h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

there's only one person i know who might be able to help on site
Called jordan, will go and ask him if he can help us !

Nice one.
Look foward to getting out of work so I can have a proper look at the info.

AManda

i think this stuff sounds really interesting, i will take a look on sunday, cause i am tyred now and i have this astronomy festival im going to tommorow, looks pretty good, so sunday i will have a read over it

this link may be more layman. sir roger Penrose works with Professor Stuart Hameroff

http://members.aon.at/chakalov/Penrose.html

petey's back!

the brain is a quantum computer and the mind is separate?

i've read about how quantum physics is the essence of consciousness...

the mind might be separate if one defines separate appropriately

the mind could be considered something that is running in parallel to the physical workings of the brain.

like heads and tails of a coin.

but, the mind cannot be considered separate as independent of the brain.

we have absolutely no evidence AND no rational/logical explanation of why this should be considered a possibility.

and, manda, what is "pants!"

petey out

Pants! is like an expression for when something is not very good.
It's Naff.
It's sh*t
It's rubbish
It's Pants!

"but, the mind cannot be considered separate as independent of the brain.

we have absolutely no evidence AND no rational/logical explanation of why this should be considered a possibility.

There is a rational explanation, but I'm can't understand it as it is written in the links I've given

I think that the best thing I can do is watch the video again and try and write what was said there, because these links are over my head and what was said in the program was more laymans terms.
this may take me a while folks.
my short hand is as bad as my typing.

I am inclined to think that the mond can not be seperate to the brain just on my experience as a living thinking human being. But it is an interesting theory.
I look forward to your info Annie

and yet look what you see and where you go in your dreams
Still writing transcript. This is going to be tomorrow before I'm finished.

It really looks like clutching at straws to say the mind is a quantum function of the brain (if that is what Hameroff says).

Cast a look back 200 years ago when magnetism held the mysterious position quantum physics holds now. People spoke of "animal magnetism" and it was supposed to hold the key to the mystery of the mind.

The mystery of the mind doesn't need a key. Just keep the levels from getting confused. What happens on a mental level is not physical and vice versa.

Conway's Game of Life is a wonderful illustration. On one level we have rules of birth, survival and extinction. On another level we have the patterns we perceive arising from those simple rules.

Similarly the simple rules of chess give rise to countless games, clever, stupid and everything in between. The body gives rise to the mind, which then apparently has a life of its own and passes judgement on the doings of the body. Well of course it would, that's what it does, but do we need quantum physics to be a third item in the relationship?

Sure it's a mystery, but it's not the mystery of the mind. It's the mystery of how anything exists at all, the big question of life, the universe and everything, and thankfully we *know* the answer to that.

I'd say that Hameroff would be saying that consciousness is a quantum function of the mind.
It doesn't feel like clutching at straws to me and I'm happy to be open minded about it until such time as it is disproven.
It seems to me that it is a valid branch of research in the same way that other scientists investigate the universe.
There is much we don't know about the universe, and much that is still theoretical, but we still keep looking up to the stars to find out what is there and what makes it 'tick'. We have learnt many things from looking at the universe that may be of benefit to mankind in the future. when this planet becomes over populated we made need to travel beyond it for a home. 2030 is pencilled into mankinds diary as an exploration date for the surface of Mars. We know that europa is a 'perfect' seed bed for a new home in the future. we know that the earth is subject to hits by meteorites and are beginning to solve the problem of one coming at us.etc etc.
For me the mind is also an area worth investigating, and although like astro physics it is beyond my capability to understand it , i'm glad that there are people out there who have the intelligence to go 'where no man has gone before' .
I'm certain that a day will come when proven information will be known that will have vast implications for mankind.

Well Hass your stance is exemplary; except I don't believe you or anyone should have to eat such humble pie as saying of the mind that "like astro physics it is beyond my capability to understand it".

The problem of the mind and understanding it . . . it's like Time, so long as no one asks you what sort of thing is it, you know perfectly well.

You don't find the mind by looking hard at the world. That would be like looking for the movie camera in the on-screen image. Still you know it's there in the process, simply because it has to be.

No scientific advance will explain the mind; it's not to be found in that direction. But we know as sure as we are conversing here that we share in the universal consciousness, and that's enough for me.

I like that Recumbentman.

A universal consciousness is enough for me too.

Amanda

I'm willing to be proved wrong, but I'm definitely inclined to agree.

There is no more reason to suppose that quantum effects can explain consciousness than that neuronal effects can. They both make the same category mistake.

The nub of the Penrose/Hameroff thesis at present is
1) QM effects are mysterious
2) Consciousness is mysterious
3) Therefore consciousness is a QM effect.

All the rest is just footnotes.

Postulating a nonphysical source of consciousness is also non-explanatory; (not *necessarily* untrue, just non-explanatory). The internal structure of consciousness NECESSARILY shares the same FORMAL characteristics as a physical system.

Noggin

Noggin
Did you manage to read and understand that Hameroff link?
I'm impressed

Amanda
Did you see The Second Coming on ITV last night, part two tonight (MON) interesting.

What most people do not realize is that reality, as we experience it, is not something that just happens to us, but that it is something we construct. There is an objective reality, but it is not something we can experience. There is too much of it. There are infinitely many things happening around us, none of which have any meaning outside of that which we assign it. We have to filter out tiny pieces of this reality - first by physical selection, by seeing only that which is visible, or hearing that which is audible, then by biological processes and finally by cultural and personal preferences. In a sense, you can only hear what you want to hear - the things you don't think are important, or that you don't believe, you will not pay attention to.

Our culture plays a very large part in our construction of reality. Our culture comes from the people around us. We tend to associate with those who believe and feel as we do. I do not believe that there is any "normal" reality, only an average one.
The meaning of a fulfilled life must be to learn to construct a better reality, and to keep hold of it even as the forces of one's own feelings struggle to overturn it.

Maybe that 42 is a era of digital television, like the total number of channels the bbc would have?

I missed the second coming, well, saw the end, my mom has videod it.
She is gonna video the ohter part tonight and then I will watch it when I get some spare time.

I thought it was well acted and an interesting plot.

Indeed yes, Hass Well, some of the maths and stuff I have to take as correct. My point was - even if they're right (which they may be) would they actually have 'explained' consciousness?
It's not the physics that's dodgy, it's the metaphysics.

Noggin

Post 356 was spot on, though