Friday, March 16, 2007





Here's an elaboration on the possibility that consciousness emerges at the quantum level, potentially demolishing dreams of uploading minds into a computer substrate.

The argument that consciousness is pervasive and not "merely" a phenomenon confined to one's nervous system appeals to me; somehow, it seems suitably "cosmic" in scope, making us part of something vastly stranger than Newtonian models would lead us to believe.

If valid, I'd suggest that the "ego" as we know it is an evolutionary dead end to be transcended either by physical death or (preferably) access to "psychedelic" technologies.

While some might embrace a quantum mechanical model of consciousness as justification for religious ideology, I suspect a nonlocal state of being could actually prove gravely damaging to conventional expectations of the "afterlife."

(Lead: Mondolithic Sketchbook.)

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Penrose has been hawking this 'theory' for years. Unfortunately it was just a response to a prior assertion that a new type of physics was involved in consciousness.
Rick Grush And Patricia Smith Churchland take the time to address all the poor assumptions this line of thinking is based on. Here is a link to the html version:

http://mind.ucsd.edu/papers/penrose/penrosehtml/penrose-text.html

Secondly and perhaps more importantly even if quantum effects formed the basis of consciousness they would still represent a physical process that could be emulated.
And finally am I the only one who gets annoyed at the use of quantum effects to substitute for magic? If anyone uses the word quantum who is not a physicist I just assume whatever follows is complete bs.
ns

Mac said...

Secondly and perhaps more importantly even if quantum effects formed the basis of consciousness they would still represent a physical process that could be emulated.

I've argued the same point in a previous post about quantum effects in the brain.

Anonymous said...

your link led me to the string theory and the machine they are building in switzerland LHC
lucky visiting You!

Anonymous said...

..and the the very next day i saw exactly the same program in my countrys tv..