Microtubules the seat of Consciousness

Science and Technology
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[quote=“citizenschallengev4, post:19, topic:9472”]
It’s an absurd title. Seat of Consciousness.

Seat = Principal site or location (Oxford Dictionary)

[quote=“write4u, post:18, topic:9472”]
This is where consciousness resides:

i.e. “seat”, accompanied by a picture of part of the brain illustrating the incredible complexity of the neural network inside the brain by the presence of just a dozen neurons with several thousand synaptic connections.

W4U said: This is where consciousness happens.

CC said: Consciousness is not a thing, it’s an action. None of these details you keep bringing up establish

“happens” is a verb , not a thing. c’mon CC

[quote=“write4u, post:18, topic:9472”]
This is no personal mind,

And now you’re getting so desperate to make a point that you’ve done away with the human mind altogether.

You are taking this statement out of context.

Then you tell me I’m rejecting evidence simply because I’m rejecting your interpretation.

You say: “This is where consciousness resides: trillions of these interactive networks” and produce an article about the Microtubules as the scaffolding of cells. I don’t ignore that data! It’s your interpretation that they hold the secret to the “Seat” of consciousness.

Because there is a difference (albeit small) between the conscious experience of pain that happens in the brain and kinetic sensitivity that happens via the sensory organelles (microtubules) in the cellular cytoskeleton (scaffolding) of the toe.

The small toes on your feet have a bunch of nerve receptors that are to thank for what you feel. The receptors are struck by the impact which is why you likely yell and drop to your knees holding your impacted toe. Each of your toes has a nerve on each side. Because of this, no matter where the impact hits when you stub your toe you are going to feel it. That nerve impulse is going to go from your toe to your brain in a heartbeat. The nerves react quickly by sending a message to your brain that alerts it that something external may cause harm to the body. When that nerve gets activated it sends a message to your brain and you will perceive pain.

Why Does a Stubbed Toe Hurt for So Long?

There is always the initial stubbed toe pain where you fall to your knees or hop around holding your toe. Then, the lingering pain lasts for few minutes. It’s been proven that there are legitimately [two waves of pain]

(Stubbed toe: When is it serious, and what are the treatments?) when it comes to a stubbed toe. The immediate pain and then the lingering pain. The reason for this is also related to your nerve receptors. The same receptors that send the message to your brain are at play here. However, it’s important to understand that the path the nerve receptors take is really important in understanding the two types of pain that come with a stubbed toe. The first message is sent through thick, insulated fibers in your body that help the receptor transmit the message quickly. This is the immediate, sharp pain that you feel. The second message is sent through thin, uninsulated fibers that are much slower than the first set of fibers the message is sent through. This is the dull, achy pain that you feel after the sharp pain.

That first message is generate by the microtubules of the cytoskeleton, the same that aslo control cilia and flagella in single celled organisms and makes them navigate obstacles.

While the pain of a stubbed toe is annoying to deal with, there is a silver lining! The pain you feel when you stub your toe is a reminder that your nervous system is working and in full effect. Your nervous system is responsible for protecting you from harm from external forces. While you may not want this reminder, it’s an integral part of your health and well-being.

more…

Why are you denying that consciousness is an activity that involves the entire body and the environment it’s embedded within.

I am not denying this at all. I specifically stated that microtubules are present in every cell of your body, from your toes to your hair follicles.

But cells in your body don’t think, they respond to kinetic stimulation and their memory is based on kinetic experience.

When I use the term Abrahamic Mindset it has little to do with religious mythology. What I’m referring to is the astounding self-centeredness of our thoughts.

It’s about not being able to conceptually escape the bounds of your mind and appreciate that somethings exist outside of it.

WOW, are you talking about physics or metaphysics?

Such as recognizing the gulf between your thoughts and the physical. It’s the ultimate human egotism that blinds us to so much and is at the roots of our relentless self destruction for the sake of ‘stuff’.

Oh, c’mon CC, recognizing the gulf between thought and the physical? Do you see me as that primitive?

Let’s get one thing clear. It is a hard fact that the brain has all the necessary physical properties for producing thoughts.
There is no magic external ingredient that controls thought, that’s religion.

Well you aren’t going to get there by telling me that microtubules are the seat of consciousness and then providing an article about the wonders of MT scaffolding.

Yes because the cytoskeleton of every cell is in communication with all its surrounding cells. That has been established and is Penrose’s main argument in ORCH OR .

Cells do communicate but they are not self-aware, which makes them quasi-intelligent as the hive-mind in a beehive.

It’s really a matter of semantics.

Exactly when does sensitivity become conscious experience?
Exactly when does quasi-intelligent relational responses become rational intelligent action?

When did the original light-sensitive chemical patch become an eye?

Or another with “Seat of Consciousness” but the article contained nothing more than a hint about a possible connection to consciousness, instead the article was likewise about the structure and a few educated guesses.

You are expecting someone to come up with a "thing " called consciousness, but that’s not how it works. Consciousness emerges from actual neural activity. This is demonstrated when a person is placed in a sensory deprivation chamber.
The brain begins to hallucinate “uncontrollably” in the absence of sensory input.

