedly on your scale of 0-100 I'd place myself around -10 but can access some pretty knowlegable resources which provide another perspective regarding the quantum observation issue. Just to take up one issue you raise- I certainly acknowledge there is a huge body of popular synthesizing and misinterpreting regarding the effect of consciousness and quantum mechanics and want to avoid going off the deep end here.

    There is no doubt that measurements and the evolution of quantum states continues without observers, the problem raised by QM Mind theories is which of these states is accompanied by your observing mind. Does decoherence determine a unique mind or does the mind observe a unique environment amongst many possibilities?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind#Consciousness_as_the_observer
    Lists a dozen and more quantum theories of the mind

    Just one example of research that supports the concept that human observation affects the outcome:
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/02/980227055013.htm

    REHOVOT, Israel, February 26, 1998
    In a study reported in the February 26 issue of Nature (Vol. 391, pp. 871-874), researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science claim to have demonstrated that human observation affects reality.

    Just some evidence that the issue of human observation in quantum measurement is not as settled as you suggest.
     
  16. Tnerb Banned Banned

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    I am this topic.
     
  17. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    4,885
    This thread reminds me of a friend from long ago who proposed an interesting concept.
    • If you cannot dazzle them with your brilliance, try to baffle them with bullshit.
    Various books, articles, and conversations have often reminded me of my friend and his idea. Panpsychism seems like an application of my friend’s principle.

    We seem to be digressing into discussion of quantum weirdness, which seems like an attempt to obfuscate. Suppose, we get back to a basic concept.
    • If there seems to be no reason to ascribe consciousness to inanimate objects, why should we invoke mind boggling quantum theory concepts to explain consciousness in inanimate objects?
    Long before there were explanations, it was obvious that gravity, static electricity, sun light, et cetera had noticeable effects. Hence there was reason to attempt to find explanations.

    In a previous post, I said something like the following.
    • Should we attempt to show that quantum phenomena are the mechanism behind the magical effects of Pixie dust?
    If somebody gives me reason to believe in Pixie dust magic, I am willing to consider the possibility that quantum theory will provide an explanation. If somebody gives me reason to believe that inanimate objects have consciousness, I am willing to consider the possibility that quantum theory will provide an explanation.

    Consider the following.
    • Can anybody measure consciousness?
    • Does a highly intelligent person have more of it than a moron? Does a moron have more of it than a more severely retarded person?
    • What are the measurable effects of consciousness? If I ask one of my friends if he has consciousness, he will answer affirmatively. That is the only measurable effect of which I am aware.
    • What effects associated with some inanimate object suggest that the object has consciousness?
    Can anyone posting here provide a reason for supposing that some inanimate object has consciousness?
     
  18. Tnerb Banned Banned

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    Serious. Read some Rand sometime.
     
  19. mayagaia Registered Senior Member

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    Appears that rather than applying your obvious theoretical talents creatively to actually address the implications regarding the possibility of panpsychism in the citations I've provided you choose to characterize any and all hypotheses not yet integrated into orthodoxy as pixie dust or bullshit.

    Seems you're guilty of engaging in circular logic in that you confidently identify subatomic particle/waves as inanimate objects and then insist that you have no reason to suspect that inanimate objects have consciousness!

    This is kindof like the establishment of the church not willing to look in Galileo’s telescope for the evidence he was trying to show them.

    I'm not sure if you mean to apply "misinterpreting" and "lack of understanding" to all of the 8 citations of Gao Shan's research papers? Also are you arguing that there are aspects of quantum theory that are not open to alternative interpretation?

    Given the paradoxes inherent in QM, how and to what degree QM, entanglement and other similarly arcane aspects are being "misinterpreted" by fully qualified theoretical physicists will not become known until future experiment produces convincing evidence for supporting any particular interpretation (or none of the above).

    Even some of the most inviolate groundings of classical physics are subject to challenge.
    Evidence may be emerging for photons with non-zero mass that may explain some red shift as "tired light" suggesting considerable alterations in QED theory may be forthcoming.
    http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0034-4885/68/1/R02/
    Liang-Cheng Tu et al 2005
    Department of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology and School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Virginia:
    Up to now, there has been no conclusive evidence of a finite mass for the photon, with the results instead yielding ever more stringent upper bounds on the size of it, thus confirming the related aspects of Maxwellian electromagnetism with concomitant precision. Of course, failure to find a finite photon mass in any one experiment or class of experiments is not proof that it is identically zero and, even as the experimental limits move more closely towards the fundamental bounds of measurement uncertainty, new conceptual approaches to the task continue to appear. The intrinsic
    importance of the question and the lure of what might be revealed by attaining the next decimal place are as strong a draw on this question as they are in any other aspect of precise tests of physical laws.

