Kenneth 'pawl' Collins wrote in message ...
||Richard S. Norman wrote in message ...
||On 7 Jan 2003 15:58:32 -0800, ukcomplaint at lycos.com (UKComplaint)
||wrote:
||||>Physicist Henry Margenau (quoted by Sir John Eccles) states that
|the
||>components of the brain 'are small enough to be governed by
||>probabilistic quantum laws' and are 'always poised for a multitude
|of
||>possible changes, each with a definite probability'.
||>||>Is Margenau's view (that actions in the brain might be subject to
||>quantum effects) generally accepted withnin science?
||>||>N.B. The blurb for the forthcoming Quantum Mind 2003 Conference on
||>Consciousness, Quantum Physics and the Brain to be hosted by the
||>University of Arizona states "recent experimental evidence
suggests
||>quantum nonlocality occurring in conscious and subconscious brain
||>function, and functional quantum processes in molecular biology
are
||>becoming more and more apparent."
||||Physicists do like to theorize quantum events as being responsible
|for
||mysterious neural events. Certainly quantum theory is necessary to
||understand chemical bonding, electron excitation, etc. However,
||membrane proteins are rather massive objects and the energy of
|binding
||of ligand to receptor or to the movement of a single ion across the
||membrane are rather large compared with quantal fluctuations.
||||Planck's constant is 7 x 10 ^^-34 J s. That corresponds to
||about 10^^-13 kcal sec/mol (compare with reactions measured
||in kcal/mol) or to 4 x 10^^-15 eV s (compare with one ion moving
||across the membrane at 0.1 eV). Of course you have to account for
||event duration or frequency to make the units comparable, but still
||most neural activity really does occur at the macroscopic,
classical
||level.
||||There is no need to search for quantal activity to understand what
|we
||really do observe in the brain. Yes, there are still a lot of
|things
||we don't understand about brain activity, but most neurobiologists
||seem to think that this does not seem to be a fruitful direction to
||look, Penrose and microtubules notwithstanding.
||I agree with you Dr. Norman.
||While developing Tapered Harmony, I realized 'qm' is so in such a
|tortuously-twisted interpretation of experimental results - that I,
|came to view what underpins its existence as a deliberate effort to
|obfuscate physical reality - 'qm' 'had to be' established as an
|effort to 'prevent' the proliferation of so-called 'nuclear'
weapons.
|'qm' makes no sense in any other way, and I've come to view efforts
|to apply 'qm' to Neuroscience in the same way. It's so far from
Truth
|that it can only become 'rationalized' as an effort to prevent folks
|from comprehending nervous system function [on the parts of folks
|who're 'afraid' of folks in general comprehending nervous system
|function.
||It's hard for me to attribute intelligence to 'qm' in any other way,
|and I'm thoroughly-determined to not allow applications of 'qm' in
|Neuroscience to gain any credibility - Humanity is 'finished' if
|so-called 'uncertainty' and the rest of 'quantum weirdness' ever
gain
|a toehold in Neuroscience.
Note well: I'm =not= saying that there are not cumulative
'atomic-level' effects. If folks see my recent discussion of Tapered
Harmony, folks'll see that it is not only my position that there are
such cumulative 'atomic-level' effects, but that these 'atomic-level'
effects are tunable.
If folks look thye'll see that I discussed the same stuff in long
former msgs with respect to ionic-flow, ionic conductances, and the
continuous, cumulative effects of dynamic [ionic] 'charge'
distribution.
It's 'just' that there's absolutely zero so-called 'probabilistic'
stuff in-there.
Yes, of course, resort to a statistics is often a usefully-practical
course through which to approach discussion, and through which to
converge upon understanding. I'm not saying that there exists no such
usefulness.
I'm saying that a stitistical discussion does not, somehow, imbue the
underlying physical dynamics with a 'probabilistic' nature.
In my experience, any and all of that which has the appearance of
'being probabilistic' within nervous system function derives in
macroscopic-'level' knowledge insufficiency. When knowledge is
insufficient, to the degree of such insufficiency, nervous system
dynamics converge in commensurately-generalized ways - ways in which
the individual energydynamic 'impacts' of 'scraps' of experience are
'summed', and acted upon by the TD E/I-minimization mechanisms
[that're outlined in AoK], to yield 'momentary' least-TD E/I
activation 'state' in which the various contributions of the
'individual' experiential 'scraps' are represented in ways that're
commensurate with the TD E/I that became correlated to them when they
were, themselves, each in their own 'time', the object of supersystem
TD E/I minimization. [As is discussed in AoK, Ap5 & Ap7, such
'typically' occurs at the prodding of the reward 'servo' mechanisms,
in dynamics where the nervous system attends to that which is
relatively-novel [experiences relatively-small TD E/I(up)] in order
to garner the correlated 'reward', with the result being that TD
E/I-minimization comes to be tuned with specific respect to the
relatively-novel stuff, until, as is discussed in AoK, Ap5, the stuff
becomes so TD E/I-minimized that it has been 'learned' [what has been
referred to as 'learning' is 'just' a correlate of supersystem TD
E/I-minimization - a generalized, experientially-relevant, way of
addressing the dynamics of TD E/I-minimization during common
language-interface information exchange [during 'conversation' :-]
But the only 'chance' stuff that's in-there derives in the fact [also
discussed in AoK] that experience is individually-unique. This's
where the discussion of the "zone of randomness" in AoK, Ap4 gains
its whole nervous system functional significance. When individuals
having differing experience interact, their nervous systems
[primarily their brains, but it's actually a whole-nervous system
energydynamic, in which stuff like 'body language' [tenseness,
physical rigidity, or lack thereof, facial expressions, etc., =all=
enters into convergence upon mutual TD E/I-minimization] seek TD
E/I-minimization 'on the fly' - within the 'time'-frame of their
ongoing interactive dynamics.