[quote=“write4u, post:18, topic:9472”]
You have no idea about the thriving science that this little self-organizing electrochemical processor has spawned.

Nonsense, I’ve read a good deal of these article too. I’m simply stating you are jumping to conclusions that are far from settled science.

No, I have already answered that. I am trying to establish a comprehensive library of proofs based on the proposition that microtubules are the only viable candidate for any consideration of association with emergent consciousness.

And gain in your enthusiasm you make claims that are simply bizarre

What about mastering the Kreb Cycle? Isn’t that were abiogenesis has actually been sketched out? Put away your books by philosopher physicists for a bit and catch up on the writing of biochemists such as Nick Lane - The Vital Question

Absolutely, but that is still purely chemical self-replication and is only one requirement for life and the formation of chromosomes.

Mitosis (cell division) is a self-replication of chromosomes organized by microtubules

[quote=“citizenschallengev4, post:20, topic:9472”]

The point is that I have many more issues with the interpretations , than with the evidence collected.

Oh but I know exactly what I am doing. What may seem as only tangentially related data, is designed to establish a common denominator in all living biology on earth.
This is no simple task. It is an ambitious attempt to gather dispersed specialized data (Bohm called it fractured specialization) and assemble a comprehensive library of proofs rthat support the notion that the microtubules and related filaments in the neural network as a whole are responsible for the emergence of conscious awareness of mental processes.

You see, homeostasis is also a mind control mechanism, but it is at a subconscious level and we are not self-aware of this unless something goes wrong inside.

I don’t. I don’t care if the ratio of bacterial cells to human cells is 10 to 1 or 8 to 1.
The fact is that the human biome consists of more bacterial cells than human cells.
Just because the numbers are variable doesn’t negate the argument.

Please note that this is not my personal mindset (!!!) . I am only following in the footsteps of some very respectable scientists.

But rather than separating all hypotheses on the subject of consciousness, I am trying to integrate (orchestrate) all the different knowledge of our neural networks into a single comprehensive emphasized textblock of knowledge that may lead to an “inescapable conclusion” that can be falsified. i leave no stone unturned. Don’t hold that against me.

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Well I’ve heard scientists refer to our brain’s thoughts as meta-physical, so what are you saying?
Sara Walker put’s it another way:

I don’t see you, all I see is your words and arguments.

Hey, that’s what you doing, “the seat of consciousness” “tubules”. But that’s not how it works. Those are components, and not the thing.

Wow, the you do stuff like that to me.
Besides the number being reduced way more than that, and totally skip the most important point, that the microbiome, isn’t something spread through the entire body, it’s in specific areas, and that makes a big difference in appreciating what roll they play.

Very respectable experts also can say stupid stuff - regarding the micro biome - implying (deliberately or simply through poor selection of words) that those foreign microbes reside “in our body”, is sloppy and inaccurate in the extreme, and tends to mislead rather than clarify.

And I’ll keep pointing out the flaws and omissions.

Let me know when you get to the Uncertainty Principle that the more you focus on the tiniest components, the more you lose sight of the entire complex organism. It’s something scientists have pointed for many generations.

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[quote=“citizenschallengev4, post:22, topic:9472”]
Well I’ve heard scientists refer to our brain’s thoughts as meta-physical, so what are you saying?

We are not talking about thoughts. We are talking about consciousness… difference.

No no, you misunderstand. If I say the brain is the seat of consciousness are you going to argue that the brain is a component and not a thing? How about the neural network inside the brain? How about the microtubules network inside the neural network.

I keep telling you that microtubules are not conscious in and of themselves, but you keep ignoring that fundamental missive. But they are constantly engaged in data processing and transportation.
It is the activity of constant data processing inside the neural network pattern that generates a field of consciousness, similar to a constant stream of power through a high voltage network that creates an energy field which may be compared to a form of energetic consciousness. Hold a bunch of fluorescent bulbs under it and presto we have a field of light!

Consider this. A newborn baby is constantly active in unconscious uncontrolled muscle movement until it discovers its hands and begins to wiggle its fingers. At that point, the baby becomes consciously aware of its fingers and learns how to consciously control their movement.

Now, how do the muscles actually control the movement of fingers or legs?
And again, that is a function of microtubules and related filaments.

Organismal Biology

Communication between and within cells

Cells can detect what’s going on around them, and they can respond in real time to cues from their neighbors and environment. At this very moment, your cells are sending and receiving millions of messages in the form of chemical signaling molecules.

There are two kinds of cellular communication: communication between cells is called inter cellular signaling, and communication within a cell is called intra cellular signaling. An easy way to remember the difference is by knowing the Latin origin of the prefixes: inter- means “between” (like interstates allow rapid travel between states) and intra- means “inside” (like intravenous).

Chemical signals between cells are called ligands. A ligand is a molecule that binds another specific molecule. In the case of cell signaling, the ligand binds a receptor , a protein in or on the target cell. Examples of ligands include hormones and neurotransmitters. Specificity in cell signaling occursin a couple different ways:

  1. Ligands and receptors are highly specific; a specific ligand will have a specific receptor that typically binds only that ligand.
  2. Not all cells have receptors for each ligand, so that only cells that have the receptor are capable of detecting and responding to the signal.

