Because it's not impossible and it would be a competitive survival advantage. So it must happen. And it explains a lot, like how we can sense and think and act in time frames that would be impossible using the neural-network model. I can accidentally tip a screwdriver off my bench and catch it mid-air, and NOT catch a soldering iron or an x-acto knife. Pretty good for a wet-chemistry computer.
All you need to do to accept the quantum concept is to believe in evolution. A lot of people here don't. They think that nature isn't allowed to use things that they don't approve of.
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John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Photosynthesis is very local - confined within the compass of a few atoms.
Neurones doing information processing have to consider the state of their s tored data - "is this an image of Grandma Moses" - which has to be spread over a lot of atoms to accommodate the wide variety of possible answers.
John Larkin doesn't know enough for that kind of point to occur to him, but he should be able to recognise it when it is pointed out to him (not that he'd admit it).
archers have concluded? If there is a clear advantage, X, then good to stud y that. A single photon going through a double slit will "interfere" with its own alternate and leave an interference pattern.
As it was in photosynthesis. The relevance to the more extended structures that have to involved in what neurones do is less than obvious.
t guy, and many respect you, so it cuts you off from the community to name call. I do this myself, as I am irascible as well. :)
John has been posting half-baked pseudo-science - a lot of it culled from d enialist propaganda - for some years now, and I've been calling him on it f or just as long. That wasn't name-calling, just calling a spade a spade.
?" H. Stapp, a quantum physicist, says in his "Mindful Universe" book that the channel to contain the main neurotransmitter is small enough to have quantum effects.
zzicist, after all. :)
That's not necessarily bad.
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Schroedinger's "What is Life" is credited by both Watson and Crick as putti ng them on the track to identifying DNA as the ROM of the cell. Stapp proba bly isn't in Schroedinger's class.
here is no philosophy of science based on that - Perhaps you mean that no p roductive hypothesis can be built on it that is not better explained by cla ssical physics.
Adequately explained by classical physics. Occam's Razor says that you shou ldn't invoke complications that you don't actually need.
y some quantum properties - perhaps the puzzling problem about how the brai n can produce a coherent experience, given it's self-creation from a Googl e number of possible interconnects...
Sure. But why bother until you've proved that classical physics can't do th e job.
and quantum effects co-exist, according to Darwinian opportunism.
They obviously co-exist - classical chemistry and physics are built on the proposition that everything is built of atoms, whose interactions are deter mined by quantum theory. The point is that it doesn't take many atoms to av erage the quantum content out of the picture.
able theory." The theoreticians modeled the axon as an undersea cable with capacitance, and I believe the theory dates from those times.
Perhaps you haven't checked out the theory recently?
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cites a bunch of recent literature.
d to find out about it yet ...
inated sheaths remains a mystery. If these ions flow, they must flow throug h the axon interior diameter. Where do they enter and leave? The Wikipedia does not explain it, though they have a word for it.
Ion channel. We even know the shape of the protein that surrounds the ion c hannel, and the way it changes shape as the ion is pushed through.
ial transfer issues.
Snort.
stal-to-proximal manner.
Any more than anyone has seen a net transfer of electrons in a copper wire, in a distal-to-proximal manner. Each electron moves at about walking pace, on average, but we can send GHz signals through the wire.
the "mind as a machine" is a myth at this point. I believe it's a pernici ous belief, like socialism. :)
You do have quite a few very silly ideas.
t statements stand or fall based on their confirmation of a hypothesis. This principle of science says nothing about appointing you, with or without a P hD, as an police authority on what may be said or hypothesized. In fact, i t was exactly this attitude that Francis Bacon sought to counter, as he explained in his Novum Organum, ca. 1620.
The "falsifiability" criterion is more recent, from Popper (1902-1994).
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I personally prefer Polanyi (the father).
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I even heard a talk from his son once.
e are the usual exceptions.
The case is far from closed, as there is no microscopic theory of their TRANSMISSION. You seem to be confused between the nodes that generate the potentials via an ion gradient, and their transmission.
You may think so, but you do think a lot of things that turn out to be tota l nonsense.
cting a theory.
It's actually biophysics, as you'd be aware if you knew what you were talki ng about.
I got a small chunk of my electronic education from David Dewhurst when he was a Melbourne
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I wanted to use his PDP-8 computer (which he'd bought in collaboration with the Chemistry Department where I was doing my Ph.D. at the time) and the e lectronics course was one of the obstacles that he put up to discourage fri volous applicants. The course itself was very useful, and I was happy to do it - even though it was totally irrelevant to using the PDP-8, and propaga ted a particularly idiosyncratic kind of transistor symbol that nobody else ever used.
That you can make sense of. Buzz off and learn a bit more.
False logic - as I seem to have pointed out to you before.
By the same logic the information encoded into DNA should be encoded with e xtra check bits to allow the decoding and repair enzymes to do error detect ion and error correction on the data that they read out.
