User talk:24.192.195.236

Basically 'cause it's bollocks. Scream!! (talk) 22:12, 28 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Yeah, no. That's not going to work. Give a better argument. 24.192.195.236 (talk) 22:14, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Seems to work. Your words vanish when I hit "Rollback". Scream!! (talk) 22:21, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * You're not getting my point. I don't care if you can magically hit Rollback and make it all go away. You are being intellectually dishonest by deleting these modifications without providing a reason, and are only making a total ass out of yourself. Unblock the post and revert the edits. 24.192.195.236 (talk) 02:38, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * - David Gerard (talk) 18:10, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Hehe... Well, I'd say the arguments against Quantum Mind are more style over substance... 24.192.195.236 (talk) 19:59, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Quantum consciousness - summation
I appreciate that you're a student and you're trying to learn. That said, I don't mean to be patronizing about this, but your knowledge of fundamental quantum mechanics is simply not suitable for backing up the claims you're making. You're citing a few papers that are widely criticized by the scientific community, and that don't even make the conclusions you're drawing from them. If you're legitimately interested in investigating this stuff, I recommend you first check out this text by David Griffiths: http://www.amazon.ca/Introduction-Quantum-Mechanics-2nd-Edition/dp/0131118927, and this text by Leslie Ballentine: http://www.amazon.ca/Quantum-Mechanics-A-Modern-Development/dp/9810241054. Do keep in mind that a sound knowledge of linear algebra and calculus is a pre-requisite for understanding both texts. - GrantC (talk) 18:48, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Er... I'm sorry, but that can't sound like anything except patronizing. I'll look at them, though (Johanan has referred to the Griffiths book elsewhere...). What are the criticisms you're speaking of? I tried looking for the criticisms, but if you could show me some more, I'd appreciate it. I was under the impression that their "assumptions" were sound and scientifically credible. The only "assumption" I found was that Gamma Synchrony is the best-known neural correlate of consciousness. The only criticism I found was that GS can also be unconscious. But there are certain properties of the GS associated with consciousness that make it different from other forms of GS. 24.192.195.236 (talk) 21:36, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * What do you expect me to say? You tell me you're a layman, and then launch into a discussion on a topic rooted in one of the most complicated disciplines in physics. The six years I spent studying and researching in this field leaves me a bit doubtful that you're actually able to properly read, digest, and critique the information you're giving me. - GrantC (talk) 00:36, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I will also point out that I do enjoy healthy discussion on the topic, but your entire argument is flawed. In this case, you can't just grab a bunch of points from disparate sources, throw them all together, and say, "aha, it works"! Some of your sources contradict each other, and some of the points you've made as a result are mutually exclusive. As well, you neglect to factor in the assumptions and presuppositions made by each of these papers, and then when it comes time to draw conclusions, the closest you come to bridging the gap between the physics and the philosophy is some nebulous hand-waving that amounts to saying your conclusion isn't impossible. Many (most) things are not impossible, but that does not make them valid. It is the responsibility of the people making these studies to fill in the gaps, not for the people criticizing them to prove that the gaps can't be filled. Until these (ridiculously large) gaps are filled, this is just not valid science, period. - GrantC (talk) 19:14, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm hardly doing the hand-waving here. Look, I know that the sources I cite don't agree with each other on everything. Most of this evidence is new and its implications are still being sorted out. That's not the point. It's what they DO agree on that matters. I'm not "grabbing stuff together". The sources I listed were relevant to each other (the Freeman-Vitiello paper has been cited by Hameroff as evidence, for example). Faber et al. showed that microtubules act as information processors, but remained open-minded as to whether or not they were QM-related. I was then trying to show you that they have properties indicating that they are quantum. 24.192.195.236 (talk) 21:36, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * It's not just that the sources you cite don't agree; it's that the sources you're citing use entirely different models! Faber et al. used a particular model to find that microtubules act as information processors, and the other sources you provide use different models to find and show quantum properties. Different models can be entirely incompatible, and so combining evidence from multiple sources is just not valid when it comes to theoretical predictions like that. The video you provided is still entirely unconvincing with regards to the idea that the topological qubits really do exist (until that work is replicated by a source already not in favour of quantum consciousness, that won't change). Otherwise, how do I know that the data isn't fabricated? I don't. The big issue with fringe science is that there's no way to determine whether data has been falsified because it's the same small group of people running the experiments. - GrantC (talk) 00:36, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Er... I'm pretty sure you can use different methods to arrive at conclusions that reinforce each other. The Faber et al. paper even says it reinforces the conclusions of Stuart Hameroff's team! And this work is hardly "fringe" in the way that pseudoscientific things normally are. From the conclusion: "This work confirms the results of Hagan et al. (2002), Hameroff and Penrose (1996), Hameroff et al. (1998), Jibu et al. (1994), Rosa and Faber (2004) and Tuszy´nski et al. (1997, 1998, 1995) which consider microtubules as a classical subneuronal information processor. Using information theory, we calculate the information capacity of the MTs, and using the models of Hagan et al. (2002), Hameroff and Penrose (1996), Hameroff et al. (1998), Jibu et al. (1994), Rosa and Faber (2004), Tuszy´nski et al. (1997, 1998, 1995) we estimate that the favorable conditions for storage and information processing are found at temperatures close to the human body." It then