New Study Favors Quantum Mind

a reply to: Astyanax

Yes, it's a review that was updated based on a study. If you didn't know, this frequently happens in science.

The recent discovery of warm-temperature quantum vibrations in microtubules inside brain neurons by the research group led by Anirban Bandyopadhyay, PhD, at the National Institute of Material Sciences in Tsukuba, Japan (and now at MIT), corroborates the pair’s theory and suggests that EEG rhythms also derive from deeper level microtubule vibrations.

In addition, work from the laboratory of Roderick G. Eckenhoff, MD, at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that anesthesia, which selectively erases consciousness while sparing non-conscious brain activities, acts via microtubules in brain neurons.

So yes, they updated their review based on new information. Something that happens all the time in science.

Secondly, the new finding were published and here's the abstract.

It was once purported that biological systems were far too ‘warm and wet’ to support quantum phenomena mainly owing to thermal effects disrupting quantum coherence. However, recent experimental results and theoretical analyses have shown that thermal energy may assist, rather than disrupt, quantum coherent transport, especially in the ‘dry’ hydrophobic interiors of biomolecules. Specifically, evidence has been accumulating for the necessary involvement of quantum coherent energy transfer between uniquely arranged chromophores in light harvesting photosynthetic complexes. The ‘tubulin’ subunit proteins, which comprise microtubules, also possess a distinct architecture of chromophores, namely aromatic amino acids, including tryptophan. The geometry and dipolar properties of these aromatics are similar to those found in photosynthetic units indicating that tubulin may support coherent energy transfer. Tubulin aggregated into microtubule geometric lattices may support such energy transfer, which could be important for biological signalling and communication essential to living processes. Here, we perform a computational investigation of energy transfer between chromophoric amino acids in tubulin via dipole excitations coupled to the surrounding thermal environment. We present the spatial structure and energetic properties of the tryptophan residues in the microtubule constituent protein tubulin. Plausibility arguments for the conditions favouring a quantum mechanism of signal propagation along a microtubule are provided. Overall, we find that coherent energy transfer in tubulin and microtubules is biologically feasible.

Again, nothing new here. This is what happens in science. This is much better than the absolute silence coming from materialist on these matters. They offer no answers. The only thing that's said is that all answers must fit into the MIRACLE OF MATERIALISM.

Third, YOU HAVE THE AUDACITY TO COMPLAIN THAT HAMEROFF'S WEBSITE IS TALKING ABOUT THESE THINGS. ARE YOU SERIOUS????

Hameroff is presenting research on his website that pertains to the quantum mind. Just like if you go to Alan Guth's website you will find talk about inflation.

If you go to Seth Lloyd's website you will find work about quantum computing.

If you go to Hawking's website you will find research on Black Holes.

But of course HYPOCRITICAL MATERIALIST are shocked that Hameroff has research on his website in a field he's helped found with Penrose. What a joke!

Like I said, these are just some things plus the fact that evolution presents another roadblock for blind materialist.

a reply to: Korg Trinity

My grandfather used to teach that way. I was only about 8 years old when he told me that radio stations produce more energy than it takes to power the transmitter. He said he could listen to a radio station in his "tooth" which sounded like a troll to me at 8 years old. So he showed me how to build a crystal radio receiver that looked just like a tooth filling with a wire touching it. Then we built a heathkit Superhet receiver and I had to learn all about Tesla negative resistors and avalanche.

So maybe human brains do work like superhet receivers in some sense. A signal that is in superposition can be received using techniques like frequency-shift keying etc.

The thing is though this is not the same as quantum behavior as seen in low temperature plasmas that decohere in sub-picosecond timescales is it?

originally posted by: Astyanax
Reply to Phage

I wonder how the show went.

Not so well.

Just an opinion article, yes?

a reply to: neoholographic

You keep posting the same links and quotes. Repeating things doesn't make your case any stronger.

Third, YOU HAVE THE AUDACITY TO COMPLAIN THAT HAMEROFF'S WEBSITE IS TALKING ABOUT THESE THINGS. ARE YOU SERIOUS????

Yelling doesn't help, either.

