Orch-OR discussion

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.

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.

As Penrose has received the Nobel Prize, the BBC resurrected this old interview in which he discusses his thoughts on consciousness.

The second part of Ian Sample’s 2016 interview with Prof Sir Roger Penrose, which includes a quantum theory of consciousness and the age-old question of whether mathematics is invented or discovered

Hameroff did some more promoting via academic journals: Orch-OR is the most complete, and most easily falsifiable theory of consciousness.

And according to this, the competition between Orch-OR and ITT via the Templeton Foundation has petered out, due to an inability to design an experiment that could make for "adversarial collaboration" between the two theories.

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)

August 3 – 6, 2021 

9:00 am – 12:30 pm (PST/AZ) each day - Tues, Wed, Thur, Fri - 4 Online Live Sessions

R. Penrose / 20 Speakers

British physicist Sir Roger Penrose is widely acclaimed for fundamental advances in understanding the universe. He shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics for having shown that black holes are predictions of Einstein’s general relativity. Roger has also proposed a solution to the measurement problem in quantum mechanics (‘objective reduction’, ‘OR’) which, he further suggests, is the origin of consciousness, leading to a theory of brain function (‘orchestrated objective reduction’, ‘Orch OR’). And Roger’s concept of Cyclical Conformal Cosmology (‘CCC’) posits a serial, eternal universe, with the Big Bang preceded by previous aeons. The conference will cover these 4 major inter-related areas of Roger’s work.

Program Outline

TUESDAY, August 3, 2021. 9:00 am to 12:30 pm PST/AZ

9:00 am  - 10:30 am  Overview - Sir Roger Penrose, Nobel Laureate, Oxford University
10:30 am - 12:00 noon PST -  Black Holes  
10:30 am - 11:15 am - Reinhard Genzel, Nobel Laureate, Max Planck Institute | UC Berkeley
11:15 am - 12:00 noon - Roger Blandford, Stanford University
12:00 noon - 12:30 pm - Discussion
 
WEDNESDAY, August 4, 2021, 9:00 am to 12:30 pm PST/AZ

9:00 am - 12:30 pm PST - Quantum Measurement Objective Reduction (OR) 
9:00 am - 9:45 am - Ivette Fuentes, University of Southampton
9:45 am - 10:30 am - Hendrik Ulbricht, University of Southhampton
10:30 am - 11:15 am - Dirk Bouwmeester, UC Santa Barbara | Leiden University
11:15 am - 12:00 noon - Philip Stamp, University of British Columbia
12:00 noon - 12:30 pm - Discussion
 
THURSDAY, August 5, 2021, 9:00 am to 12:30 pm PST/AZ

9:00 am - 12:30 pm PST - Consciousness - Orch OR
9:00 am - 9:45 am - Stuart Hameroff, University of Arizona
9:45 am - 10:30 am - Greg Scholes, Princeton University
10:30 am - 11:15 am - Alysson Muotri, UC San Diego
11:15 am - 12:30 pm - Panel & Discussion - Quantum biology of microtubules
Jack Tuszyński (Chair) University of Alberta; Aarat Kalra, Princeton University;
Travis Craddock, Nova Southeastern University; Aristide Dogariu, University of Central Florida;
M. Bruce MacIver, Stanford University; Anirban Bandyopadhyay, National Institute of Material Sciences, Japan
 
FRIDAY, August 6, 2021, 9:00 am to 12:30 pm PST/AZ  

9:00 am - 12:30 pm. Pre-Big Bang Universe – Cyclical Conformal Cosmology
9:00 am - 9:45 am - Paul Tod, Oxford University
9:45 am - 10:30 am - Brian Keating, UC San Diego
10:30 am - 11:15 am - Krzysztof Meissner, University of Warsaw
11:15 am - 12:00 noon - Vahe Gurzadyan, Yerevan Physics Institute, Armenia
12:00 noon - 12:30 pm -  Discussion

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.

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.

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:

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:

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.

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.