[Right Wing Professor]

Bose condensation of most matter requires microkelvin temperatures. Cooper pair formation by electrons (which is the basis of supercondctivity) is about as strong as an interaction between elementary particles in condensed matter can get, and it disappears around 120K. You can observe other coherent quantum pheomena in solids, and rarely liquids, but they're scattered by random thermal motion of the atoms, and their lifetimes become short (i.e. sub microsecond) by about 100K. At room temperature (300K), atoms are vibrating incoherently at high amplitude, and the coherences that link quantum states are destroyed on a nanosecond timescale. Trying to contruct a model for consciousness based on q.m. is like trying to build a house of cards on a rowboat in a hurricane.

[Phaedrus]

Trying to contruct a model for consciousness based on q.m. is like trying to build a house of cards on a rowboat in a hurricane.

Based upon your authoriy, I presume. In any event, not according to Walker, a physicist of some accomplishment.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your post!

Bose condensation of most matter requires microkelvin temperatures. Cooper pair formation by electrons (which is the basis of supercondctivity) is about as strong as an interaction between elementary particles in condensed matter can get, and it disappears around 120K. You can observe other coherent quantum pheomena in solids, and rarely liquids, but they're scattered by random thermal motion of the atoms, and their lifetimes become short (i.e. sub microsecond) by about 100K. At room temperature (300K), atoms are vibrating incoherently at high amplitude, and the coherences that link quantum states are destroyed on a nanosecond timescale.

I’m wondering if you read the Alex Kaivarainen article because he does address your objection in the section titled “Mesoscopic molecular Bose condensation at physiological temperature: possible or not?” He starts by saying,

The existence of mesoscopic (intermediate between microscopic and macroscopic) Bose condensation in form of coherent clusters in condensed matter (liquid and solid) at the ambient temperature was rejected for a long time. The reason of such shortcoming was a wrong primary assumption, that the thermal oscillations of atoms and molecules in condensed matter are harmonic ones (see for example: Beck and Eccles, 1992). The condition of harmonic oscillations means that the average kinetic (T_k) and potential (V) energy of molecules are equal to each other and linearly dependent on temperature (T)….

He goes on to explain the Virial theorem and shows how one can arrive at the wrong conclusion, “that water and ice are classical systems.” He continues saying that the “right way is to evaluate correctly the ratio between internal kinetic and potential energy of condensed matter or selected excitations and only after this apply to Virial theorems.” He continues,

Such weak dependence of potential energy on the distance can be considered as indication of long-range interaction due to the expressed cooperative properties of water as associative liquid. The difference between water and ice points, that the role of distant Van der Waals interactions, stabilizing primary effectons (mesoscopic molecular Bose condensate), is increasing with dimensions of these coherent clusters as a result of temperature decreasing and liquid > solid phase transition. It is a strong evidence that oscillations of molecules in water and ice are strongly anharmonic and the condensed matter can not be considered as a classical system, following condition (1.1) and (1.6).