[ExI] intelligence, coherence, the frontal lobe, quantum evolution

Will Steinberg steinberg.will at gmail.com
Sat Feb 27 00:24:31 UTC 2010


http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.5108

Someone posted that a few weeks ago, quantum mechanics in photosynthesis.

This opens the door for what should be apparent anyway--that systems in
organisms can make use of quantum effects.  Not a surprise, given that an
organism's success is based on an ability to work efficiently in the realm
of reality.  Making use of widespread physical systems (properties of water,
charge gradients, etc.) is the key to survival.  Chance can only ever mutate
systems within the bounds of physical reality, so success is working the
best with what's been given.

Intelligence can broadly be viewed as a better ability to predict success or
failure.  Intelligent people can solve math problems more easily, because
their notions towards what direction to proceed to in solving the problems
are more honed.  By choosing many correct steps in succession, the problem
is solved.  The same goes for social situations, where the socially
intelligent can make choices that will benefit themselves.  Better
predictive analysis leads to a higher chance of actions working.  The dual
parts of intellect are composed of the speed with which these problems are
solved and the actual ability to conceive of the steps involved.

There are many species who can perform experimentation yet do not seem by
any mean intelligent.  Flies can remember that a source causes damage by
testing it once.  This experimentation seems to have arisen well before
classically intelligent systems.  Many, many animals can exhibit learned
behaviors by this method.  This is correlated to the ability to store a
specific state of being (smelling x, seeying y) in reference to taxes.  If
something was "bad," exhibit negative taxis wrt the source; if good,
positive.  Perhaps this lies in the hippocampus and homologous structures,
found across the animal kingdom.

But intelligent creatures are able to make decisions without having directly
experienced them.  Instead of learning only inputs and outputs, an
intelligent creature can create general rules and somehow apply them to find
efficient solutions.   This suggests that something more than mere i/o is
occurring.  Prefrontal cortex activity is strongly associated with decision
making.  Maybe, through advanced neocortical sensory methods (more
information,) advanced hippocampal memory methods (efficient storage of such
information,) and the ability of the frontal lobe to infer general rules
from these baser concepts, animals with highly evolved portions of all three
or similar structures to them have advanced intellect.   I cannot think
right now of how exactly rules are learned--how by testing a few similar
situations, the function relating them can be culled.  But even without a
method of acquiring them, I think it can be agreed upon that intelligent
creatures take advantage of "knowing the rules," with *conscious* creatures
even being able to state their knowledge of these rules (a human can state
the rule: "saying please and thank you is beneficial in social situations.")
 Frontal lobe/prefrontal cortex damage causes loss of sociability and fluid
intelligence--forgetting the rules of spontaneous decision making.

Testing outcomes of rules would be akin to solving problems by brute force.
 When you try and think of a solution to something spur-of-the-moment, you
don't generally go "Well, this would work a little, so I'll alter this part
a bit, and then it would work a bit better, and then I'll change this part,
and--oh, no, that one was no good.  Better try a different one."  Simple
observation of our own thoughts shows that intelligent intuition is largely
a quick, seemingly one-and-done process.

Quantum effects fit in nicely.  Plants use coherence to find the most
efficient path for energy.  With evidence that coherence is a property that
can certainly be harnessed, we can perhaps give it greater weight in
consideration for other biologies.  Now consider the frontal lobe as an
organized system of these rules, which have been formed meta-algorithmically
from starting information based on actions.   The brain uses
electron-delocalized neural pathways and exhibits coherence across them,
effectively sending impulses through multiple orders of rule choices at
once.  When pathways coincide, the electron recoheres and begins to spread
out its wavefunction again across neurons, leading to spikes in EM
activity.

The interesting part is that once a split function returns to unity, that IS
the position of the particle.  So--the fastest, most efficient pathway has
its recombination occur *first*, which means that, as these processes happen
over and over, the most efficient pathway overall is chosen.  At the end of
the line, once an efficient pathway has been found to bridge a problem and a
solution, the brain can analyze the path taken and reform it into
perceptions of actions, which are subsequently performed.  When thinking *
does* occur in steps, we are given a glimpse of this information as it
returns to a crystallized form, perhaps when the new process itself is being
cemented into the rule-base.  Then this new rule can be applied until we
need to crystallize again.  So our thought processes when doing proofs
represent actual quantum leaps of information--we jump to something, store
it, then use coherence again to engage in more jumps.

I believe this method could bear a strong resemblance to actual neural
processes.  It would also show something very interesting: organisms that
utilize quantum effects are the kings of this planet.  The organisms which
can organize a large effect per organism on this earth are animals and
plants.  Uncomplicated, microscopic organisms are simply too small to
produce large causal effects, and fungi, absorbing energy in
already-chemical forms, were perhaps never able to develop quantum effects
because of not directly encountering wavelike objects.  Plants' incredibly
efficient use of energy through quantum mechanics has allowed them to become
extremely large and extremely prominent.  And animal use again leads to
increased physical prominence.

Perhaps, in terms of generalized efficiency relative to neighboring
organisms, there is a ceiling to practical efficiency without using quantum
effects.  The organism would simply be too large or complicated to exist.
 At a point, the macroscopic problems associated with higher levels of
existence are too daunting for classical systems.  It is true enough for
other problems--circulatory systems began to exist when multi-cell delivery
was needed.  Why not have quantum systems begin to exist when the complexity
of decisions became unfeasible to manage?

I am almost certain that processes akin to these occur in the brain.  Close
analysis of mental structures related to intelligence is paramount to their
discovery.  And their discovery is absolutely necessary should we hope to
ever alter or transmit our minds directly.  Are there wave patterns related
to quantum coherence?  If these patterns were seen in EEG during intelligent
activity, maybe they could imply quantum effects taking place.  Interesting
to note that certain EEG waves will only manifest at specific milestones in
development related to problem solving.
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