On naturalism and consciousness

[The Grand Nudger]

Quantum computing is something that's being looked into. If you had a quantum computing device it -should- be capable of handling a particular set of problems fairly well (and would have a correlative system in "standard" computing). The trouble, iirc, is cancelling out the noise on the line in order to get a solid, probabilistic, signal. I know that sounds like a decrease in function (the machine assigning probabilities) but the draw is that QM scale architecture would allow for an obscene density in the "chipset". 1 large slow, clunky binary adder - vs billions of tiny, fast heuristic math devices. We have suspicions that billions of fast guesses would be functionally superior to our standard architecture of the present (and also that biological systems might be more accurately described in this manner, btw). Quantum computing is a big draw for NN theorists (neural network) as opposed to computational theorists - as the logic in the middle can be driven around in favor of producing the effect - instead of the process. Two roads to the same destination. The question for either architecture, ultimately, is "can i get a collection of malleable components to yield the proper answer in situation "x". That's how gates are abstracted, but also how networks of heuristics are abstracted. Gates use well known, well mapped logical functions. Networks throw darts at a wall. A Quantum computer, btw, would throw darts at a wall on one level of abstraction, but would then map the pattern of those darts into something more traditionally compatible so that useful work could be done. At some point, the architecture has to leave the arena of where quantum effects have much sway.

I want to ask, assuming that we don't see this, why we don't see consciousness or mind on display everywhere we look? If the universe were a collection of quantum computing devices (or if mind was intrinsic to all energy exchanges) the architecture would be many times more advanced than either any modern PC - or a human brain. We would expect a beach to express mind in an even more pronounced way than any human being would be capable of expressing it. This is a prediction made by your conceptualization of mind. It's a falsifiable claim. It's unavoidable, as you've described mind as something intrinsic to -all- exchanges of energy. If we can't find that sort of mind - the claim is DOA. Also, why are we drawing "mind" all the way down to the QM level? Have we exhausted the explanations from the level in which mind appears to manifest itself? A quantum "mind" may be possible, idk, I can tell you that it would be superior to a "standard mind" from the POV of computational theory. I don't, personally, think that even if there were qm mind - that human beings possess such a mind. We just don;t seem to be capable of the sorts of things a QM system would be capable of, if it underpinned our logical architecture directly. We seem to be leveraging mechanics much further along the scale and somewhat removed from the effect of QM. Denser than our artificial chipsets, obviously, not even approaching QM chipset density - still, immensely powerful. I mean, I just want you to understand what sort of mind I'm expecting out of a QM system. Remember that question I asked about transistor count in computers? We (human beings, our ""mind" )would be the 4b to a QMs 80b 16x density. The relationship is similar to that of ourselves and (current)computers. That's just referencing what we know, quantum systems may be even more robust and powerful. We'll need time to figure that out with side by sides. The gulf between machine, biological, and quantum intelligences would be very, very wide - as different architectures impose different limits and confer dissimilar benefits to a system.