New Support for a Quantum Model Of Mind

The issue of the brain and its relation to consciousness is one that interests and intrigues many physicists. The standard take by many is that quantum mechanics isn't involved at all. For example, physicist Mark Alford, writing in the Skeptical Inquirer (  May-June, 2011, p. 8 ) observed:

"It seems improbable that these very delicate processes are the crucial feature in the functioning of the human brain which is not a suitagle environment for quantum subtlety".

But is this so?  For example, we know that the scale of the synaptic cleft is on the order of 200-300 nm and hence subject to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. This is precisely a quantum scale so it makes sense that the Heisenberg Principle would apply at this level, and hence quantum mechanics also.

Using this logic, I introduced a quantum model for consciousness in my book,  'The Atheist's Handbook to Modern Materialism', (Chapter 6), and developed it by appeal to how a quantum computer would operate via "quantum gates" predicated on the Pauli spin operators. This entailed conversion of standard logic gates (NOR, OR, NOT, etc.)  in the classical format - applied to ordinary computers- to counterparts in the quantum format.

For example, the NOT gate can be represented by what is called a unitary matrix, or Pauli spin matrix-operator σ_x = (0,1¦1,0) where the left pair is a matrix 'top' and each right pair a matrix 'bottom' - since they are usually written in a rectangular array form.

Similarly, the other Pauli gates would be defined by: σ_y = (0,-i¦i, 0)and  σ_z = (1, 0¦0, -1), where i denotes the square root of (-1).  Incorporation of such Pauli (quantum) gates meets a primary application requirement for feed forward networks, in describing synapse function. (See e.g. Yaneer Bar-Yam, 'Dynamics of Complex Systems', Addison-Wesley, pp. 298-99.)
The advantage is consciousness is elevated out of the strict machine-like model of an ordinary computer to one that can explain more features of the human experience.

In my book I used this basis to challenge Daniel Dennett's claim (in Consciousness Explained) that quantum mechanics isn't needed and Newtonian classical mechanics suffices to account for any particulate interactions.  But as I pointed out, it was physicist Henry Stapp who first  pointedly noted that uncertainty principle limitations applied to calcium ion capture near synapses showed they (calcium ions) must be represented by a probability function. (Stapp, Henry, P.: 1993, Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics, Springer-Verlag, p. 42.)

I also used it to challenge Michio Kaku's simple deterministic model of mind, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/03/michio-kakus-model-of-mijnd-is-too.html

Now, new support for this view appears to have arrived with the book, 'Life On the Edge', by Johnjoe McFadden and Jim Al-Kahlili - a quantum physicists - reviewed by John Gribbin in the WSJ ('Physics for Bird Brains', Aug 1-2, p. C5).   Gribbin begins by noting "the entangled strands of DNA....are held together by a quantum phenomenon know as hydrogen bonding. The way these strands untwist and build new double helixes is at heart a quantum phenomenon"

So why not brain operation as well? This is one thread in the book, using concepts of "quantum weirdness" and entanglement, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-epr-paradox-and-quantum-nonlocality.html

that ultimately leads to a novel account of brain operation. As Gribbin puts it (ibid.):

"The authors have saved the best - if most speculative idea- for last: that quantum procedures help explain consciousness and the mechanics of thought, as surely as they do photosynthesis... It is an old question going back to philosophers such as Descartes: How does mind make matter move?"

He elaborates a bit more without giving away too many details:

"The new answer presented draws from the physics behind those quantum computers. Where an ordinary computer can be thought of as operating through a series of switches that can be set at 1 or 0, the power of a quantum computer  depends on the ability of quantum entities to be in two state at once, known as a superposition"

Which was exactly the point I raised in my own book. So rather than limit storage to bits (1 or 0), one can work with qubits (truncated for quantum bits) where the superposition of a combined data element (1 + 0) applies:

U = U(1) + U(0)


And the storage capacity dramatically expands as a result.

In general, for any given n-bit combination – with n a whole number, a qubit register can accommodate 2 to the nth power total combinations at one time. Thus, 16 combinations could be held in memory for 4-bits, 32 for 5-bits, and so on. This change marks an exponential (two to the 'n' or 2^n) increase over any classical counterpart. Since, human brains typically can hold the equivalent in memory of whole libraries, it seems that qubit processing is at least worth consideration.

