(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

My mind keeps coming back to the "Big Wow" Hypothesis put forward by Paola Zizzi. It follows from the "orchestrated objective reduction" quantum consciousness hypothesis put forward by Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose. Stated technically, the abstract of this idea is as follows:

...[D]uring inflation [the period just after the Big Bang when the spacetime continuum expanded rapidly], the universe can be described as a superposed state of quantum registers. The self-reduction of the superposed quantum state is consistent with the Penrose's Objective Reduction (OR) model. The quantum gravity threshold is reached at the end of inflation, and corresponds to a superposed state of 10^9 quantum registers. This is also the number of superposed tubulins-qubits in our brain, which undergo the Penrose-Hameroff's Orchestrated Objective Reduction, (Orch OR), leading to a conscious event. Then, an analogy naturally arises between the very early quantum computing universe, and our mind.

Paraphrased, it is proposed that (a) proto-consciousness is a natural quality of existence, (b) conscious awareness arises from self-orchestrating quantum events in the brain, and (c) the universe, during the period of inflation shortly after the Big Bang, experienced a moment of conscious awareness that is analogous to the conscious awareness that we as human beings experience.

There is a certain "neatness" in this. If there is any truth to this at all, what are the theological, cosmological, and anthropological (using the term in its theological sense) implications?

Addendum. It is suggested that the law of entropy may not necessarily apply on microcosmic scales. Evidence of this sort would seem to bolster the idea that conscious awareness and perhaps even volition have their roots in quantum-level an-entropy. Stuart Hameroff has proposed a testable hypothesis he has called "quantum vitalism" that suggests that life is a special kind of quantum superconduction. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Schwartz and Harry Stapp have proposed the concept of "mental force" to explain a way volition (or free will) may be reconciled with materialism.

crossposting to religiousdebate.

Comments

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Dennett doesn't have me convinced either, although he's still a fruitful read.

There are definitely qualia centers in the brain, in the sense of areas which generate a sort of "screenplay" of experience. The difficulty seems to be in how they become unitary; how the become invested with self, intention, or whatever special features you believe consciousness is necessarily invested in; and why they're around in the first place (ie. why we weren't zombies).

Neurosci and psychology are still far from decent explanations, but I tend to bias research in their favor. Firstly, there's simply been more people working harder and longer in neurosci and psychology on consciousness and related issues. In neurosci and psychology we don't need "the answer" immediately, but can conduct alot of important research right now relating to isolated features of consciousness; in this way progressing gradually towards an answer, rather than relying on metatheory (the former being more amicable to a scientific approach anyway). Secondly, I give them a sort of primacy rather than equivalency with alternative approaches: I demand that physics findings on consciousness accord with psychological findings, and favor the latter when there is a dispute (simply because psych is a more immediate measure of consciousness than physics is).

The neurosci research I alluded to is basically as follows: we can follow, for instance the visual pathways in the brain, and determine at any given "level" which neurons are correlated with conscious experience and which are not. Any proposed mechanism for consciousnes (eg. some function of microtubules, quantum or otherwise) should be expected to correlate to this "map" of consciousness in the brain - that is, we should expect to find whatever feature that generates consciousness in the consciousness-generating neurons and not in the not-consciousness-generating neurons. Otherwise, there's no link between the proposed mechanism and the actual generation of consciousness.

As far as physics-inspired approaches to consciousness goes, although I find Orch OR fascinating, I'm much more favorable to the models put forth by David Bohm. Admittedly, this pegs me as a bit of a flake. But I got over that long ago.