On Sun, Sep 14, 2014 at 8:33 AM, John Rose via AGI <[email protected]> wrote: > > The possibility of a quantum consciousness is something that at least should > be entertained not derided. And to put forth and attempt to defend a theory > such as they have done should be admired, even if it eventually falls apart > which it hasn’t (yet) other good things can come from it.
(Yellow text on a white background is very hard to read). > You can see them defend it here in this sequence of PDF’s : > > http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064513001188 Hameroff has done some interesting work with microtubules which I don't dispute. However, throughout the paper Penrose and Hameroff use the two meanings of "consciousness" interchangeably to present a false argument. These meanings are: 1. A state of wakefulness (as opposed to unconsciousness). 2. Self awareness or qualia, that which distinguishes you from a philosophical zombie. I will not dispute that microtubules may play a role in neuron to neuron communication. (Experimentally we know that a neuron can cause adjacent neurons to fire without synapse connections, at least in insects). I will not dispute that some drugs that have an anesthetic effect also might alter microtubule signal conduction, possibly resulting in 1-unconsciousness. I will not dispute that microtubules may be in a quantum superposition of states which collapse when the neuron fires. I will not dispute that a firing neuron in some cases results in a 1-conscious event (i.e. writing into episodic memory). That is consistent with Hebb's rule and the standard model of learning in neural networks. I do dispute that Orch OR has anything to do with explaining 2-consciousness, which is clearly the type of consciousness that the authors talk about in the introduction. Section 5.6 answers criticisms from several authors, none of whom addressed this issue. The argument for explaining 2-consciousness seems to be along the lines of: 1. 2-consciousness is mysterious. 2. Some of the things that the brain does are mysterious. 3. Therefore those mysterious aspects of the brain can only be explained by 2-consciousness. Which is fallacious, of course. If you want to explain 2-consciousness, then first define a test for it so you can do experiments. Don't pretend that 1-consciousness (which is easy to test) is the same thing. > IMO Matt should have two sets of brain computation numbers, one for neuron > based and one microtubule based. The authors claim that a single neuron performs 10^16 microtubule operations per second. But I doubt this is relevant. The standard model of neural networks, in which the relevant signal is the firing rate, is well tested and supported by the success of deep learning networks for processing vision and language. We don't need to model neurons at the microtubule level, any more than we need to model a CPU running a program at the level of electrons and holes moving through silicon. -- -- Matt Mahoney, [email protected] ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
