Does the brain really "cause" consciousness?

The Penrose-Hammeroff Orch OR Model--quantum computation at the microtubule level of cells:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=LXFFbxoHp3s

 

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Such philosophies go so far as to redefine what it is to be physical - and is a far cry from the idea that non-physical things can effect the physical. Once you define what it is to be physical - the question of whether non-physical things can affect it then starts from there. Tegmark's hypothesis tries to define what it is to be physical, which is somewhat of a different notion entirely to the discussion here.

It's not consciousness that causes the collapse but observation/measurement/interaction. The "consciousness" aspect is considered rather irrelevant. So it is not that consciousness can cause anything - but the things that give rise to consciousness also cause waveforms to collapse. I.e. the consciousness is an effect of the same category of things that cause waveform collapse.
In this regard you are confusing two things that have the same cause with one being the cause of the other.

 

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Mathematical platonism does not extend the definition of "physical" to include numbers and equations. They believe mathematical entities are objective but abstract, having an existence beyond space and time. Re: your saying observation doesn't involve consciousness? Howso? Is the observation an unconscious event in the brain? I think that contradicts everything we mean by observation. Quantum theory posits the act of observation/measuring itself as the cause of the collapse of the wavefunction. There is no extrapolation to brain processes that are really just physical in nature.

 

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I didn't say that they extended the definition to include numbers and equations, but that they redefine what it means to be physical.

You are getting confused with the term "observation". It does not need to be an observation by a person - merely a sufficiently complex object. A photon-detector will cause a collapse, for example. Do you think such things are conscious?

 

I'm getting confused with your personal definition of observation. My claim, as well as that of quantum physics, is that observation and measurement collapse wavefunctions. You claim this is not true. That observation is not really observation by an observer and that all wave collapses are caused by interaction with a physical macro system. Nothing in quantum physics supports this. The moment someone becomes aware of a measurement equates to the collapse of the wavefunction. It's not the device causing the collapse, it's the conscious moment of being aware of the measurement.

 

Give http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_(quantum_physics) a go for starters.
Then try http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/02/980227055013.htm which documents an experiment that demonstrated that the "observation" need not be by a conscious entity.

And I'm not saying that observation can be by any macro system - but one which effectively forces a decision to be made by the quantum particles, and thus forces the waveform to collapse.
The idea that it requires a conscious observer is somewhat "old-school" - and even one of the pioneers (Eugene Wigner) recanted from his position in his later life. Mainstream interpretations of QM have generally not required consciousness to be present for a waveform to collapse.

 

Once again, the only way you could test this ludicrous idea is to not observe something and then measure what you didn't observe... Are you starting to see the catch 22 in this unsupportable idea?

 

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It's a neat trick if you can do it!

Penrose also came up with another issue with the idea of consciousness being the requirement: "The evolution of conscious life on this planet is due to appropriate mutations having taken place at various times. These, presumably, are quantum events, so they would exist only in linearly superposed form until they finally led to the evolution of a conscious being—whose very existence depends on all the right mutations having 'actually' taken place!" (Taken from The Emperor's New Mind)

Of course, one could get round this by holding to the idea that God put us on the earth in fully evolved form etc. And if your logic is flawed you might think that this thus is therefore evidence for the existence of God.

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I wouldn't classify mutations as quantum events. But then again Penrose is alot smarter than I am. Maybe he's incorporating his microtubule theory of quantum computation, in which case cells themselves are seen as capable of quantum computation.

 

But this does not disprove that observer-based observations, based solely on consciousness, collapse wave functions. They certainly do, and whether you want to therefore define conscious observation as just another instance of measured decision-making by a complex system or not, it still remains that consciousness is a process that has immediate causal influence on physical events. How can the mere decision of an observation cause this? Indeed, how does the mere decision of any measuring device cause this?

 

Just do a Google on Mutation and Quantum Event to find a plethora of links that will lead you to where it is explained.
e.g. http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=2229
Basically, in simplistic terms (I don's know the mechanism in any greater detail) mutations occur due to random fluctuations which are caused by quantum events... i.e. waveforms collapse to a random state within their probability function, and the occasional collapse leads to a highly unlikely outcome... and this is mutation.

 

Bayesian probability is a more apt description of quantum indeterminacy.