Not all cells can “hear” a particular chemical message. In order to detect a signal (that is, to be a target cell), a neighbor cell must have the right receptor for that signal. When a signaling molecule binds to its receptor, it alters the shape or activity of the receptor, triggering a change inside of the cell. Signaling molecules are often called ligands, a general term for molecules that bind specifically to other molecules (such as receptors). Image credit:[ Khan Academy]

(Khan Academy).

Note that the actual transmitters and receptors contain microtubules. Any form of communication inside the body is via microtubules.

Do check out this site, it is awesome in scope. And you will see that many of the same apparently non-connected properties and functions iI am identifying are addressed in this excellent scientific site .

p,s, I wish you would replace your term Abrahamic mindscape with Microtubule mindscape,

at least where I am concerned… image

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Continuing with our journey into the mindscape of microtubules

PHYSICS 25 August 2021
By Thomas Lewton

Can quantum effects in the brain explain consciousness?

New research reveals hints of quantum states in tiny proteins called microtubules inside brain cells. If the results stand up, the idea that consciousness is quantum might come in from the cold.

IF IT is a controversial idea that warm, wet life might exploit quantum magic, that’s nothing compared with certain researchers’ convictions that quantum phenomena might help explain human consciousness.

Orchestrated objective reduction theory (Orch OR), originally proposed by physicist Roger Penrose and anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff in the 1990s, seeks to bridge the gulf between physical matter and felt experience. The idea is that consciousness arises when gravitational instabilities in the fundamental structure of space-time collapse quantum wave functions in tiny proteins called microtubules, which are found inside neurons.

Actually they are found in every cell in every living organism

It is heady stuff, but if pulling together quantum mechanics, gravity and consciousness in one fell swoop sounds too good to be true, it might be. Orch OR’s critics argue that any quantum coherence inside microtubules would fall apart in the warm and noisy environs of grey matter long before it could have any effect on the workings of neurons.

Yet in one tantalising experiment last year, as-yet unpublished, Jack Tuszynski at the University of Alberta in Canada and Aristide Dogariu at the University of Central Florida found that light shone on microtubules was very slowly re-emitted over several minutes – a hallmark of quantum goings-on. “This is crazy,” says Tuszynski, who set about building a theoretical microtubule model to describe what he was seeing.

Gregory Scholes, a biochemist at Princeton University, is studying microtubules for signs of similar quantum effects. Initial experiments point to long-lived, long-range collective behaviour among molecules in the structures. Both groups plan to test whether anaesthetics, which switch consciousness on and off, have any impact on microtubules. “There is amazing structure and synchrony in biological systems,” says…

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OK, I’m a little late to the game/table. “Microtubules” has been on my short list to dig into since I first saw W4U’s postings on it awhile back.
I dove in, and am now slowly digesting the Penrose / Hameroff lecture:

I watched and read a few things on basic structure and activities of microtubules before watching the above video , so I wasn’t completely lost.

Towards the end of the video, during the Q&A:
Roger Penrose says we do not yet have the science to fully describe consciousness.
Stuart Hameroff says it has to do with quantum entanglement - how all these microtubules are coordinated in the wave-collapse that supposedly gives rise to feelings.
… if I heard, and interpreted it correctly.

So if we take it deeper - what is it that “controls” the entanglement to create those patterns that we call feelings?

Interesting points that I came across down the rabbit hole:
The game of Life created on a model of microtubules.

The analogy using the chess board. Penrose brought up a progression (I forget exactly what, I’d have to go back to look) that closely mapped to the DIKW that I’m familiar with:
Data → Information → Knowledge → Wisdom. (Where’s the “Bing!” ? )

About the hydration (?) of cells in the microtubules that weakens it, or cause the catastrophic breakdown: Is that just a natural part of the environment they are in, or is that where it starts getting into the “freaky” stuff that the holes for delivery of product, and the breakdown of MTs are controlled ?

… I’m usually a Large-Scale/Space kind of guy. Quantum mechanics are neat to ponder and stuff, but this is one of my few forays into the microscopic/sub-microscopic world

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first, the question has not yet been answered. There are several hypotheses under consideration. But it seems that all current assumptions lie in some form of reduction, or orchestration, or integration of sensory information at the quantum (nano) scale.

And the “bing” is the collapse of a wavefunction that results in an instant of consciousness, a resolution of quantum superposition into a state of reality.
A “bing”
A conscious spike in the brain’s EM field that is generated by the microtubule activity of processing sensory data.

This is the illustration that accompanies the discussion.

image
image1011×1092 95.4 KB

Heady stuff , for sure.

Can Quantum Physics Explain Consciousness? One Scientist Thinks It Might

Fellow scientists labeled him a crackpot. Now Stuart Hameroff’s quantum consciousness theories are getting support from unlikely places.

Most neuroscientists say thoughts are born from brain cells called neurons. Hameroff suggests the most meaningful action happens at the impossibly small quantum level, where subatomic particles like photons and electrons exhibit bizarre behavior. Quantum physics drives consciousness, he believes.

