Hameroff's theory is intriguing, but it seems to me there is the old fundamental problem that insists in persisting, a hard nut to crack - Chalmers' famous Hard Problem of consciousness. Hameroff can't evade it.
The properties of conscious awareness are in an entirely different existential realm than the properties of matter, energy and space. Some examples with conscious awareness:
- intentionality - the quality of directing toward achieving an object
- aboutness: being about something
- this object of aboutness may be totally immaterial as in abstract thought, i.e. a thought about the number pi
- subjectivity
- qualities of subjective awareness - i.e. blueness, redness, loudness, softness
What are the properties of the biological/neurological quantum phenomena Hameroff believes underlies consciousness? That is, of things like "π-resonance energy transfer and exciton hopping in tubulin quantum channels"? These are the ultimately physically measurable physics parameters involved in "quantum entanglement, long-range dipole correlations, quantum coherence and condensation, and waves existing in two or more states or locations simultaneously (quantum superposition)". After quantum state reduction or "collapse of the wave function", measured classical parameters include forces, field strengths, masses, charges, velocities, etc. All of this amounts to "things" of some sort, not thoughts.
The properties of mental phenomena such as the examples given can't be derived from the properties of the ultimately physical phenomena utilized by Hameroff's theories. They are in entirely different existential categories.
So this seems to leave consciousness out in the cold as some sort of epiphenomenal illusion, where what it is that is experiencing this illusion is undefined. But consciousness can't be a powerless epiphenomenon because consciousness has causative power in the world. To use the word "emergent" is just to evoke another mysterious miracle. The core mystery remains, unexplained by Orch-OR.
(This post was last modified: 2019-09-02, 09:30 PM by nbtruthman.)
The properties of conscious awareness are in an entirely different existential realm than the properties of matter, energy and space. Some examples with conscious awareness:
- intentionality - the quality of directing toward achieving an object
- aboutness: being about something
- this object of aboutness may be totally immaterial as in abstract thought, i.e. a thought about the number pi
- subjectivity
- qualities of subjective awareness - i.e. blueness, redness, loudness, softness
What are the properties of the biological/neurological quantum phenomena Hameroff believes underlies consciousness? That is, of things like "π-resonance energy transfer and exciton hopping in tubulin quantum channels"? These are the ultimately physically measurable physics parameters involved in "quantum entanglement, long-range dipole correlations, quantum coherence and condensation, and waves existing in two or more states or locations simultaneously (quantum superposition)". After quantum state reduction or "collapse of the wave function", measured classical parameters include forces, field strengths, masses, charges, velocities, etc. All of this amounts to "things" of some sort, not thoughts.
The properties of mental phenomena such as the examples given can't be derived from the properties of the ultimately physical phenomena utilized by Hameroff's theories. They are in entirely different existential categories.
So this seems to leave consciousness out in the cold as some sort of epiphenomenal illusion, where what it is that is experiencing this illusion is undefined. But consciousness can't be a powerless epiphenomenon because consciousness has causative power in the world. To use the word "emergent" is just to evoke another mysterious miracle. The core mystery remains, unexplained by Orch-OR.
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