Another thing about the Penrose/Hammeroff theory, as Stenger observed, is that the microtubules that these quantum events are supposed to cohere in are too large for the particles to communicate or stack up. And even if they did the brain is too hot to allow it, quantum freakiness is generally observed at vanishingly low temperatures.
It's an interesting and cute idea that if there was a way round the above problems they could survive without us as our soul. But another problem with quantum stuff going beyond the mind is that there's no way it could avoid bumping into other quantum stuff and losing its coherence. And it wouldn't get very far, probably to the next atom would be about it's lot. Unless there's something we don't know of course but I don't know of any serious physicist that would entertain it unless none of them do it publicly. Pointless relying on the spiritual physics crowd they all have books to promote like John Hagelin's appalling "the secret" or check out his "Science of Jyotish" video on youtube. LOL. Penrose and Hammeroff are in a much higher league than Hagelin of course but I still can't get round the obstacles put forward by Stenger, the ball is in the mystics court. I await a rebuttal from Penrose, I think Hammeroff has too much need of a quantum security blanket to keep him on the scientifically straight path. ---In [email protected], <[email protected]> wrote: Especially when you consider the unlikelihood of quantum events stacking up or "meaning something". According to my book, a subatomic particle can be anywhere in the universe at any time but the chances of finding a single electron 1cm away from where it's most likely to be are so small you'd have to wait for billions of times longer than the current age of the universe. So where these quantum physicists get their fancy ideas from is beyond me when what you get taught at PHD level is the most unquestionably accurate math known.To coin a phrase, go figure. ---In [email protected], <anartaxius@...> wrote: In considering how the Wikipedia entry for quantum defines 'quantum' one wonders how it could be stretched to attempt to explain so many odd ideas" QUANTUM: In physics, a quantum is the minimum amount of any physical entity involved in an interaction. Behind this, one finds the fundamental notion that a physical property may be 'quantized', referred to as 'the hypothesis of quantization'. This means that the magnitude can take on only certain discrete values.