If Hameroff proposed these ideas himself, he might have been ignored, but his co-theorist was Sir Roger Penrose, an esteemed figure in mathematical physics. Their theory, dubbed “orchestrated objective reduction,” or Orch-OR, suggests that structures called microtubules, which transport material inside cells, underlie our conscious thinking.

But the Penrose-Hameroff model of what you’d call quantum consciousness was a scientific non-starter. Leading experts dismissed the new model outright. Quantum effects, the criticism went, are notoriously difficult to maintain in the lab, requiring ultracold temperatures and shielding to protect against even the mildest interference. Critics said living things are simply too “warm, wet and noisy” to allow significant quantum effects to persist. What’s more, neuroscientists argued, the Penrose-Hameroff model offered no testable hypotheses.

…

Many regard Hameroff as nonsensical, a creature from a Lewis Carroll story calling out from under a toadstool that we’ve got it all wrong, that some kind of quantum magic undergirds our brain function.

But just four years later, a shift was underway. In 2010, Hameroff was invited to speak at a less public meeting, at Google’s campus in Mountain View, California. His presentation suggested he might have a firmer view of reality than some may have thought.

Hameroff and several other scientists were invited by Hartmut Neven, a Google researcher in visual search technologies. By then, scientists were already trying to tap the laws of quantum physics to build smaller, smarter computers. And biologists had begun to suspect quantum physics could be important to processes like photosynthesis and migration using Earth’s magnetic field. Neven says he was interested in Hameroff’s research because understanding the brain’s efficiencies could bring huge cost savings for Google.

“I think it is rather remarkable that the human brain is able to accomplish its tremendous feats on just a spoonful of sugar a day,” Neven says.

A funny thing happened on Hameroff’s trip through the weedy fields of scientific derision: Data appeared.

The data isn’t enough to confirm Orch-OR, but the new findings suggest some of Hameroff’s claims are more plausible than previously supposed. Furthermore, the microtubule — the tiny structures that Hameroff thinks house quantum operations in the brain — is suddenly a hot subject. And two researchers are finding that the old anesthesiologist might be right: Quantum physics might be vital to our awareness, cognition and even memory.

Hameroff says that a patient under anesthesia exhibits relatively normal brain function save one thing: consciousness. Neurons keep firing, and even pain signals travel their normal routes. But that pain is never felt, never experienced. The science of anesthesia sits right at the heart of the hard problem — allowing “easy” computational processes to continue while selectively eliminating subjective experience. But no one knows quite how.

Read more: The Biocentric Universe Theory: Life Creates Time, Space, and the Cosmos Itself

This is still in its infancy and the biggest problem is that conducting experiments at nano scale is very difficult and prone to interference.

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Another interesting aspect of microtubule functions;

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Oh but it’s so much safer than studying what we can actually observe with our senses. We’re left to fill in all the blanks with our most imaginative minds.

So much easier than the macro biological level, where real facts must be gathered without all the philosophical embellishments that our nano world invites.

(6.01) Dr. Mark Solms demystifies Chalmers’ “Hard Problem” of Consciousness.

(6.02) The Other Side of Mark Solms PhD, farmer, vintner, humanitarian.

(6.03) Students’ Resource: A representative cross-section of Dr. Mark Solms’ scientific publications.

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Here’s a great case in point.
Man I wish I were reading Nick Lane’s “Vital Question” rather then listening to it, since I’d have marked the page where he discusses the energy consumption of neurons, and could share the quote, plus brush up on the detail, but I’ll definitely try to find it. Because the heat produced in some nano components of neurons when scaled up, is hotter than the surface of the sun. That’s where all that sugar goes that the brain sucks up. Which is why an organ that can easily fit into the palm of your hand, consumes 20% of your bodies energy output.

It’s philosophical attitudes (or expediency of the story being told) that make people inject twisted facts, while jumping to false conclusions.

Another example - “your body is 90% germs” where those germs are actually pretty much confined to areas of the body that form the barriers against the outside world.
Totally different conclusions that teaches a totally different lessons - than the odd notion of our entire body being 90% foreign cells.

Some people seem to think such flights of the imagination are okay to indulge, so aren’t interested in additional sobering details as the research continues accumulating evidence.

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But you are overlooking the fact that without our symbiotic bacteria we would die , not from disease, but from starvation. Bacteria keep us alive!

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Why do you say?

Besides being a non sequitur,
I never overlooked that, it was never part of the discussion.

Although I did, somewhere up there, mention that microbes in our bellies have far reaching impacts on us, extending even into how we feel and behave.

I never argued against the reality that microbes keep us alive, in thousands, nay millions of ways, even down to the water trees absorb into their organism :slight_smile:

1 Like
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@ CC,

I am going to try and retrace step by step the evolution of cellular memory from pure elastic cellular response into a response pattern that may be called a rudimentary form of “learned” action. A quasi-intelligent response that may be proto state of emergent “consciously directed” action.

Consider this.
Elasticity is a form of molecular memory. In cells this memory is stored in microtubules of the cytoplasm and cytoskeleton

cy·to·skel·e·ton
noun

BIOLOGY

  1. a microscopic network of protein filaments and tubules in the cytoplasm of many living cells, giving them shape and coherence.**

Cellular Memories — More Than Skin Deep

  • Thomas H. Leung, M.D., Ph.D., * and George Cotsarelis, M.D.

