Quantum consciousness...

[Whateverist]

Ugg that was my first attempt at posting by phone up there. Maybe I'll refrain in future until I have a whole key board.

[bennyboy]

One might wonder, at that hypothetical minimum level of organization - what a hypothetical minimal incremental step "below" it looks like?  

In the binary proposition...some y is suddenly self aware in a meaningful way whereas the x directly before it is not.  This isn't what would be expected in a comp mind framework.  

So you're saying that rather than having consciousness or a lack of it, we have a kind of smooth transition, like saying, "In the rainbow, when does red change to blue?" There's no actual cut line, so the choice of exactly where to say, "There. . . it's happened!" is arbitrary. Yet, there is the red, and the blue, and the smooth transition between them. Am I reading you right?

We could certainly categorize, in the vein of "it couldn't be said" that below some level x a human consciousness is not present.  OFC, things "below" that level of organization do seem to be conscious.  If we're looking to set a minimum binary level for consciousness itself...rather than some specific representative thereof, where would you suggest we place it?  Would you place it at the level of a single nueron, for example?  That - as a hypothetical, if we had some way to peirce the veil we would find consciousness in each and every neuron, and so anything with even one neuron - or any structure which achieved the same effect by any other means?

I recall we've had this conversation before. Even for a single neuron, I'd start pulling out proteins, molecules, or even QM particles, and strain that cut line as far as I could. I'm not sure there WOULD be any point at which you'd go from something to nothing: you'd probably have a statistical chance of failure as you took things too far-- maybe misfirings occurring more and more often or whatever. Or, and this is my leaning, it may be that the relationship between QM:chair and QM:mind are equal-- that all the fundamental principles necessary for mind are there right at the bottom.

I suppose that's really the question here. I can pull apart a chair, and it will be less and less chairlike, until at some point I'll get something so unlike a chair that nobody would use that term for it. Is consciousness like this? Is it just a semantic for systems that behave in certain ways, such that the reality doesn't change as we manipulate the system, but the definitions we'd be willing to apply to that system change?

[The Grand Nudger]

So you're saying that rather than having consciousness or a lack of it, we have a kind of smooth transition, like saying, "In the rainbow, when does red change to blue?"  There's no actual cut line, so the choice of exactly where to say, "There. . . it's happened!" is arbitrary.  Yet, there is the red, and the blue, and the smooth transition between them.  Am I reading you right?

-I- don;t know.  I really don't.  If consciousness were some form of computation, however..yeah, that could be the case.  The simplest "conscious computer"... wherever we place that line, probably wouldn't be meaningfully different from the next hypothetical incremental step below it.  

I recall we've had this conversation before.  Even for a single neuron, I'd start pulling out proteins, molecules, or even QM particles, and strain that cut line as far as I could.  I'm not sure there WOULD be any point at which you'd go from something to nothing: you'd probably have a statistical chance of failure as you took things too far-- maybe misfirings occurring more and more often or whatever.  Or, and this is my leaning, it may be that the relationship between QM:chair and QM:mind are equal-- that all the fundamental principles necessary for mind are there right at the bottom.

I suppose that's really the question here.  I can pull apart a chair, and it will be less and less chairlike, until at some point I'll get something so unlike a chair that nobody would use that term for it.  Is consciousness like this?  Is it just a semantic for systems that behave in certain ways, such that the reality doesn't change as we manipulate the system, but the definitions we'd be willing to apply to that system change?

You misunderstand me, I'm not asking you to reassert that consciousness is everywhere, in everything...I'm asking..if there were a binary cutout, where -you- would place it. Play with the idea.

[ignoramus]

Guys. Just throwing it out there.
Could we say that any animal life which has the proactive ability to survive needs to be conscious of its surroundings?
EG: any hunter? and any that flee do so by conscious choice? Is there such as thing as a conscious lower lifeform. EG, deep sea clams?
Sure they live in a bullet proof fortress which nature has bestowed upon them for survival, but what have "they" consciously done to further their survival chances?
Does a shark (as perfectly evolved as you can get) kill via 100% innate instinct? Or are they consciously thinking to themselves: I think I'll eat lobster tonight, I'm sick of Mackerel?

[Alex K]

I watched the first third of the interview. Will try to comment later.

[ignoramus]

All the good quantum bits come later!

[The Grand Nudger]

Guys. Just throwing it out there.
Could we say that any animal life which has the proactive ability to survive needs to be conscious of its surroundings?

That would exclude non-animal life that has the proactive ability to survive.  You're not going to find much in the way of survival that -requires- consciousness, nor are you going to find much in the way of effects that consciousness purportedly aids or assists in that isn't present in some species taken to be non-conscious.

Your examples...for example, show a bias for motility and animals.  However, sessile organisms find themselves presented with all the same problems.  They have predators, in some cases they -are- predatory.  Their survival strategies are strangely elaborate.  Some plants release VOCs that signal..specifically, to a predatory organism specific to whatever is gnawing on them.  This suggests that they have a way of recognizing what is gnawing on them, and, supplied with that information, slecting the appropriate "call" between a list a chemical signals they're capable of broadcasting.  There's a species of parasitic vine that spends a few days as a mobile predator, looking for a host to root in.  It will die within 48-72 hours, on average, if it doesn't root..but it will also pass up suitable hoists if it detects a preferred host.  Is this qualitatively different from a hungry human hunter passing up bugs on the forest floor while he searches for a boar?  

I don;t mean to suggest that either of these reps are conscious, only that they appear to be meaningfully cognizent.  If consciousness is, rather than it's own binary "thing", just one of many form (and means) of cognizance......then these similarities between behavioral responses make a tad bit more sense.  Evolutionarily speaking, if we did "become conscious" at some definite point, we'd have had to employ strategies along the way to keep us alive until that eureka moment, and our consciousness would likely be built out of those. Th voc signalers are not only aware, but they're self aware, and not only that, they're aware of "others" and they can categorize others, and they can categorize their relationship to that other. They're capable of mounting an indirect defense of themselves that exploits other species. The vines stalk solanums...and will risk their own lives for a taste of the good shit.

No less than Darwin himself proposed something called the "root-brain" hypothesis. He used a neural metaphor then (amusingl;y, as we often employ computer metaphors now, in discussing our minds), wondering whether or not some part of a plant was a brain analog.

[Alex K]

It starts interesting (though vague and speculative) enough, and he's a fascinating giuy, but wow does he go full woo towards the end! Jesus! Reading the subcellular quantum information through the eyes to upload the soul. Holy quantum batman, that's some advanced shit. And by advanced I mean completely impossible. So what if microtubules in individual cells manage to keep some electrons entangled for 10^-4 seconds. That all ends at longer distances thanks to decoherence. He tries to discuss decoherence away by saying that at finite temperature, some of these entangled states get excited, but that doesn't prevent decoherence once you cross the neuron barrier.

A very smart theorist I had the privilege to work with once told me in response to a publication which tried to explain all known and purported dark matter effects with one theory: "if your theory explains every observation out there, it's probably wrong".

[ignoramus]

Ok. I'm still interested in YOUR opinion of consciousness and it's quantum connection!

Don't be a chicken, take a hunch!

Is there?
Isn't there?
A definite maybe!
Fuck all hypotheticals!

[Alex K]

Ok. I'm still interested in YOUR opinion of consciousness and it's quantum connection!

Don't be a chicken, take a hunch!

Is there?
Isn't there?
A definite maybe!
Fuck all hypotheticals!

It would be extremely exciting if consciousness came from wave function collapse.
I'm not at all convinced.