Quantum Approaches to Consciousness (stanford)[2024] a modern poem vedic
scriptures Krishnananda and self KR IRS PART 1 23824 24824 K RAJARAM IRS
Introduction: Sri Ymji sent today his random thoughts where opined that
Mechanics and science went against the consciousness destroying Nature. I
am a person who accepts his loquacious stand fighting against the
destroyers of nature. I second him too. However, science really wants to
know scientifically, what is that consciousness; many scientists had
accepted their greek and their own religious views; and a few had also
exhibited their interests in the consciousness preached by B G and the
Upanishads of India. Yet science is lagging behind with distributive views
on that concept of consciousness. I am never against that science in any
manner except the blind principles of a kind of atheism, where they want to
accept anything only through the mathematics devices. They had studied,
“there are more things on heaven and earth", Hoaratio, but misunderstood
the science as something outside, realising that it is same as the Vedas.
Human thoughts are not spacious though eulogise the great men as having
such ability, knowing fully well, it is next to impossible. The nature of
the Prakrithi Maya was called as MAYA only because that Prakriti has to be
destroyed always; hence without expecting anyone, nature adopts with the
natural forces to always appear fresh, even after being cut off. It knows
its instability; it knows its insecurity; hence willing to get sacrificed
when it refurbishes by itself, as well as destroying the sites also to
balance the nature. Mere mechanics might be machines; but quanta @ quantum
mechanics, in itself again. It is the products of nature as well as in
itself, IT IS THE NATURE. NATURE COULD REFORM THE NATURE. CONSCIOUSNESS IS
ALSO THE NATURE AND NATURE CAN HAVE ONLY THE BEGINNING, GROWTH AND END; IN
B G KRISHNA SAID (EVEN VARIOUS VEDIC VERSES): I AM THE BEGINNING THE MIDDLE
AND THE END.
I Western thoughts: It is widely accepted that consciousness or,
more generally, mental activity is in some way correlated to the behavior
of the material brain. Since quantum theory is the most fundamental theory
of matter that is currently available, it is a legitimate question to
ask whether
quantum theory can help us to understand consciousness. Several approaches
answering this question affirmatively, proposed in recent decades, will be
surveyed. There are three basic types of corresponding approaches: (1)
consciousness is a manifestation of quantum processes in the brain, (2)
quantum concepts are used to understand conscious mental activity without
referring to brain activity, and (3) matter and consciousness are regarded
as dual aspects of one underlying reality. Major contemporary variants of
these quantum-inspired approaches will be discussed. It will be pointed out
that they make different epistemological assumptions and use quantum theory
in different ways. For each of the approaches discussed, both problematic
and promising features will be highlighted.
HERE I would like to quote the same view expressed 5000 to 10000 years
back as quantum and consciousness as 2 birds, consciousness Paramatma
watching and Jeevatma, quantum enjoying the fruits from the same branch.
Right from Rigveda till puranas this idea is revealed. Purusha watching the
Prakriti (MAYA) . BG 2.22, : Transference of the atomic individual soul to
another body is made possible by the grace of the Supersoul. The Supersoul
fulfills the desire of the atomic soul as one friend fulfills the desire of
another. The Vedas, like the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad, as well as the Śvetāśvatara
Upaniṣad, compare the soul and the Supersoul to two friendly birds sitting
on the same tree. One of the birds (the individual atomic soul) is eating
the fruit of the tree, and the other bird (Kṛṣṇa) is simply watching His
friend. Of these two birds—although they are the same in quality—one is
captivated by the fruits of the material tree, while the other is simply
witnessing the activities of His friend. Kṛṣṇa is the witnessing bird, and
Arjuna is the eating bird. Although they are friends, one is still the
master and the other is the servant. Forgetfulness of this relationship by
the atomic soul is the cause of one's changing his position from one tree
to another, or from one body to another. The jīva soul is struggling very
hard on the tree of the material body, but as soon as he agrees to accept
the other bird as the supreme spiritual master—as Arjuna agreed to do by
voluntary surrender unto Kṛṣṇa for instruction—the subordinate bird
immediately becomes free from all lamentations. Both the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad
(3.1.2) and Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (4.7) confirm this:
samāne vṛkṣe puruṣo nimagno
'nīśayā śocati muhyamānaḥ
juṣṭaṁ yadā paśyaty anyam īśam
asya mahimānam iti vīta-śokaḥ
"Although the two birds are in the same tree, the eating bird is fully
engrossed with anxiety and moroseness as the enjoyer of the fruits of the
tree. But if in some way or other he turns his face to his friend who is
the Lord and knows His glories—at once the suffering bird becomes free from
all anxieties." Arjuna has now turned his face towards his eternal friend,
Kṛṣṇa, and is understanding the Bhagavad-gītā from Him. And thus, hearing
from Kṛṣṇa, he can understand the supreme glories of the Lord and be free
from lamentation. Then how can one nature deride the other nature?
