From Heisenberg to Goedel via Chaitin

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/researchreports/235cris.pdf
by Mike Stay (thanks to John Baez reference on sci.math.research)

"In this note we do not ask whether Godel's incompleteness has
any bearing on Heisenberg's uncertainty, but the converse:
Does uncertainty imply incompleteness? We will show that we
can get a positive answer to this question: algorithmic
randomness can be recast as a "formal uncertainty principle"
which implies Chaitin's information-theoretic version of
Godel's incompleteness."

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cyber: Some of you were around a few years ago when "Shadows of The
Mind" by Roger Penrose was discussed. His book encountered quite a
bit of criticism; abstract mathematical results don't apply to impose a real
world limitation that AIs will not have the full potential of the human
mind.

The systems approach which is allied with computationalism was used
to counter Searle's Chinese Room Argument, and is related to considering
the Turing Test a valid measure of "instantiating" a mind. The output is
the criteria, not the inner mechanism for how that output is achieved.
Which is why traditional Strong AI made no attempt to include instincts
or other assumed subconscious processes. I could have included this
post under Re: rerun season: Evolution's greatest hits

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www.consciousentities.com/penrose.htm some non-technical discussion
www.consciousentities.com/penrose.htm

"He [Penrose] thinks that consciousness may depend on a new
kind of quantum physics which we don't, as yet, have a theory
for, and suggests that the microtubules within brain cells might
be the place where the crucial events take place."

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http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/quantum.html more
technical, (this summary is taken from Grush and Churchland (1995)
....
A3) "The only recognized instances of nonalgorithmic processes
in the universe are perhaps certain kinds of randomness; e.g.
the reduction of the quantum mechanical state vector.

D) Quantum gravity, or something similar,via microtubules,
must play a key role in consciousness and cognition.

C1) Microtubules have properties which make certain quantum
mechanical phenomena (e.g. super-radiance) possible. ..."
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http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/publications.html

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/pdfs/decoherence.pdf
"The Penrose-Hameroff orchestrated objective reduction
(orch. OR) model assigns a cognitive role to quantum
computations in microtubules within the neurons of the
brain. Despite an apparently "warm, wet, and noisy"
intracellular milieu, the proposal suggests that
microtubules avoid environmental decoherence long
enough to reach threshold for "self-collapse" (objective
reduction) by a quantum gravity mechanism put forth
by Penrose." ...
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http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/Whitehead.htm
Consciousness, Whitehead and quantum computation in the brain:
Panprotopsychism meets the physics of fundamental spacetime geometry

Stuart Hameroff

I. Intro: The problem of consciousness and the "emergence" approach

"Ever-increasing understanding of brain function has failed to
illuminate the nature of consciousness, specificallythe subjective
experience of mental states (e.g. Nagel, 1974; Chalmers,1996).
Incorporating the conscious mind into a scientific world-view
involves finding scientific explanations for what philosophers
call "qualia", raw components of subjective experience which give
rise to our "inner life". Broadly speaking, there are three types
of approaches to the problem of consciousness: dualism
(consciousness lies outside knowable science), emergence
(consciousness arises as a novel property from complex computational
dynamics in the brain), and some form of panpsychism,
pan-protopsychism, or pan-experientialism (essential features or
precursors of consciousness are fundamental components of reality
which are accessed by brain processes)."

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Cyber: I don't think that such a quantum decoherence in the brain
must involve microtubules. But if there is some inner mechanism or
stucture in the brain which introduces quantum level micro-processes
generating a macro level impact/effect, then there is a fundamental
intrinsic basis for human brains having different potentials of behavior
than organized metallic structures which do not take into account a
quantum brain transducer. I don't mean such a mechanical structure
is impossible, but that the criteria of sorting words, making lists or
playing chess like a human is quite unlikely to produce the requisite
electro-magnetic field configuration (a typical program) on a hard drive.

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For those interested the responses to Penrose were collected and
include Feferman and Daryl McCullough who used to post on c.a.p

http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/symposia/penrose/ 9 commentaries

http://psyche.csse.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-23-penrose.html
Beyond the Doubting of a Shadow by Roger Penrose
A Reply to Commentaries on "Shadows of the Mind" (SOTM)

1.2 "In the accompanying PSYCHE articles, the great majority of
the commentators' specific criticisms have been concerned with
the purely logical arguments given in Part 1 of Shadows, with
comparatively little reference being made to the physical
arguments given in Part 2 - and virtually none at all to the
biological ones.<1> This is not unreasonable if it is regarded
that the entire rationale for my physical and biological
arguments stands or falls with my purely logical arguments.

Although I do not entirely agree with this position - since I
believe that there are strong motivations from other directions
for the kinds of physical and biological action that I have been
promoting in Shadows - I am prepared to go along with it for the
moment. Thus, most of my remarks here will be concerned with the
implications of Goedel's theorem, and with the claims made by
many of my critics that my arguments do not actually establish
that there must be a noncomputational ingredient in human
conscious thinking."

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I think the point that there is a possible physical and biological
basis to support Penrose's position is reinforced by Stay's paper.

Regards,
Stephen


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Is Donna now dead?
    ... that can be separated from body and brain function. ... the quantum states of her brain. ... so your consciousness constructs a sense of identity ...
    (rec.arts.drwho)
  • Re: Is Donna now dead?
    ... >>> that can be separated from body and brain function. ... >> the quantum states of her brain. ... in the right way - elements of consciousness are products of higher- ... It has to be something to do with electromagnetism and the overlapping of quantum states. ...
    (rec.arts.drwho)
  • Re: Is Donna now dead?
    ... Personality, ... so your consciousness constructs a sense of identity ... Even if someone were to upload all your memories into my brain and erase mine I would still feel like me, ... quantum mechanics at all?>>> ...
    (rec.arts.drwho)
  • Re: Tech building
    ... It's called The Quantum Brain by Jeffrey Satinover. ... consciousness, we'll be able to tell whether it would work ... My position is that it obviously works with classical physics. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Quantum processes in the brain?
    ... Is the Brain a Quantum Computer? ... possibility of quantum coherence within said microtubules. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)