As Gribbin concedes, and the authors as well, all this is still in the realm of conjecture. No one as yet has inserted experimental probes into brains to precisely detect quantum wavepacket collapse, energy exchanges or energy increases owing to repeated superpositions and nonlocal actions.

However, from Bell's theorem there is powerful theoretical support, as the most recent book makes use of.  Indeed, Bell himself may have suggested a clue on how to proceed experimentally (Foundations of Physics, (12,) .989 ):

Although Y is a real field it does not show up immediately in the results of a ‘single measurement’, but only in the statistics of many such results. It is the de Broglie –Bohm variable X that shows up immediately each time.

In other words, the best approach may be a large number of experiments from which multiple measurements are obtained, perhaps similar to those conducted by Dr. Robert G. Jahn (using random number generators), as published in The Journal of Scientific Exploration. (Vol. 1, No. 1).

At the very least this latest work provides more philosophical and explanatory support for the integration of quantum mechanics into brain operation.

Net Neutrality: A Case of Free Speech vs. Money Speech

I don't believe any blogger or ordinary person that uses the net frequently is unaware of the consequences if net neutrality is somehow derailed, despite President Obama's recent statement praising an even playing field. But, as with most arenas in our declining land, the major  Neoliberal moguls detest little guys having any say equal to their own- so hope to buy their way to faster internet speeds at the expense of the rest of us.

If I was unable to get my blog up in an expeditious and timely manner, despite a particular topic (say quantum statistics) that may only be read by 10 people - believe me I wouldn't be doing this much longer. The headaches simply wouldn't be worth it. I do it now because I don't have to pay higher than normal costs to get my material published - whether educational or political opinion.

But that may not last, especially as it really comes down to the principle of free speech, the ability of people to speak out on any issues and not be censored or impeded, versus monied speech- which currently inundates and corrupts our political system. In the case of the latter, money can buy whatever it wants and currently dwarfs citizen speech in the political domain. This, of course, is why money can't be considered speech at all. But don't tell the ISP providers that and others that want to take advantage of higher net speeds. If they could slow contentious bloggers to a crawl, believe me they'd do it in a heartbeat.

And if you don't believe this pertains to you, say as a FOX watcher, think again! As has already been noted the scenario of zero net neutrality could allow Comcast (which owns MSNBC) for example, to slow down access to the FOX News site simply because it wishes to limit its competitor. ('Whose Internet Is It?', TIME, Nov. 17, p. 14).

Now, while it is true that the FCC in May did propose new rules that prohibit ISPs from blocking or slowing legal Internet traffic, it did not ban paid prioritization - which to me is a back door means to undermine net neutrality. This "paid prioritization"   means that companies can deliver their particular content faster to their customers for specific paid fees. In other words, the companies gain a technical advantage over the rest of us.

Some deluded citizens see no problem with this, as the case of a letter writer in yesterday's Denver Post, who bawled "There is another urgent need for postal neutrality! Why should my package get there faster than anyone else's just because I can pay more."  But what the meat head fails to grasp is that net speech is not in the same category as package delivery by a business like Fed-Ex, UPS or the USPS. (Which is why the only rational resolution may be to somehow resolve the net into business and speech enclaves - and have net neutrality in the latter and paid prioritization in the former.)  This may be a difficult technological problem, but I don't believe it's insuperable.

If it had been feasible then there wouldn't have been the public outcry in the wake of the FCC's proposed rules which preserved the fees ISPs collect from big content producers like Netflix. They pay to connect directly to the back end of their networks and reach customers more quickly.  When ordinary folks learned of that, nearly 4 million wrote to the FCC to complain.(Ibid.)

Comcast and others claim back end connections have nothing to do with net neutrality, but clearly if the business component of the net is gaining speed advantage, it does. Alas, the FCC's Tom Wheeler also seems to believe paid prioritization over the last mile of broad band ought not be considered a fast lane, though in principle it is.  Thus, it appears the definitions are being obfuscated to disinform the communication landscape - as most tech companies like Google and Facebook don't agree.

Again, the solution appears to be arriving at the ability to separate the net into distinct enclaves - one for speech, the other strictly business. However, this likely wouldn't be remotely feasible until the first real quantum computers come online - and who knows when that will be? Recall that quantum computers use qubits, superpositions of 1s and 0s, as opposed to either one binary bit or the other to code information.

