Penrose and Hammeroff talk from the brief period this year when you could still do things:
Several months before
the recent paper on anesthesia, so no response to that proposal from Hammeroff.
(2021-07-01, 09:13 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]On the Occasion of his 90th Birthday and Nobel Prize: Science & ROGER PENROSE - A Free Online Webinar August 3 – 6, 2021 - 9:00 am – 12:30 pm (PST/AZ)
Orch-Or has always seemed to me to have a fundamental problem that is common to most materialist theories of consciousness - it seems very much to run afoul of Chalmers' Hard Problem of consciousness. All the properties or elements of consciousness, like thoughts, reasoning, intentionality, the qualia of perception, etc. are immaterial elements of consciousness, and have the essential but mysterious element of subjectivity - the experience of "what it is like to be or feel whatever". This essence of consciousness has immovably resisted all attempts to explain materialistically. What physical properties could they possibly have, like mass, velocity, force, charge, energy, spacial dimensions like width, depth, height, spacial position, etc. etc.? These are in two fundamentally different existential realms or categories.
The basic problem is that the Orch-Or theory at least as I read it essentially identifies consciousness as at least theoretically observeable and measureable quantum mechanical phenomena - in a deep sense physical "things" albeit of a very remote sort. And thereby invoking the Hard Problem of consciousness.
(2021-07-09, 08:46 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]Orch-Or has always seemed to me to have a fundamental problem that is common to most materialist theories of consciousness
It's not a materialist theory? It could have a materialist interpretation, but even that doesn't seem clear.
(2021-07-09, 09:57 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]It's not a materialist theory? It could have a materialist interpretation, but even that doesn't seem clear.
I agree that it certainly isn't clear. I won't pretend to fully understand the following, except that what does seem clear to me is that this identifies conscious subjective states of consciousness as one and the same as certain quantum-mechanical processing of information, the actions and interactions of
things in space-time, which then seems clearly to run into the Hard Problem. As has been pointed out many times, processing of information, whether by an abacus or by transistors in a computer or by whatever other physical means invented by Man, including quantum computing, or for that matter by synaptic junctions between neurons in the brain, is fundamentally of a different existential realm or category than the qualia of subjective experience in consciousness. And therefore the one can't logically be derived from the other. The "Hard Problem".
In the following capsule explanation of the Orch-Or theory it almost seems as if Hameroff and Penrose are making an argument to overcome the Hard Problem by simple assertion - that somehow (not specified), it is simply a brute fact that these quantum-mechanical interactions and processings become primitive qualia of subjective experience. A brute fact without further justification. Not explaining how the interactions or processings of anything can become immaterial subjective qualia of consciousness.
From "
‘Orch OR’ is the most complete, and most easily falsifiable theory of consciousness", Stuart Hameroff:
Quote:Abstract
The ‘Orch OR’ theory attributes consciousness to quantum computations in microtubules inside brain neurons. Quantum computers process information as superpositions of multiple possibilities (quantum bits or qubits) which, in Orch OR, are alternative collective dipole oscillations orchestrated (‘Orch’) by microtubules. These orchestrated oscillations entangle, compute, and terminate (‘collapse of the wavefunction’) by Penrose objective reduction (‘OR’), resulting in sequences of Orch OR moments with orchestrated conscious experience (metaphorically more like music than computation). Each Orch OR event selects microtubule states which govern neuronal functions. Orch OR has broad explanatory power, and is easily falsifiable.
Introduction, ‘Objective reduction’ (‘OR’), Penrose
The ‘Orch OR’ theory (Hameroff & Penrose, 1996a, 2014) attributes consciousness to quantum computations in microtubules inside brain neurons. Quantum computers process ‘superpositions’ of possibilities (quantum bits or ‘qubits’) which unify by entanglement, evolve and compute, until reduction, or ‘collapse’ to definite output states. Nobel laureate Sir Roger Penrose (1989) proposed that reduction occurred spontaneously due to an objective threshold in the fine-scale structure of the universe (‘objective reduction’, ‘OR’) at time t = ħ/EG, where ħ is the Planck-Dirac constant, and EG the gravitational self-energy of the superposition. At each such OR moment, Penrose further proposed, random (proto-) conscious moments of experience occur, composed of basic ‘qualia’...
It's interesting that Hameroff goes on to implicitly admit that his and Penrose's theory merely substitutes one magical seeming mystery for another, justified by the Occam's Razor principle:
Quote:Minimization of mysteries:
Orch OR has been derided for seeming to invoke a mythical ‘law of minimization of mysteries’ to explain both quantum mechanics and consciousness. But wouldn’t ‘Occam’s razor’ favor a ‘minimization of mysteries’? Indeed, Orch OR may also help explain other mysteries including how anesthesia works, the origin and evolution of life, free will, the flow of time, memory, dreams, and how general relativity relates to quantum mechanics.
(2021-07-10, 05:01 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]I agree that it certainly isn't clear. I won't pretend to fully understand the following, except that what does seem clear to me is that this identifies conscious subjective states of consciousness as one and the same as certain quantum-mechanical processing of information, the actions and interactions of things in space-time, which then seems clearly to run into the Hard Problem. As has been pointed out many times, processing of information, whether by an abacus or by transistors in a computer or by whatever other physical means invented by Man, including quantum computing, or for that matter by synaptic junctions between neurons in the brain, is fundamentally of a different existential realm or category than the qualia of subjective experience in consciousness. And therefore the one can't logically be derived from the other. The "Hard Problem".
In the following capsule explanation of the Orch-Or theory it almost seems as if Hameroff and Penrose are making an argument to overcome the Hard Problem by simple assertion - that somehow (not specified), it is simply a brute fact that these quantum-mechanical interactions and processings become primitive qualia of subjective experience. A brute fact without further justification. Not explaining how the interactions or processings of anything can become immaterial subjective qualia of consciousness.
And yet, this long-winded claim involving magical quantum stuff can be easily rebutted by the reality of various falsifiable paranormal phenomena:
* Actual-Death Experiences, Shared-Death Experiences, involving an existence quite separated from the brain ~ a vivid, realer-the-real-life experience at that, which, if involving stuff happening Out-of-Body at a distance that can be known where should have been logically impossible to sense, can be falsified or refuted.
* Past Life Memories and Reincarnation, involving a new incarnation, albeit involving memories from a past incarnation, that can be falsified or refuted, if the communicated memories are detailed enough to do something with.
* Mediumship (via established genuine Mediums), involving accurate communications from spiritual beings and deceased souls. Which can also be refuted or falsified if the communications are detailed enough to do something with.
And then there's my own subjective experiences of my Spirit Guides / Guardian Angels / insert-descriptor-here. They have seeming personality and existence without a brain, so no neurons, microtubules or fancy, pseudo-esoteric, long-winded diatribes, with what amounts to appealing to magic, required.
Hammeroff has talked about
"quantum souls", consciousness as spread throughout the universe in a panpsychic fashion, Bem's precognitive work.
Penrose has talked about Platonism, even suggesting in one of his books that the Platonic realm may hold ethical and moral values.
[
Both have discussed possible panpsychic aspects of the universe that are being explored by others.]
The tricky thing is Penrose also talks about being a materialist sometimes, though I get the feeling what he means is a bit different than what others more mechanistically inclined mean as he also talks about possible "proto-decisons" made at the quantum level.
But given Hammeroff seems to strongly believe in at the least some kind of Ur-Mind, if not personal Survival, I'd say Orch-OR can be read many ways.