Matter, mind and consciousness: from information to meaning (original) (raw)
Related papers
Quantum dissipation and information: A route to consciousness modeling
In the dissipative quantum model of brain memory recording is modeled as coherent condensation of certain quanta in the brain ground state. The formation of finite size correlated domains allows the organization of stored information into hierarchical structures according to the different life-times of memories and the size of the corresponding domains. The openness of the brain to the external world (dissipation) implies the doubling of the brain system degrees of freedom. The system obtained by doubling, the Double, plays the role of the bath or environment in which the brain is permanently embedded. It is suggested that conscious as well as unconscious activity may find its root in the permanent dialogue of the brain with its Double.
Quantum Brain Dynamics. A Possibility of Having a Quantum Interpretation of the Brain
arXiv (Cornell University), 2023
In recent years we have seen quantum physics advance in leaps and bounds. Living matter is becoming more comprehensible when we appeal to the fundamental states that define their existence, namely the quantum fields that comprise them. When we consider living matter (organisms), we are presented with the difficult complexity of understanding the human brain. The brain itself is not the human being neither does it comprise the totality of the human person, but is inherently embedded in the entire being of the human person. We are obviously aware of the fact that the major function of the brain pertains to consciousness, be it broad and specific, the former being that general/objective view of awareness recognized, such that is seen when one wakes up from sleep, and the specific that refers to the particular/subjective state of being aware of this or that (this comes after the broad though). Other functions include memory, thought-control, motorskills, vision, breathing, temperature, body-regulation etc. However, all these come after consciousness. Thus what Quantum Brain Dynamics (QBD) considers is not just these other functions of the brain, this is because they can be well analyzed with the workings of classical mechanics (even though they still play host to a quantum description). It rather considers two specific functions above all else consciousness and memory. QBD falls in line umbrella-covers aspects of the quantum brain analysis such as quantum-consciousness, quantum-mind and quantum-brain. The inspiration that lurks behind the Quantum Interpretation of the Brain (QIB), is traceable to the 1944 article written by E. Schrodinger, What is Life, in which he presents how a living organisms evades decay to equilibrium by the fact of negentropy, as such life which is in its ordered macroscopic state is created (in an environment of disorder), which moves against the second law of thermodynamics. The life that is created, that which is sustained, arises from an interaction that the organism engages in with the environment. This interaction is microscopic, albeit quantum, it is an interaction that underscores the reality of quantum entanglement (which also plays hosts to the superposition of quantum states). The quantum interpretation of the brain is a nascent, yet burgeoning as it might be that necessary tool required for a better articulation and comprehension of the brain.
2020
It was Boethius who defined person as an individual substance with a rational nature, pointing out three important aspects of the nature of the human person, namely his individuality, his rationality and his being a substance. The rational nature of man is not just limited to the use of logic in his dealings, it is not merely reduced to the fact that man thinks or reasons before and even after undergoing an action. It also comprises the fact that man is conscious of all that he does, he is aware of his rationality. The human person is not the only substance in the animal kingdom with consciousness, for all animals have a certain level of consciousness, but the human person is the only animal whose consciousness comes with an awareness; that is to say that the human person is conscious of his awareness or is aware of his consciousness (to put in tautological terms, he is conscious of his consciousness and aware of his awareness). The issue of consciousness only gained momentum in the...
2001
The quantum theory of mind allows a shift from the Mind/Brain metaphysical problem to the Quantum Mind/Classical Brain scientific problem: how could systematic and coherent quantum processes -assumed to be the physical support of our conscious experiences -occur in a macroscopic system as the brain? I discuss a solution based on a neurobiological model that attributes to quantum computation in intra -neuronal protein networks the role of directly supporting phenomenal experience. In this model, quantum coherence is created or prepared by classical mechanisms as recurrent neuronal networks, oscillatory synchrony and gated membrane channels, thus avoiding common theoretical constraints for the existence of quantum communication and computation (ultra-cold temperatures and quasi-isolation from the environment).