    In the hope that this thread can a attract some commentary regarding the possibility that QED, quantum or other concepts could be applied to creating a panpsychism hypothesis, I've presented some scientific discussion below that bring up aspects pertaining to that notion.

    http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Consci...antum_physics_and_the_preferred_basis_problem
    The issue that arises here is whether the representation, the contents of consciousness, is entirely due to the environment or due to some degree to the form of conscious observation. Suppose we make the reasonable assumption that conscious observation is due to some physical field in the dendrites of neurons rather than in the action potentials that transmit the
    state of the neurons from place to place. This field would not necessarily be constrained by decoherence; there are many possibilities for the field, for instance, it could be a radio frequency field due to impulses or an electromagnetic field (cf: Anglin & Zurek (1996)) or some quantum state of macromolecules etc.. Such a field might contain many superposed possibilities for the state of the underlying neurons and although these would not affect sensations, they could affect the firing patterns of neurons and create actions in the world that are not determined by the environmental "preferred basis".

    http://listserv.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9807&L=quantum-mind&D=0&P=10494
    If conscious 'binding' involves Bose-Einstein condensates, and if such
    condensates can be formed at brain temperature, then it is likely that
    resonances within the electromagnetic activity of neurons and internal
    polarized cristalline structures could "shape" the contents of
    consciousness. I call this conjecture "The Shaping Hypothesis". Such
    "shaping" would be the link between neuroscientific data and quantum
    theories of consciousness.

    http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~regfjxe/aw.htm
    Is Consciousness Only a Property of Individual Cells?
    Jonathan CW Edwards, University College London
    1. The individual signals passing from neurone to neurone are not bound together, whether as elements of information or physically.
    2. Within a single cell, binding in terms of bringing together of information is potentially feasible. A physical substrate may also be available.
    3. It is therefore proposed that a bound conscious experience is a property of an individual cell, not a group of cells. Since it is unlikely that one specific neurone is conscious, it is suggested that every neurone has a version of our
    consciousness, or at least some form of sentience.
    5. However absurd this may seem it is consistent with the available evidence; arguably the only explanation that is. It probably does not alter the way we should expect to experience the world, but may help to explain the ways we seem to differ from digital computers and some of the paradoxes seen in mental illness. It predicts non-digital features of intracellular computation, for which there is already evidence, and which should be open to further experimental exploration.

    http://listserv.uh.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9909&L=psyche-d&D=0&T=0&P=24559
    A facinating PSYCHE discussion forum thread about the nature of consciousness:
    Thus, we know that the photochemistry of eye and brain is quantum
    electrodynamic (*QED*, Feynman) and can therefore be captured in the
    language of vectors and matrices. Just like NNs! (*Neurocomputational
    Perspective* PM Churchland) Could it be that the form and function of
    NNs mirror the underlying, perceptually relevant QED processes
    "because" it is the "job" of the NNs to mediate those QED processes?

    http://listserv.uh.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9508&L=psyche-d&T=0&P=2274
    Adrienne Fairhall did a wonderful job of pointing out the difference
    between quantum electrodynamics (QED) and classical electrodynamics
    (CED). The reference she mentioned (as I did previously) is Feynman's QED,
    published by Princeton University Press in 1985. It is a truly wonderful
    book. I fully agree with her belief that CED (not QED) is sufficient to account
    for all data. That is, to my knowledge nobody has yet produced data that
    eliminates a CED explanation. This statement might be misunderstood. For
    example, in my last posting I said: "I know of NOTHING occurring in our
    visual system that requires quantum effects". I should have been more
    careful in my wording. Clearly, the very first step (rhodopsin absorbs a
    photon and converts it to chemical energy) requires quantum mechanics.
    Similarly, as one probes deeper and deeper into how neurons work one
    eventually comes to the molecular level where quantum effects become
    important.

    http://listserv.uh.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9508&L=psyche-d&D=0&T=0&P=3127
    My supposition that QM is more apropos to the study of consciousness than
    classical theory is based on the assumption that QM can replace classical
    theory in all of its aspects, based on the assumption that all of our
    information about the physical world is via quanta, specifically photons
    -- electromagnetic quanta -- from which we infer all of our basic physical
    concepts -- space, time, mass -- and from the observed motions of masses
    we derive all other quanta by inference, and all other physical concepts.

    http://citebase.org/cgi-bin/fulltex...amp;identifier=oai:arXiv.org:quant-ph/0204021
    QED-Cavity model of microtubules implies dissipationless energy transfer and biological quantum teleportation Nick E. Mavromatos, Theoretical Physics Group, U of London, Kings College: Andreas Mershin, Center for Theoretical Physics, Texas A & M U Observable quantum effects in biological matter such as proteins are naively expected to be strongly suppressed, mainly due to the macroscopic nature of most biological entities as well as the fact that such systems live at near room temperature. These conditions normally
    result in a very fast collapse of the pertinent wave-functions to one of the allowed classical states. However,we suggest that under certain circumstances it is in principle possible to obtain the necessary isolation against thermal losses and other environmental interactions, so that meso- and macroscopic quantum-mechanical coherence, and conceivably entanglement extending over scales that are considerably larger than the atomic scale, may be achieved and maintained for times comparable to the characteristic times for biomolecular and cellular processes.