Hameroff is presenting research on his website that pertains to the quantum mind. Just like if you go to Alan Guth's website you will find talk about inflation.

As I said in my first post, I will await independent confirmation of these claims.

That is how real (as opposed to faith-based) science works.

a reply to: Phage

That's just a load of unsupported BS.

It's like saying plant photosynthesis uses quantum mechanics so plants are conscious thinkers, because quantum mechanics woo!

Of course evolution will evolve structures in the real world (meaning quantum mechanics is true) and some of them may have quantum properties. There is no necessary relation with consciousness or thought or mind. It may be simply energetics (like photosynthesis).

On the other hand, increasing experiments and AI simulations show that parallel distributed processing, at a very large scale, can be quite powerful and yield performance and properties similar to biology, without quantum computing necessary. The basic level evidence is so obvious you didn't even realize it. After all quantum mechanics applies to all atoms in the body---but there's little thinking and no consciousness in most of it. Where is it? Where you have dense structures of parallel distributed information & chemical processing elements: brains. Sure, there could be some particular biology which is made more efficient or robust thanks to quantum mechanical effects, but it would be major unsupported woo to assume this was orchestrating the computation.

If you were wondering what is necessary to run and had no knowledge of Newtonian mechanics, you'd start looking at bones and muscles and what they do because people without legs don't run.

Cranial amputees don't think.

More specifically, there is no experimental evidence that any animal does computations like a quantum computer, and lots of evidence they do computations like a neural network.

a reply to: mbkennel

More specifically, there is no experimental evidence that any animal does computations like a quantum computer, and lots of evidence they do computations like a neural network.

This.

Thank you.

a reply to: mbkennel

This makes no sense in light of current scientific understanding. I was waiting for someone to break out the quantum woo line. It usually rears it's head when people can't debate these things.

Also, there's been plenty of reports and research into plants thinking and feeling. These would be caused by a quantum mind that isn't associated with a complex brain like ours. Here's a recent article:

The Intelligent Plant. That is the title of a recent article in The New Yorker — and new research is showing that plants have astounding abilities to sense and react to the world.

But can a plant be intelligent? Some plant scientists insist they are — since they can sense, learn, remember and even react in ways that would be familiar to humans.

Michael Pollan, author of such books as "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "The Botany of Desire," wrote the New Yorker piece about the developments in plant science. He says for the longest time, even mentioning the idea that plants could be intelligent was a quick way to being labeled "a whacko." But no more, which might be comforting to people who have long talked to their plants or played music for them.

The new research, he says, is in a field called plant neurobiology — which is something of a misnomer, because even scientists in the field don't argue that plants have neurons or brains.

"They have analagous structures," Pollan explains. "They have ways of taking all the sensory data they gather in their everyday lives ... integrate it and then behave in an appropriate way in response. And they do this without brains, which, in a way, is what's incredible about it, because we automatically assume you need a brain to process information."

www.pri.org...

This makes perfect sense in the context of a quantum mind. It would be a quantum mind without a classical, complex brain. This is why plants display these abilities without brains. This would mean a quantum mind evolved alongside a human brain and now we have quantum consciousness.

So when you say:

It's like saying plant photosynthesis uses quantum mechanics so plants are conscious thinkers, because quantum mechanics woo!

It shows a lack of knowledge and ignorance or intentional blindness to current scientific understanding.

Also, I believe neural networks play a role but the two aren't mutually exclusive. Meaning just because you have one it doesn't mean you can't have the other.

a reply to: neoholographic

The work of Michael Pollan is not exactly unknown.

When he talks of the 'intelligence' of plants he doesn't mean intelligence as exhibited by humans and higher animals.

He means that plants have evolved a repertoire of environmental responses that is more sophisticated and flexible than earlier thought to be the case. He's talking about chemical and mechanical defences and reproductive systems, co-evolution, symbiosis, things like that.

If this is 'intelligence', then a thermostat has intelligence.

But there is no quantum woo (thanks, mbkennel, great phrase) in his work.

a reply to: Astyanax


LOL, wrong.

You materialist are so hypocritical.

Here's the quote from the article.