Until then, the only reasonable solution - it seems to me - is for the FCC to propose new rules and reclassify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act which would give the FCC authority to fully regulate broadband. Of course,  the big ISPs will surely oppose this but most savvy internet lawyers are clear that this would be the only way the FCC can have the legal authority to withstand Big Money court challenges.

Yes, in the end it's about free speech vs. money speech, especially as 80 percent of Americans (according to the FCC's Wheeler) with high speed broad band have access to only once choice of ISP. A travesty that was forseeable after the Telecommunications Act was passed in 1996. The long and short of it is the lack of ISP competition means most Americans are hostage to a single ISP. That means any back end moves or paid prioritization effectively detract from free speech.

We can't let this happen no matter how much the Neoliberal free marketeers or their political lackeys scream and bawl.

Do We Inhabit A Virtual Cosmos? And Can We Prove It?

The question of whether the universe is really an elaborate, multi-dimensional simulation has been around for a number of years.  In a conjecture published some ten years ago[1], Nick Bostrom considered whether the universe and everything within it (including stars, galaxies, planets and human beings.) is one massive, virtual  simulation- a vast and intricate hyper quantum computer program being run from outside- perhaps by an extraordinary intelligence..

Note here that the basis for a quantum computable universe has already been well explicated in books such as: Programming the Universe by  MIT quantum computing engineer Seth Lloyd.  Lloyd estimated the number of 'computer operations' our universe has performed since the Big Bang, every single event that has ever happened, to show how these might emulate 'programming steps'. Of course, as Lloyd has pointed out, this universe simulation can't be replicated. It would require a computer bigger than the universe, though "time would tick more slowly in the program than reality."


In addition, given all entities are mostly empty space anyway,  ultimately predicated on quantum wave forms or wave functions, one can easily see how the ability to manipulate quantum units at will could lead to a simulation of an entire universe. In fact, if one builds consistently on quantum mechanics one can theoretically arrive at all the macroscopic laws of nature that we see govern our universe. For example, in the limit of the quantum number n ® ¥, quantum mechanics converges to Newtonian mechanics, so this rule like others (e.g. Bohr's Complementarity Principle, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, conservation of mass-energy etc.) can easily be built into the simulated system.

  In a sense, if the universe is simulated, then we and all other life forms within it are avatars. And as fanciful as that sounds, some philosophers have long argued that we are more likely to be artificial intelligences, or 3D virtual representations, trapped in a fake universe, than we are to be organically-based minds in a real one. Of course, if these philosophers are correct, then admittedly the concept of a natural afterlife (see previous blog posts from Feb. 9, 10) might be feasible. The reason is that, if the cosmos is a virtual simulation then the very laws of physics (e.g. entropy law) that allow us to devise reality-checking technology and measurements, might have little to do with the rules that govern the meta-cosmos inhabited by our simulators. In other words, if they wish to suspend the 2nd law of thermodynamics to enable a perpetual dream state at death, they can do so.  (But this is the only way I could see that afterlife working!)

But how would one know it or prove it? First things first: Is this equivalence of physical body and cyber-body (avatar) going too far? I don't believe so. The cyber-body is ultimately composed of moving electrons and quanta (photons) that cause multiple pixels on the monitor screen to vary in intensity, producing the illusion of motion. By the same token, the physical body is ultimately constituted of electrons, and can receive and process photons, e.g. by the optic nerve. On a quantum mechanical level the two bodies are very nearly the same. The differences appear at the gross or macroscopic levels, where the physical body displays a 3-dimensional solidity and differentiation of organs, tissues and cells. But are these fundamental? Who can say? It depends on the constructions, doesn't it?

 Assuming clever enough simulations, say using quadrillions of quantum spin system gates operating in tandem, arguably no one would know the difference. In 1982, the Nobel-winning physicist Richard Feynman made a notable (and as it turns out, prescient) observation concerning a “universal quantum simulator”. Feynman conjectured that to obtain 300 nuclear spins, the quantum simulator would need only 300 quantum bits or qubits. So long as one could program the interactions between qubits so that they emulated the interactions between the 300 nuclear spins, the dynamics would be simulated.

Was Feynman off his rocker? Not really! As it turns out one of the best ways to generate simulations via a quantum computer is to use nuclear spins. To see how this could work, study the accompanying diagram with three versions of nuclear spin – to which each is assigned a wave state vector in bracket form. In this case, the nuclear spin down state corresponds to 1>, the spin up state to 0> and there is a combined state: 0 > + 1 >.. (The last is a state of spin along the axis perpendicular to the spin-axis).

