METAZOA, Animal life and the birth of the mind, Peter Godfey-Smith

Philosophy
21

This what ORCH OR is all about. Penrose speaks of non-computable brain function.

Consciousness in the universe: A review of the ‘Orch OR’ theory

Stuart Hameroff a 1, Roger Penrose b 2

While more generally accepted theories assert that consciousness emerges as the complexity of the computations performed by cerebral neurons increases,[4][5] Orch OR posits that consciousness is based on non-computable quantum processing performed by qubits formed collectively on cellular microtubules, a process significantly amplified in the neurons.

The qubits are based on oscillating dipoles forming superposed resonance rings in helical pathways throughout lattices of microtubules. The oscillations are either electric, due to charge separation from London forces, or magnetic, due to electron spin—and possibly also due to nuclear spins (that can remain isolated for longer periods) that occur in gigahertz, megahertz and kilohertz frequency ranges.[2][6] Orchestration refers to the hypothetical process by which connective proteins, such as microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs), influence or orchestrate qubit state reduction by modifying the spacetime-separation of their superimposed
states.[7]

The latter is based on Penrose’s objective-collapse theory for interpreting quantum mechanics, which postulates the existence of an objective threshold governing the collapse of quantum-states, related to the difference of the spacetime curvature of these states in the universe’s fine-scale structure.[8]

Orchestrated objective reduction - Wikipedia

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Yeah. Okay. No. This is going exactly nowhere.

You have completely misunderstood this format.

The CFI Forum is operated by the Center for Inquiry, a nonprofit educational and advocacy organization. The Forum supports the interests of CFI by creating an online community of supporters and interested inquirers into CFI’s areas of concern, which can be generally described as advancing the enlightenment project, fostering an evidence-based, scientific outlook and humanist values.

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I wasn’t just talking about this forum but the concept of long form discussion that you don’t find in most social media.

The principle of tldr always applies. I try to read and respond to every comment. I don’t actually expect everyone to read all my posts in their entirety or deeply engage in the concepts there in. If you are going to have an in depth discussion you first have to establish that someone is actually interested in what you are discussing.

Everyone has their own areas of interests and level of expertise. For example, with rare exceptions a nuclear physicist is unlikely to want to have a long detailed discussion with a biologist. What write4u is trying to do is link the two. He gives us plenty of references to the theories of experts on how that can be done. Now we could just respond to his references with our own. For example.

Orchestrated objective reduction (Orch OR) is a highly controversial theory postulating that consciousness originates at the quantum level inside neurons (rather than being a product of neural connections).

In 2000 Max Tegmark claimed that any quantum coherent system in the brain would undergo effective wave function collapse due to environmental interaction long before it could influence neural processes (the “warm, wet and noisy” argument, as it later came to be known).[14] He determined the decoherence timescale of microtubule entanglement at brain temperatures to be on the order of femtoseconds, far too brief for neural processing. Christof Koch and Klaus Hepp also agreed that quantum coherence does not play, or does not need to play any major role in neurophysiology.[15][16] Koch and Hepp concluded that “The empirical demonstration of slowly decoherent and controllable quantum bits in neurons connected by electrical or chemical synapses, or the discovery of an efficient quantum algorithm for computations performed by the brain, would do much to bring these speculations from the ‘far-out’ to the mere ‘very unlikely’.”[15]

white4u actual offered the same link. Generally Wikipedia is not consider a good source for scientific discussions because it is assumed that anyone with enough expertise to discuss the topic would simply link to the original research. The problem is that it is unlikely that anyone here actually has that level of expertise or interest in the topic. To develop that level of expertise you would have to spend years on the topic.

This forum reminds me of the one I used to participate in years ago. The hope was that it would attract experts to answer the questions of people not deeply engaged in various topics. It was somewhat successful having attracted a number of well known experts but over time they lost interest. I assume life got in the way. I recently checked and that forum is gone. Engagement with the general population by experts has moved to formats such as the former twitter now X. The problem with that is that anytime an experts posts there will be thousands of responses. Some of us didn’t move to the new formats because we want to have a more personal exchange of ideas. The experts themselves are once again inaccessible as they were before the internet.