"They have analagous structures," Pollan explains. "They have ways of taking all the sensory data they gather in their everyday lives ... integrate it and then behave in an appropriate way in response. And they do this without brains, which, in a way, is what's incredible about it, because we automatically assume you need a brain to process information."

Again, he's talking about plants that can exhibit behaviors we associate with consciousness but absent a complex human brain.

Nobody claimed that plants exhibit the same intelligence as humans and the article makes that perfectly clear. He's talking about how plants behave in a way similar to human consciousness but they don't have a human brain. Also, he's not the first to say these things.

This is why he said:

what's incredible about it, because we automatically assume you need a brain to process information.

What you said actually supports what I'm saying and you ain't even know it LOL (Rocko). You said:

He means that plants have evolved a repertoire of environmental responses that is more sophisticated and flexible than earlier thought to be the case.

This is exactly the point and the fact that plants exhibit these sophisticated responses as you claim, he talks about things like plant intelligence and he talks about plants doing things that you would think is associated with a brain but without a brain.

So again, to me it's just more hypocrisy from materialist. For some reason, evolution prohibits our species from adapting these quantum effects to give our species an advantage. The objection from materialist have nothing to do with science. It's about belief.

At first evolution and natural selection can do everything. Now, because materialist are against a quantum mind, these things can't evolve.

Here's an interesting video talking about SCIENCE. Sadly all materialist can do is add zero science to the discussion because materialism can't explain anything or they blindly throw around words like quantum woo and pseudoscience.



In the video he makes an interesting point. It's assumed that you can't do many of these things without a brain. Who makes these assumptions? Materialist.

They say in one breathe that they have no answers and then they say in the next breathe that any answers outside of their materialist belief is woo. These are just blind followers parroting James Randi.

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: Astyanax


LOL, wrong.

You materialist are so hypocritical.

You appear to be having an issue with listening and comprehension. Not just on this thread, but on a number of threads you appear to be stating that your opinion is fact.

you also appear to be ignoring the clear evidence that is presented by other members if it is in contravention of your opinion and just state "WRONG".

I find this especially odd given that some of the people responding to you are both highly experienced and educated, working in the various fields you are discussing.

Perhaps if you opened your mind a little and looked at a subject from all sides not just your perception, you would gain more knowledge.

Peace,

Korg.

a reply to: Korg Trinity

Your whole post is just nonsense.

For the most part, I'm the only one presenting any science in this thread. Most of the post are like yours. Devoid of any debate or science just opinion and then you claim I'm WRONG.

Again, this is the hypocrisy of materialist. They offer no science because from a scientific standpoint materialism doesn't answer anything. It's a belief system.

What people like you will say is that I'm WRONG. How do you know I'm WRONG? Present some evidence that explains why I'm WRONG? How does materialism answers these questions? You must know because you made the blanket statement that I'm WRONG without presenting a shred of evidence to counter anything that I'm saying or presented any evidence that shows how materialism can explain these things.

The most you will get is, WE DON'T KNOW THE ANSWERS TO THESE THINGS BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN MATERIALISM WON'T ANSWER IT ONE DAY.

Again, a silly statement in the context of this debate.

The fantasy of materialism may actually come up with some answers for these things one day even though those chances are slim, what materialist can't do is say everyone else who attempts to explain these things are WRONG just because their explanation doesn't fit into a materialist paradigm.

You don't know I'm WRONG because we're still trying to answer these questions. You have smart scientist actually saying let's look for other answers because we keep running into the brick wall of materialism and we're not getting any answers.

These scientist are building theories, debating the issues in the open and some of their predictions are being confirmed in experiments and we will see what happens when some of these things are replicated.

The fact is, it's just pure ignorance to proclaim something is WRONG when you don't have a clue.

Materialism isn't necessarily WRONG, it's just a fantasy and many people who support it our hypocrites because they say we don't know the answers but you can't try to answer these questions if it doesn't fit into our materialist belief.

For instance, how does the materialist explain the source of EEG rhythms?

How does a materialist explain the emergence of consciousness?

How does the materialist explain life and the subjective experience of different mental states?