When wounds of intermediate depth occur, hair-follicle stem cells migrate to the wound and adopt the function, form, and gene-expression pattern of epidermal stem cells. However, a mouse model showed that these hair-follicle stem cells maintain an epigenetic memory that may be key to their improved capacity for faster healing of secondary wounds.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMcibr2118516

So when a single-celled paramecium which swims via microtubule driven cilia, bumps against an object its shape becomes slightly distorted and its cytoskeleton responds by restoring the cell to its original shape.

In this process the cilia are also affected by the kinetic force and the microtubule motor changes its “beat”, allowing for the paramecium to alter course and eventually find a way around the obstacle. When that last sequence of cytoskeletal elastic response is successful, it is stored in the cellular cytoplasmic memory.

Now the paramecium has acquired “knowledge” of a response to a particular environmental challenge. It is not self-aware of this because a paramecium has no brain. Yet, when it again encounters an obstacle its unconscious cellular memory allows it to navigate the obstacle faster than it did the first time.

Think of the consequence when a much larger multinucleate cell like an amoeba or the slime mold attains the cellular memory of how to use its cytoskeletal elasticity to “walk” and becomes a “pseudopod” along with the ability to use that “knowledge” to engulf any nutrient foodstuff and absorb it for energy-releasing sustenance.

Mind, this is all done without a brain and strictly from microtubular chemically stored kinetic memory responses.

OK, I’ll stop here and invite you to respond to this initial “demonstrable” analysis. I so want your critical input.

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It all depends on what point you are trying to make?

Is all the magic in the nuts and bolts of glia and microtubules? Or is the magic in the accumulation of complexity and coordination, with various levels of awareness and volition emerging?

Also so long as one focuses on our consciousness as something inside of us, oblivious to the environment it exists within, our understand will be shackled.

Also, you keep forgetting, I find this biology fascinating, but it tells us nothing about our own personal relation with the knowledge we possess. Which is actually the topic I’m trying to investigate, and your MT as interesting and fundamental as they are, I don’t see how they will help us crack that shell of disconnect with our environments that so many live within.

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[quote=“citizenschallengev4, post:33, topic:9472”]
It all depends on what point you are trying to make?

Assuming that there is no evolutionary starting point from an "irreducible complexity, evolution starts with simple chemistry in a dynamic environment.

Is all the magic in the nuts and bolts of glia and microtubules? Or is the magic in the accumulation of complexity and coordination, with various levels of awareness and volition emerging?

I certainly subscribe to that concept. All known evolved properties and abilities are a refinement of the organization of individual parts.
And we also know that the “whole often is greater than the sum of its parts”.

Example; an H2O molecule is a dry object. Assemble a whole lot of H2O and it acquires 3 potential emergent properties. Gaseous, Liquid, Ice (solid) . Any of these states are not dependent on a number of H2O molecules, but on the pattern that they are arranged in as a result of temperature.
A water droplet doesn’t know this, it just responds to temperature changes with changing the molecular pattern arrangement. The control factor is environmental “temperature” .
An ice crystal is a water droplet at below 0 C. Water vapor is a water droplet at greater than 100 C, One is a beautiful solid pattern, one is a transparent liquid, and one is an invisible gas.

Individual H2O molecule is a triangular self-organization of 1 Oxygen and 2 Hydrogen atoms. A water droplet contains billions of H2O molecules. arranged in a specific pattern.

Also so long as one focuses on our consciousness as something inside of us, oblivious to the environment it exists within, our understand will be shackled.

I believe that our consciousness is an internal experience, from sensory observation of the environment and translated into electrochemical data that is processed via the microtubules in the cytoplasm, the cytoskeleton, and the neural network, retranslated by the brain and compared to “stored memory”!

This seems to happen at all levels of complexity, from single-celled organisms to whales.

Also, you keep forgetting, I find this biology fascinating, but it tells us nothing about our own personal relationship with the knowledge we possess. Which is actually the topic I’m trying to investigate, and your MT as interesting and fundamental as they are, I don’t see how they will help us crack that shell of disconnect with our environments that so many live within.

I am not sure it is all that complicated.

Primarily I believe that the Universe consists of patterned localities such as galxies and is not tuned for life, but life is tuned to some specific local spacetime environments.
First, almost all complex organisms are not identical and respond in different ways to the same environment. Each uses an environmental “niche” that allows for the evolution of their natural assets.
Second, each organism is conditioned by its experiential existence and natural selection of beneficial survival mechanisms.
Third , the more complex the organism, the greater its neural network and ability to process external as well as internal environmental data. At that level, the human body is a universe all by itself but exists by processing billions of electrochemical processes just as the universe itself exists in relation to billions of individual complexities.

We can see this clearly in humans that show individual strengths and weaknesses in abilities dependent on their environmental experiences. It seldom is a matter of intellect, but more of acquired knowledge given the individual’s growth environment.

A plant with plenty of exposure to sunlight will grow tall and strong, A plant deprived of sunlight will grow stunted, even if both plants come from the same parent and are genetically identical. The variety allows for natural selection to separate the wheat from the chaff .

