Study Favors Q-Mind - Support for quantum consciousness?

[DiracPool]

Any theory of consciousness will eventually encounter the 'hard problem', however it is not the only motivation. From what I've read the rationale for a quantum description is to address the following:

IMO, the rationale for a quantum description leads largely from the “Law of the minimization of mystery” phenomenon I alluded to in an earlier post. Of course, at the end of the day, we’d all like to have both a classical description of what consciousness is as well as a quantum description, along with a satisfying “correspondence principle” to bridge the two. However, I don’t think we’re ready for a quantum model of consciousness just yet. Why? Because we don’t have a well agreed upon model of how cognition and phenomena such as “self” and “agency” are created in the human brain and whether or not any sort of homologue of these experiential phenomena exist in nonhuman species. Until we have better handle on that from a classical perspective, what insight can we hope to gain from a quantum description of the same enigma?

Of course the natural follow up question is, what is meant by cognitive function? Single cell slime mold can use tendrils composed of bundles of microtubules to forming patterns which, seek food, and solve problems such as escaping a maze (Adamatzky 2012). This relates to point 6) brought up in the previous post of the reason for looking at subneural processes as the rudiments of consciousness/cognitive processing.

If each neuron possesses highly integrated subneural components, and these neurons are highly integrated to form the brain, all this means is that the brain, cognition and consciousness, are way more complex than previously surmised. Would a single cell be as conscious as a human? No. But rudimentary cognition in single cells may provide the basis.

I personally think there is significant, qualitative difference between human consciousness and nonhuman consciousness and that trying to define consciousness as a sort of unified phenomenon common to all animal species with a nervous system that arises from some sort of ill-defined “quantum coherence” is really missing the point. The place to start is in 1) studying the evolutionary functional neuroanatomy of vertebrates in particular, 2) develop a classical model of the differences in brain function and it’s relation to cognitive function across genera, and only then 3) look to how quantum processes may yield additional insight into the discussion of what conscious experience is from a biophysical perspective.

3) What is the critical level of complexity required by a system to have consciousness. (This may be a spectrum, and I think this is what is attempted by Tononi's IIT, however the question of scale, and the enhancement of IIT by subneural components remains open).

I would be very surprised if there was a link between the level of complexity or "information integration" of a system and whether it is conscious or not, much less there being a defined threshold for such. IMO, that is a non-instructive path to understanding how conscious experience evolved in the human brain.

 

[Pythagorean]

IMO, the rationale for a quantum description leads largely from the “Law of the minimization of mystery” phenomenon I alluded to in an earlier post. Of course, at the end of the day, we’d all like to have both a classical description of what consciousness is as well as a quantum description, along with a satisfying “correspondence principle” to bridge the two. However, I don’t think we’re ready for a quantum model of consciousness just yet. Why? Because we don’t have a well agreed upon model of how cognition and phenomena such as “self” and “agency” are created in the human brain and whether or not any sort of homologue of these experiential phenomena exist in nonhuman species. Until we have better handle on that from a classical perspective, what insight can we hope to gain from a quantum description of the same enigma?
I personally think there is significant, qualitative difference between human consciousness and nonhuman consciousness and that trying to define consciousness as a sort of unified phenomenon common to all animal species with a nervous system that arises from some sort of ill-defined “quantum coherence” is really missing the point. The place to start is in 1) studying the evolutionary functional neuroanatomy of vertebrates in particular, 2) develop a classical model of the differences in brain function and it’s relation to cognitive function across genera, and only then 3) look to how quantum processes may yield additional insight into the discussion of what conscious experience is from a biophysical perspective.
I would be very surprised if there was a link between the level of complexity or "information integration" of a system and whether it is conscious or not, much less there being a defined threshold for such. IMO, that is a non-instructive path to understanding how conscious experience evolved in the human brain.

I mostly agree. Particularly that consciousness probably emerges differently in different organisms. Since we find neural correlates of particular aspects of consciousness across all humans, but only some of the homologous brain structures (with similar function) in other animals, we can only assume that other animals have a different kind of consciousness and that some don't seem to have any of the neural equipment associated with consciousness.

I do think there's a benefit to having a score and a threshold. Similar to a medical diagnosis, the score isn't a definitive test and is only a tool to help troubleshoot consciousness, but it can help researchers (or medical professionals) investigate if the scoring is shown to have validity in a roc curve.