*** 5G Standard and GSRS [TM] *** Oh oh! There seems to be a few people on the trail of my GSRS protype. Also, there is mention in the 'serious' press about a possible 5G Standard. 4G is already passe. Meanwhile, check out GSRS developments here...
kurzweilai.net
[thanks for the link, whoever put it in SI somewhere...can't remember now...brain quantum malfunction].
Mqurice
Here's an excerpt...< Consciousness Connects Our Brains to the Fundamental Level of the Universe
(Why Classical Computers Cannot Be Conscious) by Stuart Hameroff
Neurons alone aren't sufficiently complex to explain consciousness and provide a computational model for thought, according to Stuart Hameroff. He wants to go smaller, into a universe of structures within neurons where quantum mechanics help formulate a physical theory of consciousness.
Introduction: Brain=mind=computer?
What is consciousness? How are we different from machines? Why do we have thoughts, feelings and emotions?
Brain imaging technologies demonstrate anatomical location of activities which appear to correlate with consciousness, but which may not be directly responsible for consciousness.
We are left with the questions of what consciousness actually is, and how it is produced.
Most scientific explanations portray consciousness as an "emergent property" of classical computer-like activities in the brain's neural networks. The prevailing views among scientists in this camp are that 1) patterns of neural network activities correlate with mental states, 2) synchronous neural network oscillations in thalamus and cerebral cortex temporally bind information, and 3) consciousness emerges as a novel property of computational complexity among neurons, somewhat like how music emerges from complex and highly organized movements of air molecules
However, these approaches appear to fall short in fully explaining certain enigmatic features of consciousness, such as:
The nature of subjective experience, or 'qualia'- our 'inner life' (Chalmers' "hard problem");
Binding of spatially distributed brain activities into unitary objects in vision, and a coherent sense of self, or 'oneness';
Transition from pre-conscious processes to consciousness itself;
Non-computability, or the notion that consciousness involves a factor which is neither random, nor algorithmic, and that consciousness cannot be simulated (Penrose, 1989, 1994, 1997);
Free will;
Subjective time flow.
Conventional emergence approaches (also known as functionalist, reductionist, materialist, physicalist, computationalist approaches) argue that neurons and their chemical synapses are the fundamental units of information in the brain, and that conscious experience emerges when a critical level of complexity is reached in interactions among these fundamental units.
This basic conventional idea is that the mind is a computer functioning in the brain (brain = mind = computer). However in fitting the brain to a computational view, such explanations omit neurophysiological details such as:
Widespread apparent randomness at all levels of neural processes (is it really noise, or underlying levels of complexity?);
Glial cells (which account for some 80% of brain);
Dendritic-dendritic processing (e.g. Pribram, Eccles);
Electrotonic gap junctions which connect neuronal interiors;
Cytoplasmic/cytoskeletal activities within neurons; and,
Living state (the brain is alive!).
A further difficulty for the convenional brain=mind=computer approach is the absence of testable hypotheses in emergence theory. No threshold or rationale is specified; rather, consciousness "just happens."
Finally, the complexity of individual neurons and synapses is not accounted for in such arguments. Treating neurons as indivisible units, switches or bit states is an insult to neurons. Cells are themselves highly complex and dynamical. For example, single cell protozoan organisms are able to swim, find food, and learn through the use of their internal cytoskeleton. Are such protozoa more intelligent than neurons? >
and some more...they are getting even closer here...< If proto-conscious information and Platonic values are embedded at the Planck scale, how could they be linked to biology? How could our brains access, or be influenced by these infinitesimal features? A possible solution comes through quantum mechanics, or quantum theory.
Quantum theory describes the bizarre behavior of particles and energy at the scale of atoms and sub-atomic particles. A century of experimental observation of quantum systems have shown that, at least at small scales, particles (mass) can exist in two or more states or locations simultaneously (quantum superposition). But in our everyday world objects seem definite, and occupy single states and locations. The transition from quantum possibilities to definite, classical states is often called "collapse of the wave function," or "quantum state reduction."
Experimental evidence in the early part of this century led great theorists Bohr, Heisenberg and Wigner to conclude (the "Copenhagen interpretation") that objects remain in wave-like quantum superposition until observed by a conscious human being--consciousness causes collapse of the wave function! To illustrate the apparent absurdity of this conclusion, in the 1930's Schroedinger devised his famous thought experiment: "Schroedinger's cat." A living cat is placed in a box into which poison can be released by a quantum event, e.g., sending a photon through a half-silvered mirror. So there are equal possibilities that the cat is either dead or alive. As a quantum phenomenon, the photon is in superposition, and so both passes through, and does not pass through, the half silvered mirror. But according to the Copenhagen interpretation, until a conscious being opens the box to observe, the cat is both dead and alive. Schroedinger's point was that the conscious observer interpretation was incorrect.
Other explanations have been developed. David Bohm's theory avoids collapse (but raises other problems), and the "multiple worlds" view holds that each possibility in a superposition evolves into a new and separate universe. Modern physics describes environmental "decoherence," essentially saying that any interaction between a quantum system and the outside world causes loss of the quantum superposition with random choice of particular classical states. However there is no explanation for the fate of quantum superpositions which remain isolated from environment.
Many physicists now believe that intermediate between tiny quantum-scale systems and "large" cat-size systems some objective factor disturbs the superposition to cause collapse, or "objective reduction (OR)." For example the GRW theory (after its proponents Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber) suggests that as a quantum superposition grows to a critical number of particles in superposition (~1017), the system spontaneously reduces to classical states. Experimental evidence has not supported GRW. According to Roger Penrose the objective factor causing reduction is an intrinsic feature of space-time itself (quantum gravity).
To begin, Penrose extends Einstein's theory of general relativity (in which mass equates to curvature in space-time) down to the Planck scale. Quantum superposition--actual separation (displacement) of mass from itself-- is equivalent to simultaneous spacetime curvatures in opposite directions, causing "bubbles," or separations in fundamental reality. (To illustrate, 4-dimensional space-time is simplified as a 2 dimensional space-time sheet -- Figure 8). The Penrose view is similar to the multiple worlds view in that superposition involves a separation in underlying reality, however rather than evolving an entire new universe, Penrose reasons that these bubble-like separations are unstable and reduce to specific states and locations after a critical degree of separation. Objective reductions are thus a self-organizing process at the fundamental level of reality. If proto-conscious experience is rooted in the Planck scale, then such self-organizing objective reductions are processes occurring in an experiential medium.
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