Have Scientists Finally Discovered Evidence for Psychic Phenomena?!

[littlebabyjesus]

I recommend you read Michael Nielsen and Issaac Chuang's book Quantum Computation and Quantum Information. It gives you the basics including a crash course in linear algebra.

That sounds like something I should read, yes.

 

[Knotted]

That's very interesting.

Should note that being able to trasmit energy efficiently is quite distinct from being able to transmit information efficiently. You could look at it as using the multiple routes analogy, just remember that the routes all disappear as soon as you look at them so you're not learning anything. You have to be cunning to get computational resources out of qunatum phenomenon. The quantum search algorithm is really nice, if you look it up.

 

[Crispy]

That sounds like something I should read, yes.

I've long suspected that a conceptual understanding of quantum effects is quite different from a mathematical one.

 

[Crispy]

That's very interesting.

Should note that being able to trasmit energy efficiently is quite distinct from being able to transmit information efficiently. You could look at it as using the multiple routes analogy, just remember that the routes all disappear as soon as you look at them so you're not learning anything.

Quite - the process always ends up with a photon being absorbed, and no information about the process coming out the other side (I think)

 

[littlebabyjesus]

That's very interesting.

Should note that being able to trasmit energy efficiently is quite distinct from being able to transmit information efficiently. You could look at it as using the multiple routes analogy, just remember that the routes all disappear as soon as you look at them so you're not learning anything. You have to be cunning to get computational resources out of qunatum phenomenon. The quantum search algorithm is really nice, if you look it up.

Ah, but in terms of human consciousness*, precisely this is enough. Following decoherence, one path, and only one path, is taken – the path that appears in our consciousness and is, as far as we are concerned 'what happened'. We don't know, can't know, and do not need to know what all the other possible paths were. We only want one version of what happened to appear in our memories.

* all consciousness – this doesn't just apply to humans, clearly.

 

[Knotted]

That sounds like something I should read, yes.

You might struggle with it if you're not used to linear algebra. It will take something of a commitment to read.

 

[Knotted]

Ah, but in terms of human consciousness, precisely this is enough. Following decoherence, one path, and only one path, is taken – the path that appears in our consciousness and is, as far as we are concerned 'what happened'. We don't know, can't know, and do not need to know what all the other possible paths were. We only want one version of what happened to appear in our memories.

Think of the double slit experiment. As soon as you start measuring the photon, you lose the interference pattern. The whole nice simultaneous "photon goes through both slits at once" thing you had going on collapses. You have to wily to tweeze out anything better than classical computation.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Who's measuring, though? Just as with the algae, it is the path taken that matters – one path is chosen out of many possibilities – so it is here: there is no outside 'us' looking on at the results. We are the results. And it is quantum coherence that enables results that consider such a complex network of variables to be arrived at instantly.

Remember that the route taken is the information. If our neural networks develop such that the route that involves the least energy loss is the one that is to be preferred, they could work along exactly the same lines as algae's energy transfer. Efficiency as truth. That could be tested, I think... It may not be quite right – we're probably still missing something – but it is a clue as to what might be right.

 

[Knotted]

I think you might be right. I need to read up on quantum signals in noisy channels. It's an informatic problem not a compuational problem. What am I like?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Just to expand on the point, one way to model this would be to view all the processes going on in the brain that are not part of the wave of consciousness as establishing the networks. They are strengthening (making more efficient) some pathways, weakening others, and forming new pathways. This is the business of the brain processing information, and perhaps most or all of this activity takes place at the 'classical' level.

The wave of consciousness, formed by all the neurons that are firing simultaneously at the wave's frequency, then involves the taking of a 'snapshot' of the state of the brain by discovering which are the pathways through it that are the most energy-efficient. This does not involve the creation of new information. Of itself it does not change any of the pathways, or perhaps it does – it strengthens them (which makes sense – it provides continuity with the next wave). If you consider this to be the 'first layer of memory', it is essentially passive in its role – it is providing that which will go into our memories, and nothing but this can go into our memories – although clearly feedback loops can affect subsequent brain activity. This simultaneous firing is also involved in attention. When we focus on an activity, those parts of the brain that are involved start to fire simultaneously. Instant feedback would presumably be the advantage here.

Sorry for the derail. Kind of thinking aloud here.

 

[MysteryGuest]

Yep. We also clearly need to allow for alternative explanations of the evidence. These results are strikingly similar to some effects observed at the quantum level. We shouldn't be too surprised really if such strangeness can also manifest itself at the classical level of explanation.

that reminds me:

wave like behaviour observed with buckyballs

 

[likesfish]

the corps is mother the corp is farther and your in deep doo doo xes