Variants of the dichotomy between mind and matter range from their
(purusha and Prakriti) fundamental distinction at a primordial level of
description to the emergence of mind (consciousness) from the brain as an
extremely sophisticated and highly developed material system. . For
instance, correlation is a descriptive term with empirical relevance, while
causation is an explanatory term associated with theoretical attempts to
understand correlations. Causation implies correlations between cause and
effect, but this does not always apply the other way around: correlations
between two systems can result from a common cause in their history rather
than from a direct causal interaction. Moreover, correlations can be
synchronic rather than diachronic, so the temporal distance that is
presupposed by cause-effect relations is lacking altogether.
In the fundamental sciences, one typically speaks of causal
relations in terms of interactions. In physics, for instance, there are
four fundamental kinds of interactions (electromagnetic, weak, strong,
gravitational) which serve to explain the correlations that are observed in
physical systems. As regards the mind-matter problem, the situation is more
difficult. Far from a theoretical understanding in this field, the existing
body of knowledge essentially consists of empirical correlations between
material and mental states. These correlations are synchronic, not
diachronic; neither are mental states causally conditioned by brain states
nor the other way around. It is (for some purposes) interesting to know
that particular brain areas are activated during particular mental
activities; but this does, of course, not explain why they are.
Before proceeding further, it should be emphasized that many
present-day approaches prefer to distinguish between first-person and
third-person perspectives rather than mental and material states. This
terminology serves to highlight the discrepancy between immediate conscious
experiences (“qualia”) and their description, be it behavioral, neural, or
biophysical. The notion of the “hard problem” of consciousness research
refers to bridging the gap between first-person experience and third-person
accounts of it. In the present contribution, mental conscious states are
implicitly assumed to be related to first-person experience. This does not
mean, however, that the problem of how to define consciousness precisely is
considered as resolved. Ultimately, it will be (at least) as difficult to
define a mental state in rigorous terms as it is to define a material state
rigorously.
(1) There are quite a number of accounts discussing quantum theory
in relation to consciousness that adopt basic ideas of quantum theory in a
purely narrative manner. Quantum theoretical terms such as entanglement,
superposition, collapse, complementarity, and others are used without
specific reference to how they are defined precisely and how they are
applicable to specific situations. For instance, conscious acts are just
claimed to be interpretable somehow similarly to physical acts of
measurement, or correlations in psychological systems are just claimed to
be interpretable somehow similarly to physical entanglement (2) It can be
roughly characterized as the proposal to consider intentional conscious
acts as intrinsically correlated with physical state reductions. Another
fairly early idea dating back to Ricciardi and Umezawa in the 1960s is to
treat mental states, particularly memory states, in terms of vacuum states
of quantum fields. A prominent proponent of this approach is Vitiello.