How does the materialist explain recall of specific memories? How does the material brain tell the material brain which memories it wants the material brain to recall? How does the material brain know which neurons to activate when a specific memory is recalled?

It's not enough to say we don't have a clue but any answers that don't fit are materialist paradigm are WRONG. That's not science, it's just your belief.

Hello neoholographpic: I have this to post, in support. I am sorry, in advance, if you've already posted, or it seems to repeat the same information. But it's more to add to what you are talking about, here.

www.theatlantic.com...
Quantum computing could revolutionize the way we interact with information. Such systems would process data faster and on larger scales than even the most super of supercomputers can handle today. But this technology would also dismantle the security systems that institutions like banks and governments use online, which means it matters who gets their hands on a working quantum system first. 
Just last week I wrote about how a team of researchers in the Netherlands successfully teleported quantum data from one computer chip to another computer chip, a demonstration that hinted at a future in which quantum computing and quantum communications might become a mainstream reality.
That still seems a long way off—physicists agree that transmitting quantum information, though possible, is unstable. And yet! The U.S. Army Research Laboratory today announced its own quantum breakthrough. 
A team at the lab's Adelphi, Maryland, facility says it has developed a prototype information teleportation network system based on quantum teleportation technology. The technology can be used, the Defense Department says, to transmit images securely, either over fiber optics or through space—that is, teleportation in which data is transmitted wirelessly. 
The DoD says it can imagine using this kind of technology so military service members can securely transmit intelligence—photos from "behind enemy lines," for instance—back to U.S. officials without messages being intercepted.
But this kind of technological advance, especially in a government-run lab, is significant for the rest of us, too. Quantum computing would offer unprecedented upgrades to data processing—both in speed and scope—which could enhance surveillance technologies far beyond what exists today. 

I also have an interesting article that is about the "creation of knowledge," through the quantum mind, and addresses the link between living things and the electromagnetic surround of the entire earth and the quantum mind. It is very interesting, and would no doubt provide something to add to the discussion in your thread.

]a reply to: Soylent Green Is People
It is suggested that it comes, partly, from the electromagnetic surround, if you will. Why and how, and the origination, perhaps, is still not known, which is why, partly, we are here debating it, imho.
Nevertheless, it's a worthy thing to explore and debate, as well as trying to figure out the source.f This is another article suggesting that everything, including the plant world, alive is linked by the electromagnetic surround:
Nature.com

Quantum biology: On the face of it, quantum effects and living organisms seem to occupy utterly different realms. The former are usually observed only on the nanometre scale, surrounded by hard vacuum, ultra-low temperatures and a tightly controlled laboratory environment. The latter inhabit a macroscopic world that is warm, messy and anything but controlled. A quantum phenomenon such as 'coherence', in which the wave patterns of every part of a system stay in step, wouldn't last a microsecond in the tumultuous realm of the cell.
Or so everyone thought. But discoveries in recent years suggest that nature knows a few tricks that physicists don't: coherent quantum processes may well be ubiquitous in the natural world. Known or suspected examples range from the ability of birds to navigate using Earth's magnetic field to the inner workings of photosynthesis — the process by which plants and bacteria turn sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into organic matter, and arguably the most important biochemical reaction on Earth.
Me: Perhaps this is evidence of a "natural" simulation, completely controlled, with biological parameters set.
More from article:
Energy routefinder
Researchers have long suspected that something unusual is afoot in photosynthesis. Particles of light called photons, streaming down from the Sun, arrive randomly at the chlorophyll molecules and other light-absorbing 'antenna' pigments that cluster inside the cells of every leaf, and within every photosynthetic bacterium. But once the photons' energy is deposited, it doesn't stay random. Somehow, it gets channelled into a steady flow towards the cell's photosynthetic reaction centre, which can then use it at maximum efficiency to convert carbon dioxide into sugars.
Since the 1930s, scientists have recognized that this journey must be described by quantum mechanics, which holds that particles such as electrons will often act like waves. Photons hitting an antenna molecule will kick up ripples of energized electrons — excitons — like a rock splashing water from a puddle. These excitons then pass from one molecule to the next until they reach the reaction centre. But is their path made up of random, undirected hops, as researchers initially assumed? Or could their motion be more organized? Some modern researchers have pointed out that the excitons could be coherent, with their waves extending to more than one molecule while staying in step and reinforcing one another.
“Nature knows a few tricks that physicists don't.”

