On Sat, Aug 10, 2019 at 5:34 PM smitra <[email protected]> wrote: > On 10-08-2019 00:53, Bruce Kellett wrote: > > On Sat, Aug 10, 2019 at 3:22 AM Jason Resch <[email protected]> > > wrote: > > > >> On Friday, August 9, 2019, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> > >> wrote: > >> > >> On Fri, Aug 9, 2019 at 8:59 PM Jason Resch <[email protected]> > >> wrote: > >> > >> What role do you see decoherence playing in consciousness? In other > >> words, could you explain why shedding IR photons into an external > >> environment necessary for the mind to be conscious? > >> > >> Consciousness is a classical phenomenon since the brain is a > >> classical object (not in a state of quantum coherence). So > >> decoherence, and the emergence of the classical from the quantum, is > >> essential for consciousness. Just as to be conscious is to be > >> conscious of something, such as the external world. > > > > You appear to be extrapolating a causation from the appearance of a > > correlation: > > "The brain is classical, and the brain is conscious, therefore all > > consciousness must be classical." > > > > The conclusion doesn't follow from the premise. > > > > Show me consciousness that does not involve decohered classical > > matter, such as in a brain. > > That's trivial. The brain is an object that exists in our universe which > is described by quantum mechanics. Classical mechanics is a falsified > theory that yields good approximations for macroscopic observables due > to fast decoherence. The number of physical degrees of freedom involved > in the entangled state the brain is part of is finite due to locality. > This means that the brain plus a finite (but extremely large) number of > physical degrees of freedom is always in a pure state. >
But when you cannot reach, or ignore, some of this larger number of degrees of freedom, you end up with a mixed state. That is how decoherence reduces the pure state to a mixture on measurement -- there are always degrees of freedom that are not recoverable -- those infamous IR photons, for example. The brain does not take all this entanglement with the environment into account, so it is a classical object. Bruce -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLR2q0riE0ifd_%2BEGnb6H2iY08eOZGQFAfGhi_5nFOCXsg%40mail.gmail.com.