From an evolutionary point of view, we need a certain number of errors in t ranscription to provide the variation that makes evolution work - too many and the species dies out because there are too many miscarriages, too few a nd the species is killed off whjen the environment changes and there's not enough variability within the species to let it adapt to the new environmen t.
With error-detection and -correction, you can tune the error rate independe nt of the error rate in the underlying hardware, which has to be better, ye t we don't do it.
mes that would be impossible using the neural-network model.
Except that we don't.
nd NOT catch a soldering iron or an x-acto knife. Pretty good for a wet-che mistry computer.
on.
And not know much about what evolution has actually done, and failed to do.
Search on the brachial nerve of the giraffe. It's usually used as evidence against intelligent design, but it's also clear evidence that evolution can be pretty slow in getting around to correcting an obvious defect.
hings that they don't approve of.
No. They know that the idea that something is possible - particularly when that idea is held by somebody who knows as little as you do - doesn't const rain what evolution has actually done. Approval doesn't come into it.
By your reasoning the beaver would have invented the chain saw.
That is what massive parallelism in hardware can give you even at a low frequency per element. Interpreting what the eyes see absorbs enormous amounts of compute power and the abstract reasoning layer is by comparison a modest undertaking but critical to being human.
You can't do much about human reaction time though - even the best trained observers have a personal equation in the region of 100ms but with a smaller variance than untrained ones.
Rubbish. Just because something might be better doesn't mean it occurs in nature. The design of the human eye is flawed for example.
The critical question is actually do we need to invoke quantum mechanics to explain the observations to date. The answer is that in certain energy transport mechanisms and photosynthesis we do, but only on scales of individual specialised proteins in certain organelles. Quantum effects are also probably also relevant to DNA/RNA transcription and protein synthesis and folding.
Quantum effects on bacteria are limited to jostling them about a bit as individual particles hit them observed as Brownian motion (no relation).
A neuron is far too big to be a quantum computer at least under the present meaning of the word. Also if we were based on quantum computers we would be able to factorise arbitrary length prime numbers by mental arithmetic which tends to suggest that we are not so equipped.
I am not denying it's possibility. What I am saying is that there is nothing in what has been observed about the way the brain works so far to require us to invoke quantum magical handwaving explanations.
There as good reasons based on the ambient temperature and size of the cells involved to believe that the entire thing is electrochemical in nature with quantum mechanics merely optimising its energy consumption by minimising losses at the lowest molecular level.
The sheer network complexity is almost certainly sufficient. The challenge for computer scientists is to build a fully working model sufficiently close to the actuality to work about the same.
It isn't science until it has been demonstrated to predict something useful and correct that no other theory can explain. You can't just invent your own "cargo cult" fantasy science and then demand that it be placed on an equal footing with established theories.
And there is nothing that explains how the brain does work. The neural net model is silly.
Photosynthesis uses quantum effects and works at pretty high temperatures.
But too slow.
The
I'm not demanding anything. I just suspect that the way we think, and especially the way we create things, is a really good fit to a quantum-supersition machine.
--
John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Critters evolved from one cell to humans, who do make and use chain saws. That's called "evolution." But some critters are still single-cell, and doing fine without cell phones.
My world view assumes that wonderful things remain to be discovered. Sounds like yours doesn't.
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John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Interesting contrast there. Creation does involve some supersition, some temporary suspension of pedestrian belief. Being that this is an electronic design group, I'm interested in where ideas come from, and what I can to to encourage them. A quantum-computing model, as an assumption/attitude seems to work pretty well.
Jim Williams' two analog design books, the collections of essays, talk a lot about the creative design process, where do little circuits come from. Practically no other writing does.
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John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
ious brain with astonishing memory and computational abilities, with the ab ility to do abstract math and write novels and design electronics, which ev olution never prepared us for. With wet chemistry as the compute elements a nd soggy ion channels as the transmission lines. THAT requires some extraor dinary explanations, none of which come close so far.
handwaving "its all magic incomprehensible quantum mechanics".
nothing in what has been observed about the way the brain works so far to require us to invoke quantum magical handwaving explanations.
t model is silly.
John Larkin isn't great at understanding scientific explanations. The scien tific case for anthropogenic global warming also strikes him as silly, and he's written off fairly basic concepts - like "pressure broadening" of gas- phase infra-red absorbtion lines - as "insane".
cells involved to believe that the entire thing is electrochemical in nature with quantum mechanics merely optimising its energy consumption by minimising losses at the lowest molecular level.
temperatures.
Sometimes used quantum effects in a very tightly confined space - essential ly a few transition metals atoms in close contact.
Since John Larkin hasn't got a clue how the nervous system works, his impre ssion that non-quantum solutions won't hack it isn't worthy of attention.
sufficiently close to the actuality to work about the same.
ie
useful and correct that no other theory can explain. You can't just invent your own "cargo cult" fantasy science and then demand that it be placed on an equal footing with established theories.
especially the way we create things, is a really good fit to a quantum-supe rsition machine.
