Connectionists: Physics and Psychology (and the C-word)

[Kaare Mikkelsen]

Speaking as another physicist trying to bridge the gap between physics and
neuroscience I must also say that how the most abstract ideas from quantum
mechanics could meaningfully (read: scientifically) be applied to
macroscopic neuroscience, given our present level of understanding of
either field, is beyond me. To me, it is at the point where the connection
is impossible to prove or disprove, but seems very unlikely. I do not see
how valid scientific results can come in that direction, seeing as there is
no theory, no reasonable path towards a theory, and absolutely no way of
measuring anything.

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Kaare Mikkelsen, M. Sc.
Institut for Fysik og Astronomi
Ny Munkegade 120
8000
Aarhus C
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On 28 January 2014 15:32, Richard Loosemore <rloosemore at susaro.com> wrote:

> On 1/27/14, 11:30 PM, Brian J Mingus wrote:
>
>> Consciousness is also such a bag of worms that we can't rule out that
>> qualia owes its totally non-obvious and a priori unpredicted existence to
>> concepts derived from quantum mechanics, such as nested observers, or
>> entanglement.
>>
>> As far as I know, my litmus test for a model is the only way to tell
>> whether low-level quantum effects are required: if the model, which has not
>> been exposed to a corpus containing consciousness philosophy, then goes on
>> to independently recreate consciousness philosophy, despite the fact that
>> it is composed of (for example) point neurons, then we can be sure that
>> low-level quantum mechanical details are not important.
>>
>> Note, however, that such a model might still rely on nested observers or
>> entanglement. I'll let a quantum physicist chime in on that - although I
>> will note that according to news articles I've read that we keep managing
>> to entangle larger and larger objects - up to the size of molecules at this
>> time, IIRC.
>>
>>
>> Brian Mingus
>> http://grey.colorado.edu/mingus
>>
>>  Speaking as someone is both a physicist and a cognitive scientist, AND
> someone who has written papers resolving that whole C-word issue, I can
> tell you that the quantum story isn't nearly enough clear in the minds of
> physicists, yet, so how it can be applied to the C question is beyond me.
>  Frankly, it does NOT apply:  saying anything about observers and
> entanglement does not at any point touch the kind of statements that
> involve talk about qualia etc.   So let's let that sleeping dog lie.... (?).
>
> As for using the methods/standards of physics over here in cog sci ..... I
> think it best to listen to George Bernard Shaw on this one:  "Never do unto
> others as you would they do unto you:  their tastes may not be the same."
>
> Our tastes (requirements/constraints/issues) are quite different, so what
> happens elsewhere cannot be directly, slavishly imported.
>
>
> Richard Loosemore
>
> Wells College
> Aurora NY
> USA
>
>
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