Archive 5

Archive of older quantum mind blog material from 26 April - 13 August 2010

13 AUGUST 2010
HAISCH/RUEDA: ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE QUANTUM VACUUM
The middle portion of Bernard Haisch's recent book, 'The God Theory' discusses the structure of the quantum vacuum and spacetime. Beginning from Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, Haisch explains that electric and magnetic fields flowing through space constantly oscillate, as a function of the uncertainty of their position and momentum. The name 'zero-point field' refers to the fact that this is the lowest possible energy state that persists even when the heat/movement of molecules has ceased. Because electromagnetic radiation permeates the whole of space this adds up to an enormous amount of energy. Haisch stresses that there is no such thing in the universe as a void, and that this lowest energy state is still full of this zero point energy. This quantum vacuum is viewed as a sea of energy fluctuations and force perturbations jumping in and out of existence. Haisch treats the zero point energy as a real thing, and concentrates attention on what effect this has. The existence of the zero point energy has long been demonstrated by the Casimir force. At distances smaller than a millimetre metal can be forced together, because long wave length radiation is suppressed between the plates, so more pressure is exerted on the metal sheets from outside than inside. The nearer the plates are brought together, the more radiation is excluded and the greater the external pressure.

Haisch developed ideas about the effects of the zero-point field in conjunction with a colleague, Alfonso Rueda. The assumption since Newton has been that the mass of an object, which is in effect a measure of its inertia, was an innate property of the object itself. Rueda made an opposite proposal that the inertial resistance to acceleration came not from the object itself but from contrary force exerted by the surrounding zero-point field. Further to this, it is suggested that the zero-point field could explain the Pauli exclusion principle, with the buffeting of the underlying electromagnetic field preventing the electron from losing energy and spiraling into the nucleus of the atom.

The astrophysicist, Sir William McCrea has additionally suggested that these vacuum fluctuations are needed not just to overcome the inertia of macroscopic objects, but to generate any action in the universe at all, including radioactive decay and electron transitions, thus making it the key element in the passage of time/the increasing entropy of the universe. If these roles are attributed to the zero-point field, it can be viewed as an underlying reality that sustains the matter that appears in spacetime. Haisch suggests that there should be other zero-point fields besides the electromagnetic zero-point field relating to the other forces of nature such as the strong and weak nuclear forces. Thus it is acknowledged that the zero-point electromagnetic field might be only part of the story.

What is the significance of all this for consciousness studies? 'Fundamentalist' theories try to explain consciousness in terms of fundamental quantum features, which ultimately involves the nature of the quantum vacuum/spacetime. An understanding of this therefore becomes central to an understanding of the physical basis of consciousness. If the quantum vacuum is as central to the material structure of the universe, as these proposals suggest, it becomes the more plausible that it could underlie consciousness.

6 AUGUST 2010
VELMANS: REFLEXIVE MONISM
We discuss here an interview that Max Velmans gave to Susan Blackmore (Conversations on Consciousness), as part of a series of interviews with prominent consciousness theorists. Velmans has developed a theory of consciousness called reflexive monism. He starts by thinking in terms of the three dimensional space that surrounds us. He contrasts this approach to both dualism, and to standard reductionist approaches that seek to portray consciousness as a state or function of the brain. The standard view is that sensory inputs to the brain are processed to the point where they become a conscious experience in the brain.

Velmans, however, suggests that the subjective experience is not in the brain, but is the three dimensional world around us. In this theory, there's no split between the three dimensional world and the world in the brain, although he accepts that there is a world outside the brain, which is as described by physics and therefore very different from what we experience. Velman's view is that the history of the universe through the Big Bang and the process of evolution leads to the present situation where we have human organisms each with an individual viewpoint or perspective on the whole universe. The universe is thus differentiated into bits that each have a view of the whole. This idea is labelled as reflexive monism.

Velmans sees consciousness as a fundamental property. He agrees with Chalmers in this although not in other respects. However, he seems, in this interview, uncertain how to develop this concept. He tries to compare the distinction between the objective and subjective view to experiments in quantum mechanics where the description of a particle depends on the arrangement of equipment. Unfortunately, this is a view of quantum mechanics that many have drifted away from. The more modern view might be that the description changes when the quanta interact with the environment, and that particular experimental arrangements produce such an interaction. Velmans, who is not a quantum consciousness theorist, intends only an analogy, but this does place a question mark over whether this whole concept of two unrelated views of the same thing or two aspects of the same thing without any apparent physical connection actually means anything. Velmans suggests here that identical information is being presented in two different ways. In a way, this is likely to be in some sense true of any physical explanation of consciousness in the brain, but without some suggestion of what physical structure might underlie the dual aspects, we really don't have much to go on.