The "wave function is real" view is analogous to the "frequentist" view of probability theory where probabilities describe "random pheonomena" like rolling dice or radioactive decays and the "wave function represents what you know about the system" view is analogous to the Bayesian view where probability is just a consistent way of assigning liklihoods to propositions independent of whether they have anything to do with a "random process." -http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/bayes.html ​

Quantum indeterminacy is just more about uncertainty than randomness.

I said analogous (similarity in some respects or particulars) not equivalent (identical). So the only fallacy here is your straw man.

Are you talking about individual synaptic activity when you say "micro-level interactions"? The only reason to assume choice is local to any individual quantum event in the brain is if you presuppose, a priori, that all such individual events are causative, rather than just contributory, to global processes. You seem to be asserting that choice could only be exercised by changing the physics, which is a false dilemma.

Then you do not know what a non sequitur is. A strictly deterministic causation is usually considered to be opposed to free will. So a physical, indeterministic causation satisfies both a cause and not determined. Just because you do not believe that implies free will does not make it non sequitur. You can make bare assertions about free will necessarily being uncaused all you like, but I have yet to see any real argument. Also, you seem to miss the part about intrinsic indeterminism, as opposed to a measurement issue.

There is a reason the hard problem of consciousness has no satisfactory answer. Consciousness is immaterial.

 

But it shows that consciousness is not necessary - and thus either the mechanism causing collapse must exist in both conscious and non-conscious cases, or there must exist multiple mechanisms that cause collapse.

No - the consciousness is an irrelevancy in this matter. You are committing the fallacy of confusing correlation with causation.
That the observer is conscious or not is NOT held to be the determining factor. This has been demonstrated by having non-conscious observation/measurement cause the wavefunction to collapse.

Furthermore, whether consciousness is the determining factor or not - it doesn't get you any closer to providing an example of something non-physical effecting the physical - as you still wouldn't have shown through any of this that consciousness is non-physical.

You need to read up on QM to answer that, and even then I'm not sure you'll ever be satisfied with the answers you read. There'll be plenty of stuff on t'internet that will provide theories / philosophical ideas etc, but they're constantly being reviewed, discussed, argued about.
But ultimately it stems from the mathematics.

 

When your analogy relies on the equivalence of the concept of freedom... :shrug:

Not necessarily.

I'm not limiting it to a simple chain, although that is the easiest way to visualise it. One can also look at each link in the chain as a collection of contributory factors. But the logic remains the same.
If individual events are merely contributory then at some point there comes a tipping point of the "choice". This is "caused" by the sum of the individual contributions, which in turn are caused... unless you're saying that such contributions are uncaused?

How is it a false dilemma, given that I have shown how the disjunctive premiss is a logical conclusion from the assumptions? What alternative have I missed?

If I have missed the link between the quotes you posted and your conclusion, then I apologise - but I still can not see it. As such I consider it a non sequituur.

You claimed "Hence free will is not required to be uncaused, just not deterministically caused."
Yet the quotes you provided simply do not support this assertion. It is thus a non-sequituur.
As I explained: the quotes you provided merely state, as you put just above it: "lack of determinism does not entail absence of causation."
There is no logical link between this and your conclusion from this that "hence free will is not required to be uncaused, just not deterministically caused."

If you think there is a logic that takes one from the quotes to your conclusion - please provide it as it is lacking at the moment.

Then you are simply not reading properly.
Billy T has understood my argument without issue.

No, I read that, which is why I made the specific qualification when I said "quantum indeterminancy (as per Copenhagen and similar interpretations)" so as to be specific that I was talking about intrinsic indeterminism rather than the mere measurement issue. Perhaps you missed that part.

Or perhaps, just maybe, we don't yet know enough about how such complex things work to make such a judgement that requires us to jump on the unprovable as an explanation in preference to the unexhausted possible explanations that would remain the purview of Occam?
But it's your opinion. Personally I find it an irrational one.

 

Then your previous point is moot:

If the prediction of an "aha" moment includes the false positives then it very much is predicting the mind thinking it is one the right track.

That is Bell's inequality, and I have not suggested any hidden variable. What you do not seem to understand about probability is that it says nothing about the order of individual results. Probability allows for inexplicable sequences of results.

Say we start flipping a coin and it keeps landing heads up, as in the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. How many times does it need to land heads up before we decide that this is not happening with probability 1/2? Five? Ten? A thousand? A million?