It turns out that there is some utility in non experts discussing the ideas of experts. Everyone reads something slightly differently which can help you better understand the core concepts or not. In any case sorting out what you may have misunderstood is hard to do on your own. Either way it is tedious. You can go it alone and try to develop the necessary expertise or sort through other people’s readings. Usually it takes a bit of both. It really comes down to how much time you have to devote to the process.

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That was confusing. And this explanation makes it worse.

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Maybe write4u will have something to say. I will wait and see.

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If you are looking for someone who can argue with Penrose’s theories it is unlikely you will find them participating here (see my response to lausten).

Here is the basic question I was trying to address. Do we really need the kind of focus that Penrose brings to the question of consciousness to address the “big questions”. I tend to agree with Dennett that we don’t. What we need to do is ask the questions in a different way. A low fidelity or broad focus approach. It took Dennett a lifetime to develop that approach so we shouldn’t think of it as a shortcut. I had to read Dennett’s work multiple times to understand it and I’m sure I still got a lot of it wrong. Still it is more accessible than the work of Penrose.

I tend to think Penrose is right. Perhaps not in the details but to the extent that the other approaches don’t work for me. They don’t address the problem of complex chaotic systems very well. For that problem I have turned to Wolfram’s “New Kind of Science”. Like Dennett he uses an evolutionary approach that means you don’t need to know the intermediate steps. What you need to do is set the initial conditions and see how the pattern evolves. A way to avoid the problem of irreducibility.

You and I have the same problem in that people don’t seem to see the value in Penrose’s work. Years ago I ran into the same problem with Epigenetics.I had an intuition based on the observation of domestic livestock that information about stresses were passed onto subsequent generations. You could also see it in the mouse utopia experiments. At first the biologists I was talking to said it was Lamarckianism in disguise. As it became more mainstream they said it wasn’t important to evolutionary theory. Eventually they agreed it was an important mechanism in selection. I’m not saying I agree with Penrose but I do agree it is a better explanation than the alternatives based on my intuition. That takes us back to philosophy of science. I’m not going to get into that right now.

Maybe we can discuss Steven Weinberg’s “Against Philosophy”.

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I have a whole thread on the role microtubules play in neural and brain data processing.
This is a fast expanding area of research because that problem with “wet, warm” environment has been resolved, wich makes the microtubule/synaptic network (and related filaments) the primary candidate for the emergence of consciousness. This is why Penrose and Hameroff joined forces

There is no other complex network that has the capability for data processing at quantum scales. Moreover, “microtubules” (cytogenetics) are a “common denominator” in ALL Eukaryotic life on earth, which means that it has been there from the “beginning” and is capable of handling all data that’s necessary for self-aware sentience in all its forms and especially in humans, not via gradual evolution, but from a rare beneficial mutation. of human chromosome 2.

Note the extraordinary capabilities and potentials that this mutation apparently released. Have a look;

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Yes I suspect that or have an intuition that something along these lines is accurate and precise. It is going to be very useful for a variety of technologies from computing to medicine when they get it worked out.

However we are not in the science forum but the philosophy forum. Philosophers are going to suggest we are just moving the goal post. That facts are not explanations in and of themselves.

Some times I wish I had never got involved with philosophers, it is a kill joy profession. It lacks the thrill of discovery that science has. The philosophical question is if understanding the mechanics of consciousness explains consciousness. In an even broader sense how does science aid philosophy. From an even broader perspective many scientists have come to the conclusion that philosophy is no longer relevant. Since you posted this topic in the philosophy forum it constitutes and argument in support of that proposition. Now I’m asking myself if I want to argue against your proposition of philosophical irrelevance. Mostly the answer is no.

10 or 15 years ago I was looking at research that tried to merge quantum physics and biology. One of the topics was how quantum mechanics aided birds in navigation. I don’t think the paper was well received, it seemed speculative to scientific minds. That opens a small door for philosophy to creep in.