Finally, there is the idea suggested by Beck and Eccles in the 1990s,
according to which quantum mechanical processes, relevant for the
description of exocytosis at the synaptic cleft, can be influenced by
mental intentions. A mental system can be in many different conscious
(intentional, phenomenal) mental states. In a hypothetical state space, a
sequence of such states forms a trajectory representing what is often
called the stream of consciousness. Since different subsets of the state
space are typically associated with different stability properties, a
mental state can be assumed to be more or less stable, depending on its
position in the state space. Stable states are distinguished by a residence
time at that position longer than that of metastable or unstable states. If
a mental state is stable with respect to perturbations, it “activates” a
mental representation encoding a content that is consciously perceived.
In the scenario developed by Penrose and neurophysiologically augmented
by Hameroff, quantum theory is claimed to be effective for consciousness,
but the way this happens is quite sophisticated. It is argued that
elementary acts of consciousness are non-algorithmic, i.e., non-computable,
and they are neurophysiologically realized as gravitation-induced
reductions of coherent superposition states in microtubuli.
Unlike the approaches discussed so far, which are essentially based
on (different features of) status quo quantum theory, the physical part of
the scenario, proposed by Penrose, refers to future developments of quantum
theory for a proper understanding of the physical process underlying
quantum state reduction. The grander picture is that a full-blown theory of
quantum gravity is required to ultimately understand quantum measurement
(see the entry on quantum gravity).
This is a far-reaching assumption. Penrose’s rationale for invoking
state reduction is not that the corresponding randomness offers room for
mental causation to become efficacious (although this is not excluded). His
conceptual starting point, at length developed in *two books* (Penrose
1989, 1994), is *that elementary conscious acts are not conceived of as
algorithmic*, hence cannot be computed. His background in this respect has
a lot to do with the nature of creativity, mathematical insight, *Gödel’s
incompleteness theorems*, and the idea of a Platonic reality beyond mind
and matter. {Consciousness the existence cannot be compacted by
mathematics-or singularity theory as admitted by many leading scientists.
Penrose argues that a valid formulation of quantum state reduction
replacing von Neumann’s projection postulate must faithfully describe an
objective physical process that he calls objective reduction. As such a
physical process remains empirically unconfirmed so far, Penrose proposes
that effects not currently covered by quantum theory could play a role in
state reduction. Ideal candidates for him are gravitational effects since
gravitation is the only fundamental interaction which is not integrated
into quantum theory so far. Rather than modifying elements of the theory of
gravitation (i.e., general relativity) to achieve such an integration,
Penrose discusses the reverse: that novel features have to be incorporated
in quantum theory for this purpose. In this way, he arrives at the proposal
of gravitation-induced objective state reduction. {science is only a
philosophy of Indian vedas KR}
Indeed, their approach invokes several top-level mysteries, among
them the relation between mind and matter itself, the ultimate unification
of all physical interactions, the origin of mathematical truth, and the
understanding of brain dynamics across hierarchical levels. Combining such
deep and fascinating issues certainly needs further work to be substantiated,
and should neither be too quickly celebrated nor offhandedly dismissed.
After more than three decades since its inception one thing can be safely
asserted: the approach has fruitfully inspired important innovative work
about quantum effects (from microtubuli to synaptic processes and
large-scale brain areas) on consciousness across various research groups,
both theoretical and empirical.
Today there is accumulating evidence in the study of consciousness and
cognition that quantum concepts like complementarity, contextuality,
entanglement, dispersive states, and non-Boolean logic play significant
roles in mental processes and have epistemological consequences (see, e.g.,
Bruza et al. 2023). Corresponding quantum-inspired approaches address
purely mental (psychological) phenomena using formal features also employed
in quantum physics, but without involving the full-fledged framework of
quantum mechanics or quantum field theory. The term “quantum cognition” has
been coined to refer to this new area of research. Perhaps a more precise
characterization would be non-commutative structures in cognition. On the
surface, this seems to imply that the brain activity correlated with those
mental processes is in fact governed by quantum physics. But is it
necessarily true that quantum features in psychology imply quantum physics
in the brain?
