[ExI] Destructive uploading.

[john clark]

On Mon, 9/12/11, The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:
 "You can know all about the wavefunction but only by statistically "feeling it out". You can't actually observe it directly." 
That's true, you can use the quantum wave function for calculation and do so precisely and deterministically, but you can not observe them directly, which makes them about as real as the lines of longitude and latitude. And you can know exactly where those lines are, but not where a ship is.   "Both electrons and the mind have wavelike properties. For example alpha waves, beta waves, delta waves, and brain waves as measured by ECG etc."
Mind does not have wavelike properties the brain does, as does any object that operates on electrical, chemical, or electro-chemical processes. My cell phone produces much more powerful waves than my brain does but I find no great significance in that fact. 

   "Many biological processes utilize the quantum behavior of biological chemicals to maximize efficiency especially those involving electron transfer." 
Quantum mechanics is behind not just the chemistry of the brain but the chemistry of anything, quantum mechanics is also the reason that semiconductors in computers behave the way they do. So the parts of both the brain and computers operate on quantum mechanical principles, however it you looked at either at the level of logic and made a flowchart about what is going on you would not have to invoke quantum mechanics. That's why most brain surgeons, computer programers, and psychiatrists know little about quantum mechanics, they can do their job without it. Although if quantum computers ever become practical programers will need to go back to school.
   "Quantum particles like electrons are smeared out over space in orbitals. Similarly the mind is delocalized around the brain and to a more limited extent around the body." 
The brain has a location but I think the location of a mind means about as much as the location of the number 42.
   "Both QM and mind share a property similar to superposition. When a mind is superpositioned between two or more possible outcomes, it is indecisive or sitting on the fence."
You haven't made up your mind yet, you don't know what the results of your calculation will be until you've finished the calculation; I don't see why you need to drag quantum mechanics into this simple everyday observation. 
    "what did you drink when last at a restaurant? Cofee, Tea, Bloody Mary, or whatever? Before you decided, your mind was like your future self where all the possible outcomes were superpositioned on top of one another and weighted by preference."
Of my own free will, I consciously decide to go to a restaurant. 
Why? 
Because I want  to. 
Why ? 
Because I want to eat. 
Why? 
Because I'm hungry? 
Why ?
Because lack of food triggered nerve impulses in my stomach, my brain interpreted these signals as pain, I can only stand so much pain before I try to stop it. 
Why? 
Because I don't like pain.
Why? 
Because that's the way my brain is constructed. 
Why?
Because my body  and the hardware of my brain were made from the information in my genetic code  (lets see, 6 billion base pairs, 2 bits per base pair, 8 bits per byte, that comes out to about 1.5 gigabytes)  the programming of my brain came from the environment, add a little quantum randomness if you like and of my own free will I consciously decide to go to a restaurant.
   "In the quantum vacuum due to the Energy-Time Uncertainty Principle, particles can pop into and out of existence on "borrowed energy". This has parallels in the mind as well: Thoughts. Thoughts can pop into existence out of nowhere and fleetingly vanish unless written down." 
You can make analogies of this sort between almost anything and I don't think they mean much of anything; fire can pop into existence apparently out of nowhere and vanish just as mysteriously, so can internet companies and junk bonds.
 
   "Both QM "observables" and mind, even in controlled circumstances, cannot be deterministically predicted"

A mind could not always predict his own behavior even in controlled circumstances, but there is no reason another mind could not provided it didn't tell the first mind what that prediction is, unless of course the first mind did things for no reason, but I very much doubt that randomness is the key to mind.
 
 "In QM there is a lowest possible energy for any system. There also seems to be a minimum amount of activity for a brain to have in order to be conscious."

Everything, quantum mechanical or otherwise, has a lowest possible energy level, and it always tries to reach that low level. I don't see how that is relevant. 
   "you don't know how many dimensions mind has. if not every dimension is accounted for, then it is not really a duplicate"I don't know what that means.
    "I am not certain I would trust it to "feel" at all." 
I'm far more interested in how it behaves because to that I can apply the scientific method.
   "A simulation of a brain without simulated gonads would probably feel quite different than the original brain did."
Obviously, but if we can handle the brain we can handle the gonads. I probably should have rephrased that. 
   "How has Watson made a dent in the hard problem of consciousness?"
 You mean the fuzzy ill-defined unobservable dead end problem of consciousness? To hell with consciousness! Consciousness theories are not interesting because they're too easy to come up with, any consciousness theory will do because they don't have to actually do anything. On the other hand intelligence theories are hard as hell to find because they have to do a lot. And Watson acts smart, maybe not as smart as a human but pretty damn smart, I'll take that over yet another theory from the consciousness hard problem factory any day. 
    "You have photoreceptor proteins expressed deep inside your brain tissue."
Yes, the gene for the photoreceptor protein OPN3 is expressed throughout the brain, its strongly expressed in the retina obviously, and the retina is often considered part of the brain so that may be part of the reason its there; but it's also strongly expressed in the testicles but not in the liver, and frankly I don't quite know what to make of that.

  John K Clark   







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