Psience Quest

This is a few years old, but I thought it was interesting and warranted more discussion than it got on Skeptiko: a back-and-forth between the Orch-OR crew and some of their critics.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...4513001188
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...4513001619
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...4513001917

Down the Quantum Rabbit Hole

"Fellow scientists labeled him a crackpot. Now Stuart Hameroff’s quantum consciousness theories are getting support from unlikely places."

Quote:And most recently, Rod Eckenhoff, a University of Pennsylvania researcher and Hameroff critic, gave tadpoles anesthetics to tease out what molecules they bind to. His team discovered that tubulin proteins were among them, and then found that if a kind of reverse agent were administered — a microtubule-stabilizing drug — so were the anesthetic effects. He remains a critic of Hameroff’s “speculative” theories, but says his research suggests microtubules might play “some role” in consciousness.

Quote:“I was always quite skeptical of Stuart’s claims about microtubules,” says Anthony Hudetz, a neuroscientist in the anesthesiology department at the University of Michigan. “But now there is data. And I have to say, I think Stuart does have some momentum now.”

Hudetz sees microtubules as a good potential mechanism for explaining anesthesia. “I have the feeling that this whole microtubule theory has matured actually quite nicely,” he says. For Hudetz, the key going forward is testing whether molecular events inside microtubules actually relate to the quantum events as Hameroff proposes.

Re: The above post, here's what I found on Hammeroff's latest research:

Consciousness Depends on Tubulin Vibrations Inside Neurons, Anesthesia Study Suggests

Quote:Senior co-author Jack Tuszynski said:

Scientific luminaries from Erwin Schrödinger to Sir Roger Penrose have proposed that consciousness requires quantum coherent processes, but skeptics have asserted such processes would suffer ‘decoherence’ in the ‘warm, wet and noisy’ biological milieu. Our study supports growing evidence that non-polar, pi resonance regions in microtubules and other biomolecules maintain these coherent states, and that a ‘quantum underground’ pervades the brain’s neurons.

(2018-04-03, 08:06 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]Down the Quantum Rabbit Hole

"Fellow scientists labeled him a crackpot. Now Stuart Hameroff’s quantum consciousness theories are getting support from unlikely places."

Found this article again recently. I wonder if the Steve Volk who wrote it is the same one behind Fringe-ology...

An interesting exchange between a more recent critic and Hameroff can be found here. I'll say this for Hameroff - in print and in interviews, he's loaded with techno-speak I can't follow, but he's blunt.

Interesting and fair write-up on the subject.

Hameroff does most of the talking for this theory in the press, but here's a fairly recent interview with Penrose.

Nevertheless, quantum theories of consciousness suffer from the same difficulties as neural or computational theories. Quantum phenomena have some remarkable functional properties, such as non-determinism and non-locality. It is natural to speculate that these properties may play some role in the explanation of cognitive functions, such as random choice and the integration of information, and this hypothesis cannot be ruled out a priori. But when it comes to the explanation of experience, quantum processes are in the same boat as any other. The question of why these processes should give rise to experience is entirely unanswered. ---David Chalmers

(2019-02-23, 11:06 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: [ -> ]Nevertheless, quantum theories of consciousness suffer from the same difficulties as neural or computational theories. Quantum phenomena have some remarkable functional properties, such as non-determinism and non-locality. It is natural to speculate that these properties may play some role in the explanation of cognitive functions, such as random choice and the integration of information, and this hypothesis cannot be ruled out a priori. But when it comes to the explanation of experience, quantum processes are in the same boat as any other. The question of why these processes should give rise to experience is entirely unanswered. ---David Chalmers

...And? Is this supposed to dissuade anyone from considering quantum theories of consciousness?

(2019-02-20, 12:56 AM)Will Wrote: [ -> ]Hameroff does most of the talking for this theory in the press, but here's a fairly recent interview with Penrose.

Good interview, though I wished they'd asked more about Penrose's discussions of Platonism.

I do like that notes superposition suggests a decision is being made, though it seems to me that such decisions are not limited to that particular phenomenon...

There was at least one paper addressing Orch-OR published last year; I can't speak to how solid it is on physics, but a quick skim reveals some pretty terrible grammar and editing.