    I can only assume that this is not all pixie dust.
     
    Last edited: Jul 6, 2006
  20. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Mayagaia: I scanned your lengthy post and decided to comment on the easiest to understand remarks.
    Are you aware that the above is utter nonsense?
    • First condition: If conscious binding (whatever that is) involves Bose-Einstein condensates . . . No reason given for supposing any relationship.
    • If such condensates can be formed at brain temperatrues . . . Bose-Einstein condensates occur a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero (about -459F or -273C). There is experimental evidence that they do not occur one thousandth of a degree above absolute zero and no reason to suppose that they can occur at higher temperatures.
    The above has the form: If statement A is true and statement B is true then Theory C is likely. Statement A is speculation. Statement B is almost certainly false. Does it make sense to beleve that Theory C worth considering?

    For over 50 years, various people have suggested Quantum Theory as the mechanism for some occult, mystic, or parapsychological speculations. It seems to me to be an attempt to provide credibility for beliefs for which there is little or no evidence, Id est: An attempt to baffle with bullshit.

    In reference to my skepticism, you said the following.
    Looking in Galileo’s telescope would be a very simple way of indicating evidence of a Copernicus Solar System. Can you show or tell me something that simple to support the notion that inanimate objects have consciousness?

    In your last post, I see references to potential problems with mainstream physics. One of the hallmarks of pseudo science is attempts to point out flaws in mainstream science.

    Before trying to find a mechanism, how about providing a reason to believe that some inanimate object has consciousness? Consciousness seems to be a poorly understood phenomenon in human beings. There seems to be no known methods for measuring the phenomenon.

    Can you answer or provide an opinion on the following questions previously posted by me?
    • What are the measurable effects of consciousness? If I ask one of my friends if he has consciousness, he will answer affirmatively. That is the only measurable effect of which I am aware, and it seems somewhat subjective.
    • Does a highly intelligent person have more of it than a moron? Does a moron have more of it than a more severely retarded person?
    • What effects associated with some inanimate object suggest that the object has consciousness?
    • Can consciousness be measured or detected?
    As posted earlier, before looking for a mechanism, how about providing a reason to believe that some inanimate object has consciousness? Answers to or a discussion of the above questions might provide some insight into this issue. Talk about Quantum Theory is obfuscation.
     
  21. mayagaia Registered Senior Member

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    Please refer to my earlier reply about circular logic on this point.

    OK I'll offer some opions to your questions and hope you can return the favor in regards to my previous.

    Questions 1.2: Actually For an answer about the effects we need a definition and if you think my previous posts was long you'll understand why I can't fit even the links to the body of concepts attempting to provide one for that ultimate enigma into this thread- but here's just one compendium for over 2K references http://consc.net/online.html.
    Your answer to your own question begs another which is what about non-linquistic life?, neurons?, DNA?, dumb creatures?, bacteria?, viruses?, plants?, amino-acids? I suspect it rests totally on how far your subjective skepticism allows. If you are implying that consciousness cannot be measured and have no sure faith in subjective evidence then you are left with the fact that the statement: "quanta are conscious" is not falsifiable any more or less than: "my friend is conscious".

    Questions 3.4: My opinion as to how quanta may manifest a quantum consciousness is suggested by the ontology arising in the field of biophotonics, for example:
    http://www.lifescientists.de/ib0205e_1.htm
    INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF BIOPHYSICS
    Some Features of Biophotons and their Interpretation in Terms of Coherent States
    Fritz-Albert Popp
    International Institute of Biophysics (Biophotonics)
    Raketenstation, 41472 Neuss, Germany
    There is only one possible vehicle for conducting this concert of up to millions of reactions per second and per cell: non-thermal photons which provide the right quantum energies at the right place and at the right time. Thus, one has to stress that (1) it is impossible that thermal photons may trigger the biochemical reactions in a living system, and (2) that theoretically only one photon per cell could be sufficient for activating 109 reactions per second, provided that it originates from a coherent photon field. If this field is a coherent and non-thermal one, it is theoretically able to borrow the photon energy at the right time and take it to the right position of the reaction and to reabsorb it immediately after this event which, in general, takes not longer than about 10-9 seconds. Consequently, the weak photon current from biological systems, which - as we know nowadays covers the whole spectral range at least from UV to infrared and which we call "biophotons"- may well suffice to take the role of regulating the whole biochemistry and biology of life.