Philosophically we know that the nature of complex chaotic systems such as the universe is such that knowing something about one thing will always tell you something about another thing that may casually seem unrelated. Here that think is consciousness and quantum mechanics. Part of what I have been trying to do is show why they must have a relationship. Now I have to ask if you understand what I was trying to do?

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My absolute favorite video to share. Thank you so much for asking. There will a quiz.

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That phenomenon has been explained and is due to the magnetic orientation of dipolar microtubules (in birds) in relation to the earth magnetic fields (and pole?).

This no longer a mystery, and I use it to support the concept of MT networks becoming self-aware of its own thought processes.

Microtubules: Evolving roles and critical cellular interactions

The role of microtubules in cellular functioning is constantly expanding. In this review, we examine new and exciting fields of discovery for microtubule’s involvement in morphogenesis, highlight our evolving understanding of differential roles for stabilized versus dynamic subpopulations, and further understanding of microtubules as a cellular integrator.

Microtubules are characteristically defined by a constant cycling between growing and shrinking referred to as dynamic instability.41–44 Subpopulations of microtubules can be stabilized by post-translational modifications including acetylation45–53 or detyrosination48,49,54 as well as their interactions with microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs).55–58

This stabilization of microtubules is important for several cell processes, with acetylated microtubules found at the leading edge of actively migrating cells assisting in directional migration.54

Acetylated microtubules are also the foundation of primary cilia, which are generally referred to as the antennae of the cell, involved in sensing the cellular environment, cell signaling, liquid flow, cell polarity and multiple sensory organ functions including smell, sound, and sight.45,47,59–63

more…

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Well yes that is very sciency of you and interesting but you didn’t answer any of my questions.

Did you post this topic in the philosophy forum because you think that philosophy has been supplanted by Science?

A somewhat irrelevant question but do you know Richard Dawkins position on the topic?

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[quote=“wolfhnd, post:31, topic:8495, full:true”]
Well yes that is very sciency of you and interesting but you didn’t answer any of my questions.

Has anybody else answered your questions?

Did you post this topic in the philosophy forum because you think that philosophy has been supplanted by Science?

I never use these terms. I try to logically analyze the consciousness of things that are known and what they have in common. That way you can eliminate those things that do not have certain properties in common.

All Eukaryotic organisms have microtubules in common, and there are rudimentary protofilaments in Prokaryotic organisms. Being that there is no other organ or organelle in sufficient numbers with sufficient data processing abilities, the body’s Microtubule Network communicating with the brain’s Microtubule Networks becomes the primary candidate.

Note that Fatah Morgana’ are nature’s real life TV series.

Just like the concept of Life, the concept of Consciousness is not some magical supernatural “elan vital”, but an emergent property (excellence) of certain patterns that acquire abilities like transmit and receive, store, and recall data contained in certain EM waves above and beyond their constitutional parts .

Like a mirage in the desert, what causes a mirage, other than that it is an expression of long distance data communication of a visual nature.

A somewhat irrelevant question but do you know Richard Dawkins position on the topic?
Hear for yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgXcBbIGCWw

Allow me another question:
Do atoms have memory? If not what keeps them from flying apart? Affinity?

[Single atom memory: The world’s smallest stor | EurekAlert!](https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/679819#

So, if an object (a pattern set) can store information, can it learn from comparison if it “knows” or "lacks’ that information. It is said that universal dynamics are based on “differential equations” and that would lead to “cognition” and cognition is a form of self-reference and conscious awareness of any “differences”.

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Thanks for posting the link. Dawkins was pretty non committal.

I never use these terms. I try to to logically analyze the consciousness of things that are known and what they have in common.

I’m still curious why you posted this in philosophy and not science?