This question has no good answer. There's no definite point at which we become sure the probability is something other than 1/2. Instead, we gradually become convinced that the probability is higher. It seems ever more likely that something is amiss. But, at any point we could turn out to be wrong. We could have been the victims of an improbable fluke. -http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/bayes.html


INEXPLICABLE
: incapable of being explained, interpreted, or accounted for ​

 

Yes, I agree that non-conscious measuring devices can ALSO collapse wavefunctions. Or as you put it: "the mechanism causing collapse must exist in both conscious and non-conscious cases."
But then you say this:

So consciousness either does contain a mechanism to collapse wavefunctions or else it is entirely irrelevant. Which is it? And how do you explain the collapse of wavefunctions where nothing else is involved except human observation? As in the article you referenced where light manifests the interference pattern of a wave but switches to the dot pattern of individual photons whenever someone observes it.

Expanding that definition of physical again I see. So we have an illusion about mental causation but at the same time there is no such thing as mental because all consciousness is really physical? That doesn't make sense. How can consciousness be ABOUT the physical without itself being something mental. Are you denying that the mind exists?

So math proves the causal power of mere observations on quantum events. That's good. I'll take their word for it.;-)

 

Again, similar (as in freedom) not identical (as in choice).

As I just explained to Billy T, the physics of probability already allows for inexplicable sequences of events.

I did not say that it was a conclusion based solely on the quote, only that the quote helped make my point.

Yes, he seems to make the same a priori assumptions you do.

Ah, science-of-the-gaps. Some future science is always assumed that will inevitably prove everything strictly material. Pie in the sky.

 

If conscious and non-conscious mechanisms cause a waveform to collapse then the underlying mechanism that causes the collapse is not consciousness.
For example, if a ripple is formed in a puddle when a stone falls into it, and also when a person steps in it, is consciousness the underlying mechanism that causes the ripple, or is it instead a mechanism that exists in both scenarios? If it is the latter then consciousness is irrelevant to the mechanism of causing ripples in the water... As it occurs without consciousness. It would only be relevant if ripples could not happen without consciousness.
Simply put, we are after the common mechanism - that exists in both cases. So it is not in and of itself consciousness, and so consciousness is irrelevant to the mechanism.

How is it expanding the definition of physical?
Am I denying that the mind exists? No. I am arguing that such things are illusory - that the "mental" is merely a perception that belies the nature of the underlying physical mechanisms.

If a bird wearing a small hat flies around, would you also argue that it is the hat that enables it to fly? You are somehow taking consciousness as the causal factor, yet you accept that non-conscious things can do the same... So how is it specifically consciousness that does it, rather than merely a mechanism that is shared by both the conscious and non-conscious acts?

 

Then it is a poor analogy, as there is a fundamental difference between the two that the analogy fails to recognise.

 

No need to explain that to me as I never asserted the sequence was explainable or predictable. In fact quite probably before you were born, I knew that the sequence of "heads" in 10,000 true coin flips is not predictable but one can expect there will typically be 5,000 of them + or - 100 (the square root of 10,000). That square root "expected variation" is called the "law of large numbers" in probablity theory. BTW probability is a division of mathematics, not physics. I had a year long university (Cornell) probability course in probability theory that used Feller´s text book. - It got quite tough, but physics was never mentioned, except Feller does apply probability to some physical problems as illustrations.

The only a priori assumptions I make are:
(1) Logic leads to valid conclusions if the premises are valid. &
(2) Miracles do not occur.

I think Sarkus probably does make these same two, a priori. Do you assume these two too or think one is false?

I can not be sure from your post what other (if any) a priori assumption that you think Sarkus makes I am making also. Please state it if you think I am making a third (other than these two).

For clarity, it is necessary to define what I mean by "Miracle" - A Miracle is a violation of the laws of nature, which in this day and age are nearly (or exactly?) the same as the man made laws of physics and chemistry, etc. If and when there is a difference between the man made laws of physics and chemistry, etc. and those of nature, then it is possible that man could falsely believe a miracle had occurred.

By my assumptions (1) & (2), I conclude that the movement of every particle, even just an electron, is following the laws of nature. Thus there is no free will for you, if you are material (a body etc.). In my POV, you are not material, but a small part of the information in a "program" running at times when you are conscious in the parietal brain, that I call the Real Time Simulation, RTS. This non-material status allows you to have free will, but I am inclined to think that is an illusion. Just that free will is no longer in direct conflict with my assumption (1) & (2).

BTW you are not very good at answering direct questions, even if put to you twice. You said in post 90:

So for third time, I ask how do QM processes deep in the brain, making Free Will, differ from the "free will" and external coin filp provides (for making binary choices)?