    From the perspective of psychophysiology
    Q: Can we measure consciousness or create it artificially?
    http://listserv.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9905&L=quantum-mind&D=0&T=0&P=5614

    Even if we are not able to access consciousness directly, the
    framework of mathematical and quantum physical models may predict
    neuronal effects revealing a conscious process indirectly. An
    experimental investigation can be approached from various directions:

    i) Monitoring of whole brain activities with fMRI and related
    techniques

    ii) Analysis and manipulation of subcellular quantum processes in
    neuronal ensembles or neuron/silicon hybrids by atomic force
    microscopy, site directed mutagenesis, or chemical manipulation of
    proteins/lipids involved in the quantum process

    iii) Investigation of ensemble behaviour in neuronal networks of quantum dots/wires and comparison with biological networks of neurons.

    Can we investigate, or copy, a structure occurring in the brain
    which is functionally significant for a particular quantum
    process? Can we find a reliable experimental determination of
    physical parameters consistent with predictions, as deduced from a
    mathematical formalism underlying this quantum process?

    Regarding your comment "(whatever that is)" about conscious 'binding'...
    Could refer to- How diverse systems in the brain interact to produce a coherent experience.
    Regarding the near-zero temperature range in which Boise-Einstein action occurs refer to:
    http://citebase.org/cgi-bin/fulltex...uant-ph/0204021
    QED-Cavity model of microtubules implies dissipationless energy transfer and biological quantum teleportation Nick E. Mavromatos, Theoretical Physics Group, U of London, Kings College: Andreas Mershin, Center for Theoretical Physics, Texas A & M U Observable quantum effects in biological matter such as proteins are naively expected to be strongly suppressed, mainly due to the macroscopic nature of most biological entities as well as the fact that such systems live at near room temperature. These conditions normally result in a very fast collapse of the pertinent wave-functions to one of the allowed classical states. However,we suggest that under certain circumstances it is in principle possible to obtain the necessary isolation against thermal losses and other environmental interactions, so that meso- and macroscopic quantum-mechanical coherence, and conceivably entanglement extending over scales that are considerably larger than the atomic scale, may be achieved and maintained for times comparable to the characteristic times for biomolecular and cellular processes.

    I appreciate your challenges to my exploration of the thread's question
    and accept that the discussion has taken on the character of the skeptical science orthodoxy as the circled wagons with the proto-science indians shooting pixie dust and bull shit or in the venacular of the skeptical community- pink unicorns. I agree that "a hallmark of pseudo science is pointing out flaws in mainstream science" but it is also a hallmark of theoretical scientists themselves who are the most active and effective in challenging the status quo as the rate of evolution of all fields of science rises exponentially.
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2006
  22. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    4,885
    Mayagaia: In all of your citations, I see no reason to believe that inanimate objects are conscious. I have yet to see any reference to a method of measuring consciousness. In a previous post of mine, questions 3 & 4 were
    • What effects associated with some inanimate object suggest that the object has consciousness?
    • Can consciousness be measured or detected?
    Your answer to my first two questions is essentially a copout. This is your reply, which you seem to think answers questions 3 & 4.
    I see nothing in the above citation that answers my questions. I see some speculation about how consciousness might be measured, but no claims to have actually measured it. I see various questions with no answers.

    I only see more attempts to baffle with bullshit. You seem to be trying to overwhelm me with lengthy posts and various citations in hope that I will get confused or tired of reading. I wonder if you actually read and understand some of the citations you have provided.
     
  23. mayagaia Registered Senior Member

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    Dinosaur-
    You asked me to answer or give an opinion to your questions then when I did offer opinions, charged that were "copouts" which is a strange assessment of someone's opinion. As mentioned, it would seem reasonable if you responded directly to some of my questions.

    Your insistence, to what has become a tautology in your postings, that I have the burden to explain how consciousness can be measured or show evidence that inanimate particles have it, seems like a tactic to establish an enigmatic prerequisite before a hypothesis can be seriously discussed. I understand your opinion is that in the absence of such hard evidence, all supportive research or argument is "pixie dust".

    You have my assurance that I do not understand any of the mathematics or a good deal of the scientific epistemology in most of the citations I've referenced. I'm presenting work that appears relevant in the hope that it will stimulate those who do, to assess and articulate how the data may or may not apply to the credibility of a panpsychism hypothesis. This thread is after all intended to be an exploration not a declaration of that possibility.
     

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