And that anthropogenic global warming will actually be good for us if it is really happening ...
Not exactly. His is more along the lines that lists of wonderful things wai ting to be discovered aren't actually all that interesting in themselves, a nd even less interesting when they are being generated by people who don't have clue what they are talking about.
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Bill Sloman, Sydney
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especially the way we create things, is a really good fit to a quantum-supe rsition machine.
some temporary suspension of pedestrian belief.
Superstition involves believing in something that doesn't happen to exist. Creation involves coming up with something that hadn't existed before. One way of doing that is making a novel mistake and recognising the new mistake n idea is actually useful.
Superstition is essentially persisting with old mistaken ideas, long after they've been shown to be less than useful.
eas come from, and what I can to to encourage them. A quantum-computing mod el, as an assumption/attitude seems to work pretty well.
To predict what?
lot about the creative design process, where do little circuits come from. Practically no other writing does.
His version of the Baxandall Class-D oscillator, which shows up in his most successful series of application notes - AN45, AN49, AN51, AN55, AN61, AN6
5 - though never under that name, reputedly came from England, where the ci rcuit was known to quite a few circuit designers at the time. He doesn't se em to talk about that aspect of the creative design process - he may have f orgotten where the basic idea came from, which has happened to me at least once.
He still has to explain how if we are a quantum computer brain we cannot instinctively factor large prime numbers in mental arithmetic - something which is basically trivial on any serious quantum computer with a decent number of qubits available.
He might benefit from looking at the Scientific American article whose infographic is already out of date (and cat's brain is missing LEDs) but shows the raw compute power and storage capacity of various computers and animals.
For the right problems the supercomputers have already won, but for general pattern matching and inference the human brain still has the edge by a long way. That is why Capcha still works (for now) and they still farm out looking for galactic oddities to human volunteers.
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What quantum effects are used in the human brain explain the huge differences in power consumption between a brain and a computer. (brain is roughly 5 orders of magnitude more efficient)
OK - One psychic event was card guessing under JB Rhine at Duke University many decades ago. A gifted guessor could beat odds by billions to one. For more recent statistical work, look at Dean Radin's books. The SRI remote vi ewing another, Puthoff and Targ in IEEE fournal, Nature.
Darwinian opportunism is the use of various means by an organism to increas e it's reproductive fitness. (eg number of offspring produced according to reproduction.) In the present context, it refers to (possible) quantum effe cts being used by low light algae to survive in a niche. In other words, if classical physics works best for an organism, it will use that. If QM is needed, it may use that.
Darwinian theory is very agnostic as to means, BUT organisms can be "locked into" certain approaches by their genetic context developed in the past. Se e RL Fisher, British evolutionary geneticist. So, if an organism has evolved a system which uses classical physics, it may not be able to switch to QM. We think of QM as a "higher" form of Physics because it explains more, but it does not run the world.
It's a very interesting issue in evolutionary theory, actually. It could be that there is a more efficient form of photosynthesis, for instance, but th e current system was more "obvious" to the structural developent process (ie evolution of structure), so photosynthesis "locked into" the current system of thylakoids, chlorophyll, etc. Evolution cannot easily "back up." This is because a disruptive system would have to re-do too much to displace the current niche occupiers.
many decades ago. A gifted guessor could beat odds by billions to one. For more recent statistical work, look at Dean Radin's books. The SRI remote viewing another, Puthoff and Targ in IEEE fournal, Nature.
Oh, and the evolutionary geneticist s RA Fisher, not RL.
XXXX And recall, I was trying to be clear, that only one unexplainable even is enough to dislodge the classical view of "mind as machine." I am pretty satisfied about the solidity of the events, BUT, BUT, I submit that the events need NOT be even beyond reproach, because even "resonable doubt" is enough to justify further research.
For instance, physicists knew about various phenomema that were later explained by relativity (planet's motions) and quantum mechanics (problems with black body spectrum.) These little disparaties justified further invesyigation.
YET, there is big tendency to dismiss things which don't fit the current world-view. A classical example of this is that it was thought for a century there were 46 human chromosomes. Then in 1949, a microscopist said, "You are all wrong, I count 48!" They had been parroting each other a long time. (dont hold me to numbers.)
A famous book, Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," lays all this out in detail.
As for the creation process, I agree about the suspension of belief. The philosophies of India have a lot to say about this process. The core of Buddhism and later (mystical) Hinduism is that the human mind "gets attached" to certain patterns of thought. This attachment causes us to become identified with a certain mental pattern and to get lost in the world. Although creativity is not the goal of these spiritual systems, the rigidity of thought of an uncreative person is explained this way.
The importance of human values is they provide a hidden context for what we do and think.
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