Posted on 07/05/2003 4:20:08 PM PDT by betty boop
Actually, the mental trip from quantum to classical and micro to macro is far harder than the trip to the quantum world. Some very good physicists and chemists have gotten into major trouble on that trip. The quantum world is a world with a deterministically evolving wavefunction, where all the atoms of a sample beat together coherently for infinite time. That does happen, as I've mentioned, in superfluid helium, where an entire container of liquid helium flows in a single coherent quantum state; it happens with the conduction electrons in a superconductor, where they don't 'trip over' the lattice vibrations that ordinarily cause electrical resistance. Why doesn't it happen, say, in a glass of water or a current in an ordinary wire, where atoms and electrons 'forget' their quantum coherence in a matter of nanoseconds? The answer is almost invariably because the system itself is exposed to stochastic (random) impulses from the outside, which damp out the quantum coherences. Figuring out how to connect the classical stochastic dynamics of a solvent, for example, with the quantized vibrations of a dissolved molecule, is a tough problem, and it's a hot area (so to speak) of theoretical chemistry.
This is my major problem with the quantum brain type theories and with a lot of conceptually related theories that appear intermittently in the biophysical literature. In real biological matter, quantum phenomena have lifetimes of picoseconds, before the random motion of water molecules totally destroys them. The only notable exception is nuclear magnetism (MRI is a quantum based technique), and that exists because the magnetic dipoles of nuclei are so weakly coupled to their environment that it takes seconds for them to get 'thermalized'.
There are other dimensions. Weight, for example. Electrical charge. Utility-futility. Importance-inherence. Quantizing the qualities: to measure.
Speaking of human consciousness, a small qualifier. Human consciousness is unconscious of most that goes on inside the body. The Krebs cycles run without human awareness. Billions, maybe trillions of Krebs cycles cycle per second powering the cells and the body, and continuing whether we know of Krebs cycles or not. Human consciousness is usually unconscious of breathing or of blood filtering through the liver, the kidneys, and the lungs even while being aware that this happens. Human consciousness is of special interest to us, while consciousness is abstract, a general concept, a simplified view of reality that describes no real object.
I'd add the condition that T >>0. Even with large numbers of particles, matter acts quantum mechanically (see Bose-Einstein condensates, superfluidity, the temperature depedence of the heat capacity) if you get close enough to 0 K.
Doc, is that "if" or "of" Planck's constant? (Are there two "if" statements here, or just one?)
Just trying to follow you here. I'd thought that Planck's constant was a defined value; yet maybe it's something one can "fiddle with" (i.e., trying different values in one's equations) to see what happens? I gather if different values are assigned for the cosmological constant, extraordinarily, drastically different results would obtain, theoretically speaking.
These connections between the micro and macroworlds truly are fascinating. I have a lot to learn!
Thank you for writing, Doc.
This may seem an idle question, but it's something I've been wondering about -- though I'm not sure how to put the question "technically." Well, I'll do my best, here goes:
What if we were to say that material brains, manifesting quantum phenomena, were finite on an organic basis -- i.e., subject to space and time -- yet consciousness itself were not bound by space-time constraints; i.e., hypothetically it is part of an infinite manifold (i.e., a field of its own type). If it's infinite, it seems (?) that the speed of light would not be a limit for it. Not being subject to space/time constraints, consciousness could move at speeds faster than the picosecond rates of quantum-event "lifetimes." And thus "marry up" (somehow) to the physical brain at the quantum level, thereby enabling thinking that can work to direct the activities of the human (or other) organism.
Does this scenario even make any sense? Or is it just a totally wild, baseless speculation?
Interesting, RW! And we don't have to file any of those off to imaginary time!
This set of dimensions goes outside of the conventional thinking regarding dimensionality, however. Not that that's a bad thing. It's interesting that many of them seem to have what could be loosely called a kind of "subjective" quality to them....
Thanks for the information, RW!
I know that people who want to get out of the problem that known chemical systems evolve deterministically tend to like quantum mechanics, because they see probabilities there rather than certainties, but IMHO that is based on a misunderstanding of QM. QM systems evolve more deterministically than classical systems, as a rule. A classical harmonic oscillator has an infinite set of states in any given band of energies. A quantum oscillator has an integer number of eigenstates, or maybe even none (OK, you can also mix eigenstates, but still...). It was easy to detect chaotic beahvior in classical systems; it was very hard to find it in quantum systems. Etc.
Despite my harsh comments on your initial post, I'm sympathetic to your quest. I'm not keen on determinism, myself. I can't see how you get personhood, or consciousness (whatever it is) or true free will out of a deterministic system. That IMHO is a problem even for an atheist. However, nothing we currently know gives us an obvious 'out' from determinism; quantum mechanics isn't one, and chaos just puts us at the mercy of randomness in the initial conditions.
The one 'out' we have is that we've barely begun to study the brain, and so it's foolish to make hard and fast statements about it. In all likelihood something we haven't forseen will turn up. I just don't think there's even a slight clue what it might be yet.