More to the point, the latter superposition illustrates the property of quantum parallelism: the ability to compute or register two states simultaneously, which is impossible for normal computers (which register 0 OR 1, never both at one time – unless they are in glitch mode!) Thus, a quantum computer can manipulate two bits (qubits) at one time. If there are a trillion such qubits, each can potentially register 1 and 0 in combined wave bracket states, simultaneously.  It should also be easily seen that this combined wave state is the analog of the superposition of states seen in the electron double slit experiment, e.g. for

                                                   y = y1 + y2

Any qubit in a state (0) can be placed in the double-qubit state by rotating it one fourth of a turn (as evident from inspection of the diagram)  Much more fascinating (and to the point) is that if another qubit is introduced into the scene - say with the same wave state 0> its presence can “flip” the original qubit , effectively producing a quantum-controlled NOT operation which acts like a classical NOT gate. It is billions and billions of such logic gates which form the basis of computing. Given that qubits also hold much more information than ordinary bits, it is easy to see that if such nuclear spins can be used in the sort of logic gate manner described, one can have the basis for a quantum computer.

If one can have such an entity, then one could simulate just about anything. To use the words of Seth Lloyd[2] :

                    

A quantum computer that simulated the universe would have exactly as many qubits as there are in the universe, and the logic operations on those qubits would exactly simulate the dynamics of the universe.


              And further[3]:

Because the behavior of elementary particles can be mapped directly onto the behavior of qubits acting via logic operations, a simulation of the universe on a quantum computer is indistinguishable from the universe itself

This is a profound statement! It implies that if the universe were indeed a mammoth simulation we’d likely never be able to prove it.  But.....what if the simulators, analogous to human beings, aren't 'gods' or perfect? Then it is feasible an imperfect copy of the universe may be running, just good enough to fool most of its inhabitants - at least until they evolved the brain power to conceive applicable tests.

A breakthrough came in 2007, when John D. Barrow, a professor of mathematical sciences at Cambridge University first suggested that an imperfect simulation of reality would contain detectable glitches. Just like this computer I'm now using to blog, the universe's operating system would need updates to keep working. As the simulation degraded, Barrow observed, we might see aspects of nature that are supposed to be constant, i.e. the speed of light, or the fine structure constant, inexplicably 'drift' from their stable values.

Two years ago, Silas Beane and colleagues at the University of Washington, suggested a more concrete test of the simulation hypothesis. Most physicists assume space is smooth and extends out infinitely. But cosmologists modeling the early universe cannot easily re-create a perfectly smooth background to contain their atoms, stars and galaxies.  Instead, they build up their simulated space from a lattice or grid, just as television images are comprised of multiple pixels.

Silas' team calculated that the motion of particles within their simulation, and hence their energy, is related to the distance between the points of the lattice: the smaller the grid size the higher the energy of particles can be. That means that if our universe is a virtual simulation, we will observe a maximum energy for the fastest particles.

As it happens, astronomers have observed that cosmic rays - high speed particles that originate in far flung galaxies- always arrive at Earth's vicinity with a specific maximum energy of about 10²⁰    electron volts.  Recall that:  1.6 x 10^-19 J = 1 eV

So that:  10²⁰ eV  =   10²⁰  eV (1.6 x 10^-19 J /  eV )=       16 J

Another aspect comes to attention: IF space is continuous there is no underlying grid that guides the direction of cosmic rays. In other words, their direction ought to be isotropic - or coming from all directions, equally. Thus, a major test that we live in a simulated cosmos would be a non-isotropic distribution of cosmic rays. It is premature to make any decision here, since astronomers need much more cosmic ray data to make the case one way or the other.

In the meantime, does it make a difference, really - if the cosmos is virtual or real? Not to me. Other than  that I would hope that the virtual simulators, whoever or whatever they are, wouldn't manipulate the 'game' too much!  (I.e. programming in  'demonic' possessions to make certain twits believe demons are real.) Oh, and if they would, I'd rather they pass on letting me have a "natural afterlife"!

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[1] Bostrom:  Philosophical Quarterly.(53),  243 .

[2] Lloyd:  Programming the Universe, 154.
[3] Ibid.