goes on to say, "However, some points still need further investigations. To mention at least two: (1) the direction of the propagation of the information under the influence of the environment is an interesting point to be analyzed, (2) according to (Hagan et al., 2002; Hameroff and Penrose, 1996; Hameroff et al., 1998; Jibu et al., 1994; Rosa and Faber, 2004) there is some water ordination inside MTs which could increase the quantum processes in MTs. These points deserve to be analyzed using the information theory point of view." What they seem to be saying is that these results reinforce that microtubules are computers. Whether or not they are quantum is another question. This is why I showed you Bandyopadhyay's work. And where did you get the impression that most of this is "fringe" science? Hameroff's work is hardly fringe. It's being published in decent journals. His team members are respected in the field. Sahu et al.'s work has also been published in respected journals. Two of the papers of the series are currently online. 24.192.195.236 (talk) 12:16, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Publication in respected journals does not require the work to be mainstream. The actual peer review happens after publication, when other scientists in the field are given free reign to test these predictions. The fact is that respected researchers in quantum information are not touching this stuff with a ten foot pole. Hameroff may well be respected, but not in quantum information. You make the mistake of assuming that classical computation + qubits = quantum computation. What I'm trying to point out to you is that this is a completely wrong assumption, and it's not a valid jump. Evidence needs to be presented showing that it is, and evidence needs to be presented showing that consciousness can actually be modelled by real quantum processes, not the toy examples you've provided so far (which are rife with significant oversimplifications and approximations). - GrantC (talk) 16:34, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's not my argument. I was going for, "computing action + quantum action during computation = quantum computation". It wasn't as stupid as that. And I maintained from the start that if they acted as computers (non-specific!) but were also quantum-mechanical (especially while they were computing, as Bandyopadhyay points out), then they were quantum computers. This is what I meant by strawmanning. I didn't say that your wanting to avoid the discussion was strawmanning. That, again, is a straw-man! In response to the "simplification" claim, the classical-physics models of cognition are also "approximations and oversimplifications" in their own way. Again, if you don't tell me why quantum cognition is "just an approximation", I have nothing to go on. 24.192.195.236 (talk) 19:21, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Misunderstanding what you meant by strawmanning is not a strawman. What I'm saying is that "computing action + quantum action during computation != quantum computation" in the definition used by quantum information theorists. D-Wave's device is an example of a computer that uses classical computation with a quantum mechanical trick to drastically improve performance. Quantum computation is an entirely different model of computation, complete with its own (separate) complexity theory. It also requires that all processing be quantum mechanical, with (perhaps) the exception of memory storage, though it's currently uncertain how one would combine classical memory storage with quantum processing. Given this rigorous definition of quantum computation, the evidence you have provided doesn't actually add up.
 * As to why quantum cognition is "just an approximation", there is currently no known way to model open systems in quantum mechanics, at least not in general. Some simplistic systems can be modelled effectively, but the vast majority cannot, and even a slight amount of complexity throws even that out of the window. Consciousness is definitely an open system, as it can indeed be affected by its environment. The papers you cited make use of basic quantum measurement results without any mention of why they should be valid. What measurement operators are being used to generate these probability distributions? The papers also speak of time evolution. To know the true time evolution of a system requires integrating and exponentiating its Hamiltonian, which in this case we don't even know! How is that propagator being generated if we can't find it analytically? The papers don't make their assumptions and approximations evident, but it's clear that at the very least, they're either assuming Markovianity or finding some other mechanism to handwave away the correlation time of the system-environment interaction term. - GrantC (talk) 19:39, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm done here
I just checked up your contributions to the Wikipedia talk page for microtubules. It's not clear that I'm repeating the same information you've been told many times before. Again, you admit to being a layman, and yet continue to try to pass off undeveloped and even refuted fringe science without any regard for what the scientific method actually entails. I was willing to have this conversation when I thought you were discussing this in good faith, but now it is apparent that you are not. - GrantC (talk) 00:58, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * It's not "refuted" and most of the sources I gave you are not fringe. I'm still trying to have this discussion with you in good faith. Stop strawmanning. 24.192.195.236 (talk) 11:44, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * You know, you might find Citizendium a more welcoming Wiki for this stuff. They already have an Orch-OR page and tend to be pretty credulous when it comes to fringe science.  You'll also likely be able to edit without much trouble from other editors.  You and Raatz can just go to town on as many quantum consciousness pages as are needed to hold your voluminous insights. --MarkGall (talk) 12:43, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with Mark. I don't think you know what strawmanning actually is. Refusing to continue in conversation because I believe you're acting in bad faith is certainly not strawmanning. That said, your sources 'are' fringe. None of them are respected in quantum information research, and given that you're trying to compare the brain to a quantum computer, I think that's an important point. Nobody in quantum information takes this stuff seriously, and if that WP talk page is anything to go by, neither do the serious players in neurobiology. Have fun at CZ. - GrantC (talk) 15:03, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I guess I'll let these comments speak for themselves. 24.192.195.236 (talk) 19:22, 9 September 2013 (UTC)