So, as part of a discussion on the role of quantum mechanics in cognitive science, a quick sum-up of the conversation:

H introduces a book on that topic, and says Hey this is great! T, the group skeptic, goes, 'Bah! Just from reading the review, I can tell it is Pseudoscientific Nonsense!' --Which is a little unfair. Then ensues a wiggly debate between people who like T and people who like quantum mechanics. The people backing quantum mechanics pretty much prove their point that they at least are not quacks, even if they are on the edges of theory; at which T supporters sort of splutter and go, 'Well, I don't see why we should care anyway. Quantum mechanics only relates to basic consciousness and I don't think that's interesting.'

I chime into this conversation at the bottom. The cast is Tim Supporter 1 and 2 (TS1 and TS2), Tim, Spiritual Guy (SG), and me, Delphi (D).

TS1: i agree with tim having taken a look at the book. i just don't think that consciousness is a very interesting phenomenon - it is more of an epiphenomenon. it is a term that is tossed around a lot without any qualifiers as to what it is supposed to be or do. the book - which i only skimmed - just seems like speculations built upon speculations based upon assumptions. which is okay, because consciousness is a fuzzy concept, so the arguments for it are typically fuzzy too. and it may fascinate people, but i's rather understand first how say the visual system works for instance at the most basic level before jumping to questions on the nature of consciousness. but i respect the person who posted the initial thread - it may be his brand of tea, but i prefer coffee.

SG: "i just don't think that consciousness is a very interesting phenomenon" ROFLMAO [by the way, folks, what the freak is this supposed to mean? -D] sorry, couldn't help it... :)

TS1: I still don't see how consciousness is anything other than a byproduct of purely psychological processes. i don't see the mystery that everyone is seeming to place in this concept. why we don't find memory just as interesting - the fact that i can mentally represent prior information is far more compelling and complex than awareness and attention.

Tim: Agreed. ...it all comes down to the fact that I don't see the need for all this horribly complex theoretical structure. More practically, I don't see anything predictive about it. Once you've patted yourself on the back for cleverness, what else can you do with it? Show me an experiment that supports it and I'll reconsider. [Note: Tim is always saying 'Show me experiments!', 'Show me peer review!' to the point where it just becomes his excuse not to listen. Annoys the heck out of me. -D]

TS1: I agree - This is the old levels of analysis problem. You can explain why the car crashed by analyzing how each quark interacted with the other, or you can explain it by saying that the car swerved into the tree. I find the later has better explanatory power, but this again might be due to my perspective. A physicist might see things differently, but I don't know what physicists have added yet to our understanding of consciousness. I seriously don't see the contibution from my perspective. Not that it might not happen someday.

TS2: I'm definitely with you guys on this one. I've never seen what was so 'special' about consciousness in general. though I do understand how people could get caught up in thinking that way. With a little introspection (er, well maybe a lot) I've generally gotten the sense that consciousness is more of a by-product, a consequence of psychological processes, something sort of 'tacked-on' on top of the rest. Besides, this 'consciousness' is such a high-level phenomenon ('awareness' only being obtained after filtration through many other levels and layers of mental process), that it would seem a bit silly to try and begin explaining it from the extreme-ground-level. I liked the analogy with the car and the tree.

I understand the spirit of scientific inquiry, and I don't suggest that zero research is spent on looking into quantum effects on the mind, but I wouldn't get my hopes up that it's the end-all. What's with trying to explain something we don't quite understand with something else that we don't quite understand, anyway?

--Dun dun DUNNN: Here I come!--

D: Yes, levels of analysis. The car swerved into the tree.

But there is nothing to learn from that definition. The car swerved because something went wrong with its brain--the human inside. Now if we learn what went wrong with the human, there we have fruitful line of thought. There we enact drunk driving laws.

The use of learning about the quantum level of consciousness is like the use of knowing about cause-and-effect. The more we know about what causes what, the more we understand about fundamental levels, then the more we can build on those levels and make things useful to us. The true potential of any system lies in its most basic level. (Which is, in our case, most likely limitless.)

It's like knowing about machine language in computers. 1's and 0's. That fundamental knowledge had to be established before we could move forward.

In programming today, we have languages upon languages, and the thought of programming with 1's and 0's is ludicrous. The thing is, though, that any sufficiently advanced language cannot be comprehensive. It will have its limitations; broader potential is sacrificed so that it will be easier to use it for the things we want it to accomplish. As it goes further in any one direction, it will be more difficult to make it go in any *other* direction.

Suppose someone wants to program something that this language isn't well suited for? (Hang with the metaphor here: I'm saying suppose we want to do something with our minds we don't normally do?) Use another language, right? What if there's no suitable language existing for the program we want to write? Do we simply assume the computer cannot do it?

Go back to machine language; it has precious few limitations; it is so basic and flexible that the bounds are essentially set by your imagination. It is what Every Language is based upon. This is where you start if you want to do something new and radically different. Or, this is where you look if you want to explore the true potential of what a computer can do. Not just the current language in use.

But hey--most programmers don't want to go there. It takes a LOT of work to build from that level, and is only worth it if you want something drastically different. Most are fine accepting the limitations of the languages we have. That's quite practical.

Here's a problem, though--what if we forgot about the machine language? What if we forgot that that was what everything else was built on, and considered the advanced language to be our only building blocks? We would find ourselves limited *severely* in terms of what we can imagine is possible. Eventually we would reach a roadblock in terms of development. We would exhaust the possibilities of what that language is good for. And we all know what happens when we stop evolving.

This is why we need to know the ways in which quantum mechanics ties (into) cognition and reality. True, it is a VERY basic level, as distant as it gets from normal levels of operation. But we have to know it's there, and we ought to know, as thoroughly as we can, what it has to do with the ways our minds operate. Even if we never care to work on that level. Because someday we may want to, or have to.

I myself am very interested in what we CAN do, not just what we Do do. And while I am no quantum physicist, I will certainly be listening to what they have to say.

Oh, Also:

"i still don't see how consciousness is anything other than a byproduct of purely psychological processes."

That sounds like saying hydrogen and oxygen are just by-products of water.

"why we don't find memory just as interesting - the fact that i can mentally represent prior information is far more compelling and complex than awareness and attention." - TS1

Memory IS just as interesting. If that's what interests you. Start a thread on that if you like.

The reason people are so interested in consciousness itself is that bare awareness is what every other mental process--memory, too--is based on.

"That may be his brand of tea, but I prefer coffee."

I myself am an avid tea drinker. But the smell of coffee is delicious.

5:01 a.m. 2004-02-12