There are several reasons why philosophy is relevant to this thread and I covered at least two of them. The most important may be simply to clearly define intelligence and by extension consciousness or not, depending on how the two are linked. Dawkins hinted at that by pointing out it is possible to imagine an “intelligence” that isn’t “conscious” evolving that could build a radio transmitter. The other is why do we keep talking about emergence if the initial state is “consciousness” minus “intelligence”. The thing about philosophers is they are very careful how they use language. They are tedious in their definitions in a way most people find annoying. They are also concerned with what is the difference between a definition and a category. Einstein said he seldom thought in words but I doubt that. He should have said he seldom thought in colloquial language. Colloquial language is just one category of language. There are symbolic languages, abstract closed system languages such as math and logic to name a few. He thought using tools he acquired from a culture that evolved over many thousands of years. A philosopher would not have made that mistake. That leaves me with the same question which is what is the use of philosophy to science?

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The philosophy of what? Consciousness as an emergent excellence?
I seek to provide the area what needs to be investigated to find the evidence , if any.

AFAIK philosophy still relies on axioms to provide the self-evident truths that can serve as a foundation for extending the expressed logic of the principle.

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I don’t think you are following along. I’m assuming since you posted a science article in the philosophy forum that you intended to make some connection to the philosophy of science.

Don’t take this the wrong way, I have no problem with you, the theories you present or where you make posts. I’m also aware of the problems with assuming. I’m actually highly sympathetic to your thesis. Now that you have offered a definition of philosophy it will be easier for people to make the connection between your posts and philosophy.

Philosophy has moved away from truths and principles. Science kind of took over that game. Philosophy now focuses on language and the logic of languages. Often modern philosophical discussions are heavily mathematical. Logic remains a separate discipline but there has been something of a merging. Popular philosophy has lagged behind and it is what most people think of when they think of philosophy. The old style of philosophy is still taught and engaged in extensively but the claims tend to be less grandiose. I don’t know what use this is to you but I’m working out what your philosophy of science is. I’m just trying to connect the original post to philosophy which will take some time.

I’m going to assume again that you see the connection between the original post and philosophy as related to the “big question of consciousness”. I will have to think about that some more. I tried to address it earlier by showing that imagination was the key to genius. Oh well I don’t seem to be making any progress. Carry on.

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Ok, I believe that ‘comedy is an exercise in empathy’, the ability to enter someone else’s reality . The punchline of a funny story is the release from expectation and experience the other’s painting of an alternate reality in an novel way.

The differential equation does not present a threat. It is not a threat but benign and therefore allows the network to experience a pleasing virtual moment rather than alarm as in the unexpected appearance of something real that was not anticipated.

These experiences are part of the homeostatic control system that regulates the body’s internal health. It is autonomous from the brain’s conscious control, but warns the brain in case of imbalance, or floods the brain to produce “comfort” hormones when the entire microbiome sytem is in balance and is running smoothly.

It is the job of homeostasis to keep the biological organism alive, independent of its access to consciousness.

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Write4U didn’t make the original post. The OP is

A philosophical investigation of how animals, from the bottom up, experience the world.

And Write’s opinion was requested. Write responds to many questions with comments about Orch OR and microtubules and math as a fundamental property of the universe.

Hope that clears up your question.

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There is absolutely no evidence for that. The atoms in this article are holding a state that was applied to them externally. There is no learning going on there.

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Don’t all memories come from external sources? AFAIK, storing a memory is the definition of learning. It does not need too be conscious. We know that single cells can store information and have short-term memory

Single atom memory: The world’s smallest storage medium

Storing one bit in one atom is possible: The extraordinary end of Moore’s law
Peer-Reviewed Publication

One bit of digital information can now be successfully stored in an individual atom, according to a study just published in Nature . Current commercially-available magnetic memory devices require approximately one million atoms to do the same.

Andreas Heinrich, newly appointed Director of the Center for Quantum Nanoscience, within the Institute of Basic Science (IBS, South Korea), led the research effort that made this discovery at IBM Almaden Research Center (USA). This result is a breakthrough in the miniaturization of storage media and has the potential to serve as a basis for quantum computing.

more… https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/679819

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Then your question is a tautology. But your definition can still be wrong.

I did read it. As a computer geek, it was very interesting

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