A formal move to incorporate quantum behavior in mental systems,
without referring to quantum brain activity, is based on a state space
description of mental systems. If mental states are defined on the basis of
cells of a neural state space partition, then this partition needs to be
well tailored to the neural dynamics in order to lead to robustly defined
states. Especially for nonlinear neural dynamics, ad hoc chosen partitions
are typically “misplaced” and will create incompatible mental descriptions
(Atmanspacher and beim Graben 2007) and mental states may become entangled
(beim Graben et al. 2013). This implies that quantum brain dynamics is not
the only possible explanation of quantum features in mental systems.
Assuming that mental states arise from partitions of neural states in such
a way that statistical neural states are co-extensive with individual
mental states, the nature of mental processes depends strongly on the kind
of partition chosen. If the partition is not properly constructed, it is
likely that mental states and observables show features that resemble
quantum behavior although the correlated brain activity may be entirely
classical: quantum mind without quantum brain.
Intuitively, it is not difficult to understand why non-commuting
operations or non-Boolean logic should be relevant, even inevitable, for
mental systems that have nothing to do with any quantum physics of brain
activity. Simply speaking, the non-commutativity of operations means
nothing else than that the sequence, in which operations are applied,
matters for the final result. And non-Boolean logic refers to propositions
that may have unsharp truth values beyond yes or no, shades of plausibility
or credibility as it were. Both versions obviously abound in psychology and
cognitive science (and in everyday life). The particular strength of the
idea of generalizing quantum theory beyond quantum physics is that it
provides a formal framework which both yields a transparent well-defined
link to conventional quantum physics and has been used to describe a number
of concrete psychological applications with surprisingly detailed
theoretical and empirical results.
Dual-aspect approaches consider mental and material domains of
reality as aspects, or manifestations, of one underlying reality in which
mind and matter are unseparated. In such a framework, the distinction
between mind and matter results from the application of a basic tool for
achieving epistemic access to, i.e., gathering knowledge about, both the
separated domains and the underlying reality. Consequently, the status of
the underlying, psychophysically neutral domain is considered as ontic
relative to the mind-matter distinction. The other class of dual-aspect
models is decompositional rather than compositional. Here the basic
metaphysics of the psychophysically neutral domain is holistic, and the
mental and the physical (neither reducible to one another nor to the
neutral) emerge by breaking the holistic symmetry or, in other words, by
making distinctions. The decompositional framework can be seen in analogy
with quantum holism, where wholes that do not consist of parts in the first
place (characterized by non-product entangled states) become disentangled
into parts. This explains why the predominant versions of this picture are
quantum theoretically inspired as, for instance, proposed by Pauli and
Jung (Jung
and Pauli 1955; Meier 2001), by Eddington (1946) and Wheeler (1994), and by
Bohm and Hiley (Bohm 1990; Bohm and Hiley 1993; Hiley 2001). They are based
on speculations that obviously exceed the scope of contemporary quantum
theory.
A final note in this section refers to the position of
panpsychism or panexperientialism, respectively (see Skrbina 2003, Seager
2020, and the entry on panpsychism). Other than dual-aspect monism,
panpsychism has no psychophysically neutral domain of reality characterized
by non-product states. It is a plainly dualistic approach with mental and
physical domains that are primordially coupled to one another (as in
psychophysical parallelism). In such a situation it is important to
understand “mentality” more generally than restricted to human
“consciousness”. Unconscious or proto-mental acts as opposed to conscious
mental acts are notions sometimes used to underline this difference. The
special case of human consciousness within the mental domain might be
regarded as special as its material correlate, the brain, within the
material domain.
The historical motivation for exploring quantum theory in trying to
understand consciousness and its place in reality as a whole derived from
the realization that collapse-type quantum events introduce an element of
randomness, which is primary (ontic) rather than due to ignorance or
missing information (epistemic). Approaches such as those of Stapp and of
Beck and Eccles emphasize this (in different ways), insofar as the ontic
randomness of quantum events is regarded to provide room for mental
causation, i.e., the possibility that conscious mental acts can influence
brain activity. The approach by Penrose and Hameroff also focuses on state
collapse, but with a significant move from mental causation to the
non-computability of (particular) conscious acts.