Velmans attempts to further substantiate his view with a thought experiment. There could be an experimental situation where a scientist was looking at a brain scan of relevant neurons in a subject's brain, while the subject was simply looking out and getting a subjective impression of the room they were in. So the scientist is getting an objective impression of the subject's brain state, while the subject is getting the subjective output of the brain state. The scientist and the subject then swap roles, with the scientist looking at the room while the subject looks at a scan of his brain. It is suggested that this somehow doesn't make sense, or blurs the subjective/objective roles. However, the action of looking at a scan of neural processing and of looking at what the neural processing produces are still quite distinct as between objective and subjective, whether the person having the objective experience is a scientist or untrained. There is nothing magical about being a scientist that makes their experience objective, regardless of what they are looking at. Velmans suggests that it is something to do with being in a scientist's role when looking at the scan, but the objectivity is nothing to do with the job description of the observer, and all to do with where they are looking. In the detail of his written material Velmans is one of the most logical and incisive of writers, but in the end this looks like an unsatisfactory merger between ideas of consciousness as a fundamental property of the universe and more conventional views wedded to classical physics.

3 August 2010
BRAIN AS A GATE
Proposals such as those of Hameroff may well be only first shots at describing the physical mechanism of consciousness in the brain. What does emerge, however, is the idea of the brain as a gate. This is not a metaphor but a physical description as in logic gate, voltage-gated ion channel or even the physical structure that allows access to premises is handled in a particular way. In this respect, a particular brain process can be seen as giving access to understanding or consciousness coded into fundamental spacetime.

2 AUGUST 2010
BUREAUCRATIC STIFLING OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS (2)
Concern is being expressed about steps towards making it difficult for new ideas to emerge in science. On 27 July we mentioned the new rules from the Engineering and Physical Research Council that can ban a scientist from getting any funding at all for at least a year if, they sufficiently dislike an idea that has been submitted. Hard on the heels of this comes a report relating to the growing international controversy over shaken baby syndrome, where an expert supporter of more recent findings has been banned from giving evidence in court by the General Medical Council (New Scientist, 31 July 2010). This has been interpreted as a warning to other experts not to disclose their scientific findings to the law courts.

31 JULY 2010
FREE WILL, INFORMATION, QUANTUM MECHANICS AND BIOLOGY
This article seems to illustrate some of the difficulties that modern thinkers have in getting to grips with the questions of consciousness and freewill. In the early part of the article the author states baldly that conscious free decisions are a subjective illusion, on the basis of the Libet experiments. Curiously, he goes on to quote at some length parts of Roy Baumeister's interesting 2008 paper, 'Free will in scientific psychology', which argues that the Libet experiments refer to immediate action, but do not concern themselves with more deliberative thinking. The part of the Baumeister's article quoted here refers to the biological cost of the processes associated with freewill. This is developed further with accounts of studies that show levels of glucose in the bloodstream fall when self control or free choice making are being exercised. This evidence of energy consumption looks to argue the process as being purely illusory.

The latter part of the article is in a way hard to discuss, because it seems to discuss the wrong question. The main drive of the argument seems to be that the interactions of biomolecules can be understood in the same way as other chemical reactions, with no need to resort to examining the quantum mechanical underpinnings. This is true in so far as it goes, but does not even approach the question of why the biological structures, unlike the chemical ones, are associated with consciousness.

30 July 2010
FREEWILL and ENERGY CONSUMPTION
A paper by Roy Baumeister (Freewill 6) argues for the efficacy of freewill. In particular studies show that the processes of both self control and rational choice deplete glucose in the bloodstream, leading to a deterioration in subsequent performance. This can, however, be at least partly restored by the administration of more glucose. It appears unlikely that evolution would have selected for such a high energy process if it were not efficacious. Consciousness is closely associated with freewill, and these studies therefore carry a strong implication that consciousness itself is also a physical thing or process involving energy and being efficacious.

27 JULY 2010
SPACETIME AS THE BASIS
As of now spacetime looks to be the fundamental level of the universe. What is referred to as the quantum vacuum may be seen as distortions or excitations of spacetime, which represent the fundamental quanta such as quarks and electrons. This is all that exists, the world as we perceive being an adaptive modeling of this in the brain. Mind, subjective consciousness and mathematical understanding can in some theories be seen as themselves a coding or excitation of this fundamental spacetime.

27 JULY 2010
BUREAUCRATIC STIFLING OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS
Concern is being expressed about a further step towards making it difficult for new ideas to emerge in science. Under new rules in the UK, the Engineering and Physical Research Council (EPSRC) can ban a scientist from getting any funding at all for at least a year if, they sufficiently dislike an idea that has been submitted. I suppose it beats being burnt at the stake.

