Quantum minds: why humans are illogical?

[JocktheMotie]

For a very entertaining and informative point of view on this subject read Anathem by Neal Stephenson, he takes the idea and runs with it and ends up in a very odd, but thought provoking place.

When I read this article last week or so, this is also what I thought of. I meant to go back to the book and refresh my memory but never got around to it.

 

[Octarine]

For a very entertaining and informative point of view on this subject read Anathem by Neal Stephenson, he takes the idea and runs with it and ends up in a very odd, but thought provoking place.

Does one of you want to summarise Neal's hypothesis?

 

[Qlip]

Does one of you want to summarise Neal's hypothesis?

*Spoiler?*

The book basically plays with the idea that our consciouness does not lie in the ability for our brains to function within the realm of classical physics, but in the Science Fictiony speculation that our brains are quantum based, and that we actually percieve different quantum universes simultaneously before we choose an action and collapse the other possible universes.

It's a neat premise and makes a neat story, but I wouldn't call it a hypothesis necessarily.

 

[Octarine]

Ah, I didn't realise you were talking about a sci-fi book.
The idea that we percieve other quantum universes simultatneously is a bizarre one when you consider that for each 'particle', there is an infinite number of eigenstates and therefore for the sum total of particles in the universe, that is an impossibly large number of possibilities!

 

[Mole]

Quantum Mechanics and the New Age

Quantum Mechanics is our most accurate scientific law. Quantum Mechanics is accurate to ten decimal places and this is being extended every day. So Quantum Mechanics has immense scientific prestige.

And it is this prestige that the New Age seeks to purloin by giving their nostrums a Quantum Mechanical glow.

But Quantum Mechanics and the New Age have the same relationship as astonomy and astrology.

 

[Qlip]

Ah, I didn't realise you were talking about a sci-fi book.
The idea that we percieve other quantum universes simultatneously is a bizarre one when you consider that for each 'particle', there is an infinite number of eigenstates and therefore for the sum total of particles in the universe, that is an impossibly large number of possibilities!

It's only a problem if you figure that the information processing is all done classically.. and in the book, at least as I gathered, the universes would be limited to the ones in which roughly the same 'brain' existed, and I imagine the information would be limited to things that would be significantly and crudely different between each POV.

Anyway, Neil also wrote a book based on the premise that consciousness is the adaptation of a cosmically transmitted information virus by mind hackers in ancient Mesopotamia. And he laid it out in an almost believable fashion with lots of Sumerian myth and history. He's not pushing that as a hypothesis, just idea play.

 

[Octarine]

It's only a problem if you figure that the information processing is all done classically..

Indeed.

Anyway, Neil also wrote a book based on the premise that consciousness is the adaptation of a cosmically transmitted information virus by mind hackers in ancient Mesopotamia. And he laid it out in an almost believable fashion with lots of Sumerian myth and history. He's not pushing that as a hypothesis, just idea play.

Which one would you recommend I read?

 

[Qlip]

Indeed.



Which one would you recommend I read?

I'd read "Snow Crash" or "Diamond Age" first.. Anathem is worthy, but only if you like the writer's style as it is a large book.

 

[entropie]

Quantum Mechanics is our most accurate scientific law. Quantum Mechanics is accurate to ten decimal places and this is being extended every day. So Quantum Mechanics has immense scientific prestige.

And it is this prestige that the New Age seeks to purloin by giving their nostrums a Quantum Mechanical glow.

But Quantum Mechanics and the New Age have the same relationship as astonomy and astrology.

Thats not fully true. Our most accurate way to measure is still an apple falling of a tree

 

[Octarine]

Thats not fully true. Our most accurate way to measure is still an apple falling off a tree

You can always spot the engineer, by their love of Newton!
Accuracy is a slippery term when you are comparing different dimensions.
Our quantum field theories are still the most well tested of our theories of physics. Yet we still know the theory is incomplete.

Anyway, I wonder if [MENTION=825]ygolo[/MENTION] or someone else wishes to explain the vector space approach to modelling human thought in a little more detail.