In the end everything comes down to very simple fundamental relational values and functions. You cannot ignore the small stuff and declare there is an unknowable
or “greater” magical relational connection between everything and its environment.

The problem lies in the uncountable numbers and dynamical relationships and that complicates any ability to make deterministic projections. All we can do is estimate probabilities based on our experience and knowledge of deep space data, our local solar system, our earth and our localities on earth. There is a numerical near infinity of hierarchical systems at work, but each process just relies on an orderly value input → mathematical function → value output.

The unknown lies at the planck scale where physical patterns emerge from universal spacetime fields of potential values, such the Higgs field and the self-formation of regular pattern guided by the 4 fundamental forces, each force acting in their own specific deterministic manner, depending on the field’s dynamical relational value potentials.

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This may provide some background to my agreement with Penrose and Hameroff’s ORCH OR .

IMO, consciousness does not exist independent of information processing. It emerges during the processing of information (thinking) and creates a spontaneous chronology from information stored in memory and incoming sensory information that allows for the experience of movement even if that movement consists of discrete quantum mechanics. Similar to a movie strip that consists of a series of individual frames.

It is known that long-term memory is stored in the microtubules contained in “pyramidal neurons” and short-term memory is stored in the microtubules of cellular cytoplasm and cytoskeleton. The dynamic information transportation is provided by the microtubules inside the neuronal axons and synapses (note that the human brain itself contains as many as 1000 trillion synapses that connect the neural microtubule bundles into a vast dynamical network where the microtubules can act as “variable resistors” or “potentiometers” exercising controlled bursts of action potentials.

It seems obvious that at least some of this activity occurs at the quantum level.

Ad here is where the concept of Quantum Mind may be important in the consideration of “emergent consciousness”.

Quantum mind

The quantum mind or quantum consciousness is a group of hypotheses proposing that classical mechanics cannot explain consciousness.[1] It posits that quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as entanglement and superposition, may play an important part in the brain’s function and could explain consciousness.

And David Bohm’s perspective based on his hypothesis of the Implicate Order.

Bohm discussed the experience of listening to music. He believed that the feeling of movement and change that make up our experience of music derive from holding the immediate past and the present in the brain together. The musical notes from the past are transformations rather than memories. The notes that were implicated in the immediate past become explicate in the present. Bohm viewed this as consciousness emerging from the implicate order.

Bohm saw the movement, change or flow, and the coherence of experiences, such as listening to music, as a manifestation of the implicate order. He claimed to derive evidence for this from Jean Piaget’s work on infants.[11] He held these studies to show that young children learn about time and space because they have a “hard-wired” understanding of movement as part of the implicate order. He compared this hard-wiring to Chomsky’s theory that grammar is hard-wired into human brains.

Bohm never proposed a specific means by which his proposal could be falsified, nor a neural mechanism through which his “implicate order” could emerge in a way relevant to consciousness.[10] He later collaborated on Karl Pribram’s holonomic brain theory as a model of quantum consciousness.[12]

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Oh lordie write, are you serious this takes it right back to meta-physic, Donald Hoffman.

I’ve gotten better at defining that “Abrahamic Mind”
Absolute self-absorption to the point of . . .

Even the whole “wave collapse” thing. It means one thing to experts who actually understand the math, and that’s a bunch of amazing formula that do a relatively good job of explaining observations.

But to the general layperson, including enthusiasts, are limited to semantics and imaginings built upon a person vision of some Wave Collapse, whatever that is, a musical note becoming a point, or what?

Wave Collapse
Quantum moment
Black Hole
Big Bang

All very sexy and sticky human conceptions, as good as God, to help us make sense of the world.

It’s wonderful stuff, but for me it never rises above MIND CANDY.

You can’t understand mind, without understanding the physical body, you can’t understand the physical body without understanding its dynamic place in Earth’s Evolutionary pageant. After all these months I get the impression you still haven’t given the down to Earth scientific method of the biological sciences a fair hearing, that’s really disappointing.

Your tubules are at the very boundary of biology and physics, the tiniest of the tiny, barely perceivable with the most expensive and modern of equipment. In the end they are simply gadgets, that must work in concert with billions and trillions of other gadgets.

The rivet must be understood, but you’ll never understand the Eiffel Tower without pulling back and focusing on the whole.

Dr. Mark Solms deftly demystifies Chalmers’ “Hard Problem” of Consciousness, while coincidentally highlighting why Hoffman’s “Conscious Agents” are luftgeschäft.

(6.01) Dr. Mark Solms demystifies Chalmers’ “Hard Problem” of Consciousness.

(6.02) The Other Side of Mark Solms PhD, farmer, vintner, humanitarian.

(6.03) Students’ Resource: A representative cross-section of Dr. Mark Solms’ scientific publications.

I don’t even have to know the details to recognize that “Quantum Mind” is a quasi-religious notion, not an outshoot of natural sciences. Getting lost in our own mindscapes and being totally blinded to the totality outside our range of consciousness. (Lip service is not enough.)

