IUBio

Quantum effects in the brain

Mark Zarella mzarella at twcny.rr.com
Wed Jan 8 20:28:08 EST 2003


Why do you always respond to your own posts?

"Kenneth 'pawl' Collins" <k.p.collins at worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:jYYS9.101467$hK4.8231021 at bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>
> 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]
> |
> |
>
>





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