Quantum physics in neuroscience and psychology: a neurophysical model of mind -brain interaction
Neuropsychological research on the neural basis of behaviour generally posits that brain mechanisms will ultimately suffice to explain all psychologically described phenomena. This assumption stems from the idea that the brain is made up entirely of material particles and fields, and that all causal mechanisms relevant to neuroscience can therefore be formulated solely in terms of properties of these elements. Thus, terms having intrinsic mentalistic and/or experiential content (e.g. 'feeling', 'knowing' and 'effort') are not included as primary causal factors. This theoretical restriction is motivated primarily by ideas about the natural world that have been known to be fundamentally incorrect for more than three-quarters of a century. Contemporary basic physical theory differs profoundly from classic physics on the important matter of how the consciousness of human agents enters into the structure of empirical phenomena. The new principles contradict the older idea that local mechanical processes alone can account for the structure of all observed empirical data. Contemporary physical theory brings directly and irreducibly into the overall causal structure certain psychologically described choices made by human agents about how they will act. This key development in basic physical theory is applicable to neuroscience, and it provides neuroscientists and psychologists with an alternative conceptual framework for describing neural processes. Indeed, owing to certain structural features of ion channels critical to synaptic function, contemporary physical theory must in principle be used when analysing human brain dynamics. The new framework, unlike its classic-physics-based predecessor, is erected directly upon, and is compatible with, the prevailing principles of physics. It is able to represent more adequately than classic concepts the neuroplastic mechanisms relevant to the growing number of empirical studies of the capacity of directed attention and mental effort to systematically alter brain function.
The Extended Brain: Cyclic Information Flow in a Quantum Physical Realm
The present knowledge of the brain neurology, collectively, is insufficient to explain higher mental processes such as (self)-consciousness, qualia, intuition, meditative states, transpersonal experiences as well as ultra rapid brain responses and functional binding between distant parts of the brain. It is proposed that super-causal space-time configurations may function as an interface between molecular transitions and the particular higher mental functions. As super-causal principles, the iso-energetic brain model as well as various quantum brain theories are treated. Isoenergetic states of the brain may enable protein perturbation mediated information processing within a tenth of a millisecond and make use of subjective space-time configuration created in life as an emergent modality of the neural system. In addition, elementary quantum processes are seen as essential for higher brain functions, since our central nervous system forms an integral part of a dynamic universe as a non-local information processing modality. In this respect, quantum physics also allows the build-up of an individual mental knowledge domain on the basis of selfselective imprinting of a geometric space/time dimension, as induced by wave/ particle transitions in the brain. The central hypothesis of the present paper is that a versatile and rapid responding brain function requires complementary information processing mechanisms both at the iso-energetic and quantum (macro-and micro-) levels, enabling bottom up and top down information processing. This requires a nested organization of fine-tuned neural micro-sites that enable coherence/de-coherence transitions as a basis for information transfer. For a rapid and causally effective flux of information, as well as a continuous updating of a personal information domain, a "bi-cyclic" mental workspace is conceived, housing interacting and entangled wave and protein-based perturbations that buildup and retrieve information from a universal knowledge domain.
Quantum Mechanics Of Consciousness
2009
A phenomenological approach using the states of spin-like observables is developed to understand the nature of consciousness and the totality of experience. The three states of consciousness are taken to form the triplet of eigenstates of a spin-one entity and are derived as the triplet resulting from the composition of two spins by treating the subject and the object as interacting two-state, spin-half systems with external and internal projections. The state of deep sleep is analysed in the light of this phenomenological approach and a novel understanding of the status of the individual consciousness in this state is obtained. The resulting fourth state i.e. the singlet state is interpreted to correspond to the superconscious state of intuitive experience and is justified by invoking the concept of the universal consciousness as the underlying source of all individual states of experience. It is proposed that the individual experiences result from the operations of four individualizing observables which project out the individual from the universal. The one-to-one correspondence between the individual and the universal states of experience is brought out and their identity in the fourth state is established by showing that all individualizing quantum numbers become zero in this state leaving no trace of any individuality.