Any discussion of state collapse or state reduction (e.g. by
measurement) refers, at least implicitly, to superposition states since
those are the states that are reduced. Insofar as entangled systems remain
in a quantum superposition as long as no measurement has occurred,
entanglement is always co-addressed when state reduction is discussed. By
contrast, dual-aspect quantum approaches refer to the topic of entanglement
differently, and independently of state reduction in the first place.
Inspired by entanglement-induced nonlocal correlations in quantum physics,
the splitting of a holistic, psychophysically neutral domain of reality
into mental and physical aspects is conceived as the origin of mind-matter
correlations.
The dual-aspect approaches of Pauli-Jung, Eddington-Wheeler, and
Bohm-Hiley offer a tripartite picture of reality with a psychophysical
neutral domain in addition to the mental and the physical. This extension
implies additional options for understanding psychophysical correlations in
a conceptually transparent fashion. With surprising coincidence, all these
approaches emphasize the concept of meaning for the interpretation of
correlations between the mental, the physical, and the psychophysically
neutral domains of reality. Also, there is now a huge body of empirically
documented (ordinary and exceptional) mind-matter correlations in clinical
psychology, psychophysiology, and psychophysics that supports the
Pauli-Jung conjecture in particular. Wheeler’s approach has been formally
developed in profoundly interesting ways by quantum Bayesianism (QBism) due
to Fuchs. Hiley’s work (based on old ideas by Eddington) offers an
algebraic framework which also indicates theoretical progress. A
dual-aspect quantum proposal by Primas, based on the distinction between
tensed mental time and tenseless physical time, marks another potential
step forward.
Maybe the best prognosis for short-term future success among the
examples described in this overview, at least on foreseeable time scales,
goes to the investigation of mental quantum features without focusing on
associated brain activity in the first place. A number of corresponding
approaches have been developed which include concrete models for concrete
situations and have lead to concrete predictions and successful empirical
tests. On the other hand, a coherent theory behind individual models and
relating the different types of approaches is still to be settled in detail.
With respect to scientific practice, a particularly promising aspect is the
visible formation of a scientific community with conferences, mutual
collaborations, and some perspicuous attraction for younger scientists to
join the field. {KR Science gets hit more or less in the epistemology of
the vedic science only; and already modern science knows, neurons, Brain
and consciousness are beyond the numbers and alphabets.}
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II Probably I’m the last scientifically-oriented person in the world
to discover this, but Richard Feynman wrote a poem that he read as part of
an address to the National Academy of Sciences. I stumbled across it
because I was actually looking for scientists who were familiar with work
of the poet, here’s Feynman:
There are the rushing waves
mountains of molecules
each stupidly minding its own business
trillions apart
yet forming white surf in unison
Ages on ages
before any eyes could see
year after year
thunderously pounding the shore as now.
For whom, for what?
On a dead planet
with no life to entertain.
Never at rest
tortured by energy
wasted prodigiously by the Sun
poured into space.
A mite makes the sea roar.
Deep in the sea
all molecules repeat
the patterns of one another
till complex new ones are formed.
They make others like themselves
and a new dance starts.
Growing in size and complexity
living things
masses of atoms
DNA, protein
dancing a pattern ever more intricate.
Out of the cradle
onto dry land
here it is
standing:
*atoms with consciousness;*
matter with curiosity. {KR: Quanta with the consciousness)
Stands at the sea,
wonders at wondering: I
*a universe of atoms*
*an atom in the Universe.*
Nobody is surprised, of course, that Feynman was a card-carrying
dysteleological physicalism. More interesting is that he chose to highlight
this kind of question — the emergence of complexity and consciousness from
the blind play of atoms, stupidly minding their own business — rather than
something about particle physics, for example. As much as reductionists get
a bad name in some circles, the good ones do appreciate the bigger picture.
K Rajaram IRS 23824 24824 pART1 TO BE CONTD
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