Although I cannot "explain" the workings of the brain, most of the problems associated with comparing brains with electronic computers go away if you hypothesize that at least some of the computing in a brain is analog.
I have a textbook from the 1970s that says the central dogma of neurophysiology is that neurons either fire or the don't. But that ignores the fact that neurons have a significant latency, a period during which they cannot fire, and that this is affected by chemistry and other factors that are not at all digital in nature. I have always favored a hypothesis that the most important bit of information about a neuron is its rate of firing. There are some rather simple experiments you can do that seem to confirm this. the Fechner-Benham Disc makes an alternating black and white surface appear to have colors. The only variable here is the rate of alternating light and dark. Interestingly, the apparent color shifts up or down the spectrum depending on the direction of rotation.
Hypothesizing analog computing solves some sticky problems about the brain: the fact that it can do pattern matching very quickly despite having a slow clock rate, the fact that it is generally bad at formal logic, and the fact that it jumps to conclusions and sees patterns in ambiguous data, and the fact that it manages to "instantly" integrate zillions of simultaneous processes.
The one 'out' we have is that we've barely begun to study the brain, and so it's foolish to make hard and fast statements about it. In all likelihood something we haven't forseen will turn up. I just don't think there's even a slight clue what it might be yet.
And... this is where consideration of epiphenomenon and subsumption come in -- also behaviorism. Whether one has a fine Eastern Eurpoean name or not, there are ways of inexactly understanding objects by dynamics and with a very high degree of confidence. When something "waddles, quacks, swims, and has feathers like a duck," it's... well, it's very much like a duck (even if it is a coot). When a human, or animal for that matter, behaves just as if it has will, why... doesn't it just seem to have will. It's not a bad thing to be a behaviorist, really (really a human cannot keep from being one, just try driving down the street with confidence, otherwise.) So, psychologists and the many others who "judge by fruit" are not a lower caste here, in the research of what is, how it works, how did it come to be, and what is apt to happen.
What is the least complex answer? IT HAS WILL. Certainly, the scientific method hasn't proven otherwise.
For a believer in God, this is easily explained, since God created living beings as The Living Being. A believer in Anything But God is at a loss (extremely unbegging the queston): ...so far.
BTW, RW, I'm particularly interested in your "dimension" of importance-inherence. Please explicate.
I think you must mean by direct perception, that consciousness we share with all the higher animals. Obviously, we are conscious of all these things that go on in the body, else how would you know that there are such processes we are not directly conscious of? Interestingly, it is the kind of consciousness unique to human beings that does make it possible for us to be conscious of these things, not directly, but conceptually.
The animals are also not directly conscious of most of the things that go on in their bodies, but they will never know it.
Hank
Just an example of a dimensional axis. Importance comes from outside, inherence from inside. Dimension is a measurement, a scale on which you can quantify, obtain scientific numbers, so the position of a quality on the scale for a flower would be a measure, a quantity of how much it is behavioral or dependent on nutrients. The precise time of the season a flower flowers would depend on many exogenous factors, temperature, insolation, moisture in the soil, and internal factors such as when in its life cycle it would most like to flower all other things being equal. Moving from the concept of dimension to a specific instance, and then moving from the concept of the instance to specific conditions and a particular thing, an image. From the general toward the more specific class or phylum to the specific thing--this flower in this spot in the garden today.
But I'll be thinking over what you said, whenever I get a spare moment between now and then. And maybe we can continue later on.
Meanwhile, thank you so much for your gracious help. Good night!
So true. I can listen to an old song on the radio and have it bring memories of a good time long past, another can hear the same song and have a completely different memory brought back by it. Nevertheless, the song has been effective, it has brought out something deep within the listener. True, it is not the same in all listeners, however, even thought what it brings out is subjective, music is nevertheless part of the objective reality we live in and cannot be denied a part in it as materialists try to do. Just because it cannot be analyzed, measured, and dissected by materialist methods does not mean it is not part of reality. In fact, ask any teenager and they will tell you it is perhaps one of the biggest parts of reality for them. It is not music, or art that are deficient because materialism cannot account for them. It is materialism which is deficient for not knowing what to do with it.
I doubt if many of the artists realized, in their lifetimes, how many generations would be emotionally moved by their effort!
I think some thought so, but some would also be surprised. However, the point is even broader than that - art can and often does transcend the physical dimensions of space and time, it is therefore a reality which exists way beyond the physical realm but which must be included in any theory which seeks to explain reality.
And could any of the above machinery tell you who I am thinking of when I hear the song "Under the Boardwalk" or who someone else listening to it is thinking about? I doubt it. Music (and all good art) brings out the deepest in us which no machine, no theory can ever discern.
Or as some critics of Hume sagely quipped - Hume was able to dismiss God only by dismissing himself. Only by denying one's own existence can one deny God's. Here Descartes comes to mind - the one thing we cannot deny is our own existence.
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