If so, there is a striking corollary. Coherent quantum waves can exist in two or more states at the same time, so coherent excitons would be able to move through the forest of antenna molecules by two or more routes at once. In fact, they could simultaneously explore a multitude of possible options, and automatically select the most efficient path to the reaction centre.

a reply to: tetra50


Good points and thanks for the links. This is a field that's growing and as we find more quantum effects in nature, a Quantum Mind will gain even more traction because there's nothing prohibiting evolution from selecting these features to give our species an advantage.

Many people will jump up and down and yell no because a quantum mind easily explains why we see so much evidence in things like Psi.

Here's a another recent article:

Quantum biology: Algae evolved to switch quantum coherence on and off

A UNSW Australia-led team of researchers has discovered how algae that survive in very low levels of light are able to switch on and off a weird quantum phenomenon that occurs during photosynthesis.

The function in the algae of this quantum effect, known as coherence, remains a mystery, but it is thought it could help them harvest energy from the sun much more efficiently. Working out its role in a living organism could lead to technological advances, such as better organic solar cells and quantum-based electronic devices.

The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It is part of an emerging field called quantum biology, in which evidence is growing that quantum phenomena are operating in nature, not just the laboratory, and may even account for how birds can navigate using the earth's magnetic field.

phys.org...

Again, this is science and the emerging field of Quantum Biology is very interesting.

a reply to: neoholographic

You're repeating yourself again.

Don't you think I read all that bolded text the first time you posted it?

It doesn't mean what you think it means. You are taking literally what the author intended as metaphor.

You can be as insulting to others and to me as you like, but it doesn't change the fact that you are wrong about this subject and don't even appear to understand the links you are posting.

Have a nice thread.

a reply to: neoholographic

Interesting. And coincidental. I was just reading about coherence a day or so ago. Who knows anymore when? LOL
Where is it you are repeating yourself, as I was doing most of the posting? There's a lot of jumping up and down and yelling, and there is more than one unfair advantage in play, at the same time, which makes it hard to understand why the jumping up and down and yelling. That unfair advantage is providing nothing but proof of this theory, whatever subject is brought up and it is applied to. That speaks volumes about the unfair advantage. But it's more obfuscation, really, of the very thing supplying the unfair advantage so that the theory can be denied. What an irony. I suppose that irony is completely lost on those jumping up and down and yelling. Denying the truth just because you don't like where it's coming from doesn't make it any less true, no matter where it comes from. And that truth is giving you the chance to deny it. That's an explanation of the irony, btw, in case its lost in translation.
tetra50

Quantum mind and consciousness assumes that mind and consciousness are substances. That mind and body are two separate things. It assumes the cartesian theatre. It assumes substance dualism. These assumptions are based on folk psychology rather than evidence.

nm, sorry

originally posted by: tetra50
a reply to: neoholographic

Interesting. And coincidental. I was just reading about coherence a day or so ago. Who knows anymore when? LOL
Where is it you are repeating yourself, as I was doing most of the posting? There's a lot of jumping up and down and yelling, and there is more than one unfair advantage in play, at the same time, which makes it hard to understand why the jumping up and down and yelling. That unfair advantage is providing nothing but proof of this theory, whatever subject is brought up and it is applied to. That speaks volumes about the unfair advantage. But it's more obfuscation, really, of the very thing supplying the unfair advantage so that the theory can be denied. What an irony. I suppose that irony is completely lost on those jumping up and down and yelling. Denying the truth just because you don't like where it's coming from doesn't make it any less true, no matter where it comes from. And that truth is giving you the chance to deny it. That's an explanation of the irony, btw, in case its lost in translation.
tetra50

Good points and these things are very interesting. Here's a recent article by Seth Lloyd:

So in the spring of 2007 when the New York Times reported that green sulphur-breathing bacteria were performing quantum computations during photosynthesis, my colleagues and I laughed. We thought it was the most crackpot idea we had heard in a long time. Closer examination of the paper, published in Nature, however, showed that something decidedly non-crackpot was going on.