Chance favors a prepared mind - and after nearly a year of dealing with “The Case Against Reality,” which, for me, was a collection of maddeningly dreamy philosophizing; disconnected from physical reality; and dismissive of the known facts and Evolution, which are central to my understanding of reality. *(on the other hand)*

Learning is about providing us with tools and concepts we can work with as building blocks towards further developing our overall conceptions. But Hoffman’s FBT theorem and ITP inspired “conscious agents,” was like a bad practical joke, offering little but frustration, luftgeschäft, irrelevance - no place to go with it once it’s done.

As if on cue, YouTube prompted me with a suggestion that I might like this newly released talk: “The Source of Consciousness - with Dr. Mark Solms” posted March 4th and they weren’t kidding. Dr. Solms provides a way back to the solid ground of physical reality and serious science. …

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No, I didn’t make that statement. That was a quote and you must read it in context.
There are no meta-physics involved in a mathematical function.

2 + 2 = 4 does not require prayer or even a wish. The Universe is an implacable mathematical construct and “everything” has a relational value to the whole and individual values therein. This is nothing spiritual or subjective. This is only Logic.

Burn all science books and rewrite them 150 years later, they will be identical to today’s scientific books. Science does not depend on an Abrahamic belief system. It is falsifiable!

It seems to me that you completely ignore WHY and HOW humans can “relate” to nature and the earth as the “host”. I lived ala Henry Thoreau for 7 years and I can relate to nature, but that is only meaningful to me as an individual.

Mind, I am not discounting your relationship with reality. You are discounting mine… :anguished:

I want to know how evolution via natural selection occurs over time, as that will lead to "understanding " my relationship with nature and how humanity can express itself in great Art as well as display Depths of Depravity.

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**But, it’s not the belief systems I’m discussing -

Look at history, especial age of discovery days, and spice/slave trade, colonalism, imperialism, capitalism battling communism, all of it has unfolded within that Abrahamic mindset.
I am godly, the others must bend themselves to my will,
with fractals and cascading consequences, all over the place.

Now, here we are witnessing our self destruction, although with a little intelligent caring, and less gluttony we could have gone so much further, and dealt with the changes - especially if we’d of had the personal self restraint to force the MACHINE to slow down.

None of it was too difficult to understand, but it meant slowing down, and that was unacceptable.
We, as a collective society, couldn’t see outside of our own bubble. It didn’t matter how much science and knowledge we’re collecting.

When I mention Abrahamic Mindset, I believe you can’t help but think religion,

When I use Abrahamic Mindset, it’s about fundamental attitude - transcending all three religions that have made our modern world of amazing manmade wonder, but also increasing misery. A primary lens, so to speak, through which all is perceived, that’s what I’m talking about.

And once one sees it, man’o man, it permeates today’s society and the history that created us.

What’s important is recognizing that,

Science grew out* of the Christian tradition, with pioneers trying to match science to Biblical teaching, etc. Of course, over time incorporating many different ideas and traditions for other sources as time passed by, still the dominate core made the Bible the final human touchstone with reality during sciences childhood and aspects still haven’t been fully liberated.

Fortunately science outgrew most those shackles, yet we shouldn’t forget the influence and how its echo remains recognizable in a great deal of current philosophizing.

Look at the history of medicine and science, chock full of over simplified, biased as fuk assumptions and conclusions that upon more information have had to be walked back.

See there, a gross misunderstanding of what I said. One more time:

The relationship between you, yourself and the knowledge that you possess.

Though this Freudian error does underscore what I’m claiming - you seem to see no difference between “reality” and “the knowledge” you possess.

.

It’s about self appraisal, not judging anyone.

Besides, perhaps sometimes I may judge some written paragraph, but that is not to be mistaken with judging the person. {Hell, there ain’t no way of even starting to do that until we’re stuck working with each other for a few weeks, anyways. :person_raising_hand:t2:
Or go on a few river trips through Canyon Lands. While some water still remains.} :sleepy:

Okay - what context?

Meta = beyond meta physics, sure sound like math to me.
But a constructive sort of meta-physics. Math represents the Reality. The Map represents the Territory.
In either case, is one like the other?
Is there a difference between your thoughts and the actual territory out there?

And in any event this stuff is ultimately within the realm of our mind/thoughts. Mind candy for those who are blessed with the education and time to spend all day exporting the inside their minds to tease out the possibilities their math provides.

What about the rest of us,
those who don’t have other people taking care of the usual life keeping duties. How does a microtubule and wave collapse, help anyone make a bit more sense out of their lives and how we interact with other humans and the world around us, not to mention that shadow of death lurks out there and waiting for, you?

But that isn’t the challenge!
The challenge is how easily we ignore facts, how easily personal persuasion matters more than learning from our observations.

The challenge is how to wake up people who are totally oblivious to any deeper understanding of Evolution and how our sorry scrawny butts got here, and happily recognizing that the world will keep on going without us.

Learning how to think critically about real world phenomena and ways of life, and plans - now that is the challenge.

The mind human mind, in a state of absolutely self-absorption.

Your response is simply to repeat yourself and your reasons and justification for your love of Math - when I don’t have any issue with math. Your relationship with math, that I’m uncomfortable with, but those are two different matters.