It's only in these macroscopic-'level' dynamics that there arises
anything that has the appearance of being 'probabilistic', and this,
further, derives in 1. relative experiential 'dissonance' [how
different are the experiential environments in which the individuals
have 'learned'], and 2. the fact that nervous systems configure
themselves dynamically with respect to relatively-contemporaneous
experience [as I've recently discussed with respect to my own neural
dynamics with respect to both Neuroscience and Physics].
When an individual nervous system is configured with particular
respect to a particular 'portion' of its experiential realm, such
supersystem configuration is 'carried-into' the individual's
'momentary' interactive dynamics, and the same is True for the other
individual[s] that enter into the interactive dynamics, and it's
=here= where the macroscopic dynamics can be said to contain an
element of 'chance' - the alternative being having to say that, even
though individuals experience relatively-dissimilar
external-environmental stuff, within varying degrees of physical
[experiential] separation, their nervous systems' information
processing dynamics are, nevertheless, rigorously-coupled, which,
although, not 'impossible, would be beyond the realm of NDT's current
applicability.
It's precisely with respect to such 'chance' macroscopic experiential
'dissonance' that NDT's stuff becomes most useful because NDT's
understanding allows individual interactors to comprehend that the
'blindly'-automated 'passion' that arises when they interact is
'just' more servo-mechanism-type stuff that evolutionary dynamics
have 'engineered' into nervous systems in its attempt to 'guess' with
respect to 'momentary' experiential dynamics.
There is one circumstance in which the energydynamics that I'm
addressing have, to date, become Tragically-biased, most often with
Life-Ravaging Consequences. It is when one individual goes into the
midst of a 'group' of individuals whose experience is 'the same',
relative to that of the 'outsider' who has come into their midst.
In this instance, the 'chance' that anything that the 'outsider' does
that's. merely unafmiliar to the 'group' members, will be
behaviroally-acceptable to the group members decreases as a function
of their number, and as a function of their mutual experience, and as
a function of the interactive dissonance explicitly with respect to
the behavior of the 'foreign' individual.
That is, in such Tragic interactive dynamics, Reason tends =not= to
enter into the interactive energydynamics that will arise, the whole
of the interactive energydynamics tending to derive in group-wise
relative-familiarities [all of which reduces to group-wise
experiential summations, but which 'takes on a 'life' of its own
because of the intra-group 'amplification' that derives in
mutual-feedback with respect to groupwise TD E/I-minimization.
Such becomes particularly Tragic relative to this or that group's
degree of experiential isolation - it's what killed the followers of
Jim Jones, in Jonestown [what induced them to drink their cyanide
stuff], and, as I've resently discussed here in bionet.neuroscience,
also the same experientially-inbred stuff that virtually always
precipitates War.
I Apologize, what's here should be exceedingly-more. I'm $-broke, and
therefore, dealing with the TD E/I(up) 'distractability' of
nutrient-deficits ['hunger'] that're discussed in AoK, Ap5, and going
through forced nicotine withdrawal that're discussed in AoK, Ap4 &
8 - and just plain 'tired'.
Still, this stuff is just too important not to address, so I have,
trusting that folks who've followed the discussion of NDT's stuff
over the years will be able to build the thing completely within
their own good noggin' labs.
That's it for this update to my prior discussion.
K. P. Collins
|I've asked to be allowed to address folks in AZ, but have never
heard
|back.
||But I've [last fall] finally closed all doors to 'qm', and have
begun
|taking it to the community Physicists.
||[If anyone 'wonders', it's why I'm so 'pissed-off' these days. Just
|when I thought my travails because of NDT were winding down - that
|I'd endured all of the hard stuff there was to endure - I realized I
|had to hurry-up and go through the same stuff on behalf of Tapered
|Harmony - and I've not yet been able to find any 'gracefulness'
|within myself with respect to such - I =HATE= having to do it, yet
|again, especially since I'd dared to think that there might be some
|small hope of giving myself over to Love. [Please forgive this [and
|all my other 'asides'] if I don't let the aching out I won't be able
|to do what I have to do.]
||ken [k. p. collins]
||