This is common because people have a view of the world and it has turned into a belief. Someone who actually is seeking the truth will actually look into these things and start to accept what they're seeing. This is science.

By zapping complexes of photosynthetic molecules with lasers, the authors of the paper were able to show that the excitons use quantum mechanics to make their journey through the photocomplex more efficient. The experimental evidence was strong and compelling. The authors also speculated that the excitons were performing a particular quantum computation algorithm called a quantum search, in which the wave-like nature of propagation allows the excitons to zero in on their target. As it turns out, the excitons were performing a different kind of quantum algorithm called a quantum walk, but the “crackpot” fact remained: Quantum computation was helping the bacteria move energy from point A to point B.

How could tiny bacteria be performing the kind of sophisticated quantum manipulations that it takes human beings a room full of equipment to perform? Natural selection is a powerful force. Photosynthetic bacteria have been around for more than a billion years, and during that time, if a little quantum hanky panky allowed some bacteria to process energy and reproduce more efficiently than other bacteria, then quantum hanky panky stuck around for the next generation. Nature is also the great nanotechnologist. Living systems operate on the basis of molecular mechanisms, where atoms and energy are channeled systematically through molecular complexes within the cell. The molecules in turn are assembled using the laws of quantum mechanics—quantum weirdness is always lurking just around the chemical corner. These quantum changes can either help or hinder energy transport. Natural selection ensures that the role of quantum weirdness in cellular energy transport is a beneficial one.

The problem here is Natural Selection. People want to claim that Natural Selection is all powerful but when you start seeing studies that show quantum effects in nature then all of a sudden Natural Selection isn't all powerful.

Together with Alan Aspuru-Guzik and Patrick Rebentrost at Harvard, my MIT colleague Masoud Mohseni and I constructed a general theory of how quantum walks in photosynthesis can use the wavelike nature of quantum mechanics to attain maximum efficiency. It turns out that wavelike transport is not always the best strategy. To understand why, suppose that the lilypond is full of rocks sticking up out of the water. As the wave moves through the pond, it scatters off the rocks. As a result, the wave never reaches the middle of the pond, which remains calm and protected. This is a phenomenon called destructive interference. Although the wave can propagate a short distance, eventually the random waves scattered off the rocks interfere with the overall wave’s propagation, effectively stopping it in its tracks. The quantum frog becomes completely stuck: A classical hopping strategy would have been more efficient. In the antenna photocomplex, the “rocks” are microscopic irregularities and molecular disorder that scatter the quantum wave as it tries to pass through.

By constructing detailed quantum mechanical models, my collaborators and I were able to identify the optimal strategy for the interplay between wavelike propagation and classical hopping in photosynthesis. Over short distances, the wavelike propagation is more effective than random hopping. The exciton travels like a wave right up to the distance at which destructive interference causes it to get stuck. At this point, the fact that living systems are hot, wet environments comes into play: The environment effectively gives the exciton a whack that gets it unstuck and makes it perform a classical hop, which frees up the exciton to propagate again. (The technical term for this whack is “decoherence.”) Then the process repeats. The wave propagates until it gets stuck; the environment gives it a whack; the exciton hops. Eventually, the exciton reaches the reaction center in the minimum possible time. Expressed in terms of our quantum frog, the rule is simple: Wave until you get stuck, then hop.

Very exciting stuff!!

What he's saying is in photosynthesis you get propagation between quantum mechanics and classical physics to reach maximum efficiency.

It's a very interesting read and you can see how our species would have a huge advantage with these quantum effects because we have also evolved a complex brain.

Source:
www.pbs.org...

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: Korg Trinity

Your whole post is just nonsense.

^^ CASE IN POINT

If you actually are interested in the subject you are posting about... perhaps a little humility and listen to what others have to say.... I for one have been frustrated on a number of occasions with you pointing out some irrefutable facts only to be presented with a comment such as yours above.

Open your ears and your mind... speak less.. understand more!

Korg.