I’m simply pointing out one of the most simple realities of our human condition (as opposed to the condition of any other living creature)

Why not spend some time with something that will blow you away and echo within your real living day to day

Solms deftly demystifies Chalmers’ “Hard Problem” of Consciousness, thus taking the air out of the wavy gravy meta-physical approaches to consciousness that removes it from fundamental evolutionary processes and physical reality as we know it. It’s no wonder Hoffman never mentions Solms name, nor the promise of neuropsychoanalysis.

Among the points that resonated with my own understanding,
was Solms explaining that the way we frame our questions, constrains what they can reveal to us.

Solms explains why studying visual perception and optical illusions offer little for constructively understanding consciousness.
Though he doesn’t explicitly discuss Evolution, Solms does trace the roots of consciousness to within our primal brainstem, what used to be called our ‘reptilian brain.’ This clearly places the development of consciousness way back in the dawn of creature development, with change over time driving creature Evolution, and human consciousness being part of a continuum.

Mark Solms makes consciousness accessible to understanding through the physicalist paradigm by breaking down the problem into the following categories.

The functionalist problem of consciousness
Consciousness is not a cognitive function
Consciousness is an affective function
Affect is a homeostatic function
The function of mechanism of consciousness

Regarding vision studies, from “NERV: Mark Solms - A New Approach to the Hard Problem of Consciousness”:

(1) It is unfortunate that cognitive science took vision as its model example when looking for a ‘neural correlate of consciousness’ because cortical vision (like most cognitive processes) is not intrinsically conscious. There is not necessarily ‘something it is like’ to see.

(2) Affective feeling, by contrast, is conscious by definition. You cannot feel something without feeling it. Moreover, affective feeling, generated in the upper brainstem, is the foundational form of consciousness: prerequisite for all the higher cognitive forms.

(3) The functional mechanism of feeling explains why and how it cannot go on ‘in the dark’, free of any inner feel. Affect enables the organism to monitor deviations from its expected self-states in uncertain situations and thereby frees homeostasis from the limitations of automatism.

To me this is real and useful, even to the informed non-expert, in a way that all this heady math at the very limits of physicality, things that aren’t even provable, but arguable about ad infinitum, if you understand the math.
It does me no good, once I’ve learned the outlines of current insights on microtubules it’s filed away as interesting and I’m content for the scientists to keep working the problem, while I struggle with the things that are more important and within my day to day.exploring

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Yes, but is this different from other definitions of Abrahamic mindset?

I believe I addressed this concept a long time ago and identified the origin of the Abrahamic mindset a long time ago.

The proof is in the observation of an Alpha Chimpanzee who, during a thunder storm, displayed aggressive behavior toward the “unseen powerful beings” in the sky that made loud noises and threw water and fire at him and his family.

Imagination goes back a long way in human history. it started with the first question that asked; “why does this happen to me”?

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But Solms doesn’t go back anywhere near far enough. Proto-consciousness was already present in single-celled organisms, long before reptiles made their appearance.
Bacteria practised quorum sensing and according to Bonnie Bassler may well be the originators of communication via a language.

Quorum sensing in bacteria

M B Miller 1, B L Bassler

Recent advances in the field indicate that cell-cell communication via autoinducers occurs both within and between bacterial species. Furthermore, there is mounting data suggesting that bacterial autoinducers elicit specific responses from host organisms. Although the nature of the chemical signals, the signal relay mechanisms, and the target genes controlled by bacterial quorum sensing systems differ, in every case the ability to communicate with one another allows bacteria to coordinate the gene expression, and therefore the behavior, of the entire community. Presumably, this process bestows upon bacteria some of the qualities of higher organisms. The evolution of quorum sensing systems in bacteria could, therefore, have been one of the early steps in the development of multicellularity.

Solms is completely wrong in these statements.

The functionalist problem of consciousness
Consciousness is not a cognitive function
Consciousness is an affective function
Affect is a homeostatic function
The function of mechanism of consciousness

Homeostasis is a subconscious function.

Regarding vision studies, from “NERV: Mark Solms - A New Approach to the Hard Problem of Consciousness”:

  1. It is unfortunate that cognitive science took vision as its model example when looking for a ‘neural correlate of consciousness’ because cortical vision (like most cognitive processes) is not intrinsically conscious. There is not necessarily ‘something it is like’ to see.

I have never heard that vision was considered a model for consciousness.
It was a model for explaining the evolution of a light sensitive sensitive patch into a complex eye (filled with microtubules)

(2) Affective feeling, by contrast, is conscious by definition. You cannot feel something without feeling it. Moreover, affective feeling, generated in the upper brainstem, is the foundational form of consciousness: prerequisite for all the higher cognitive forms.

I disagree with that . Seth explains that homeostasis is a subconscious control mechanism and that only when something goes wrong is there a conscious awareness of discomfort. Very much like a red warning light in your unconscious car, to warn you that your car is running low on fuel.

(3) The functional mechanism of feeling explains why and how it cannot go on ‘in the dark’, free of any inner feel. Affect enables the organism to monitor deviations from its expected self-states in uncertain situations and thereby frees homeostasis from the limitations of automatism.

But homeostasis is not a conscious process. It is a quasi-intelligent process, but not conscious, and it is autonomous as evidenced when under anesthesia homeostasis continues to function even if the person is “unconscious” and not feeling pain.