27 JULY 2010
EXPERIMENTAL TEST OF PENROSE'S OBJECTIVE REDUCTION
This recent article by Michael Brooks in the New Scientist describes a long-term experiment now underway to test Roger Penrose's hypothesis of objective reduction. This proposes that even particles that are isolated from the environment will decohere when their individual spacetime geometries becomes separated by more than the Planck length. This experiment is being run by Dirk Bouwmeester at the University of California, Santa Barbara and involves mirrors only ten micrometres across and weighing only a few trillionths of a kilo, and the measurement of their deflection by a photon. The experiment is expected to take ten years to complete. This means that theories of consciousness based on objective reduction are likely to remain speculative for at least that length of time. Confirmation of objective reduction would still leave the question of any connection to consciousness open. However, the ability to run an experiment that could look to falsify objective reduction, at least qualifies it as a scientific theory.

24 JUNE 2010
CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIES' LACK OF INTEREST IN NEUROSCIENCE
One curious consequence of the functionalist approach was that a great part of consciousness studies has paid remarkably little attention to the brain or to advances in brain studies in recent decades. The assumption was that all one needed was a particular system that could run on any material, and there was no need to inquire any further into the details of the particular biological system known as the brain. The possible flaw in this approach was that there might be features in the brain that contributed to the system, but which had not been identified, or at least whose role had not been identified. The failure over the past 50 years to convincingly identify the nature of subjective experience, or to develop properly autonomous robots suggests that there might indeed be something missing from the system as understood by functionalism. However, consciousness studies went on in a different direction. Much of the work was dominated by philosophers or psychologists who dealt more in abstractions than what was going in the physical brain, presumably secure in the knowledge that that sort of thing had been dealt with. Neuroscientists, meanwhile, seem to have been persuaded to treat consciousness as not really part of neuroscience, and deferred to philosophers whenever they felt it necessary to mention consciousness. This leaves us with the suspicion that much of the work on consciousness in the last few decades may have been going determinedly up a blind alley.

22 JUNE 2010
QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT IN LIGHT HARVESTING COMPLEXES
A recent paper by Francesca Fassioli and Alexandra Olaya-Castro, arXiv:1003.3610v1 [quant-ph]suggests that electronic quantum coherence amongst distance donors could allow precise modulation of the light harvesting function. Photosynthesis is remarkable for the near 100% efficiency of energy transfer. The spatial arrangement of the pigment molecules and their electronic interaction is known to relate to this efficiency.

Recent experimental studies of photosynthetic protein have shown that it can sustain quantum coherence for longer than previously expected, and that this can happen at the normal temperature of biological processes. This has been taken to imply that quantum coherence may affect light harvesting processes. In photosynthesis, the energy of sunlight is transferred to a reaction centre with near 100% efficiency. The spatial arrangement of pigment molecules and their electronic interactions is known to be involved with this high efficiency. There is an implication that quantum coherence may affect the light harvesting process.

Some studies point to very efficient energy transport as the optimal result of the interplay of quantum coherent with decoherent mechanisms. Roles proposed for quantum coherence vary between avoidance of energy traps that are not at the overall lowest energy level, and actual searches for the overall lowest energy level. In this paper, it is suggested that the function of quantum coherence goes beyond efficiency of energy transport, and includes the modulation of the photosynthetic antennae complexes to deal with variations in the environment.

Role of quantum entanglement: There is some debate as to whether quantum entanglement plays a role in the functioning of the light-harvesting complexes, or is just a by-product of quantum states. The authors argue that entanglement may be involved in the efficiency of the system, and they use the FMO protein in green sulphur bacteria as the basis of their study. They suggest that entanglement could play a role in light-harvesting by allowing precise control of the rate at which excitations are transferred to the reaction centre. Interplay between quantum coherent and incoherent processes is also noticed, with one state being more or less efficient than the other depend on the type of coupling to the environment.

Long-lived quantum coherence: Long-range quantum correlations have been suggested to be important as a mechanism helping quantum coherence to survive at the high temperatures sustained in light harvesting antennae. Electronic coherence is distributed amongst pigment molecules, and it is suggested that it may adjust energy transport properties in relation to light intensity. This paper claims to show that in the FMO complex long-lived quantum coherence is spatially distributed in such a way that entanglement between pairs of molecules controls the efficiency profile needed to cope with variations in the environment. The ability to control energy transport under varying environmental conditions is seen as crucial for the robustness of photosynthetic systems. A mechanism involving quantum coherence and entanglement might be effective in controlling the response to different light intensities.

Consciousness: From the point of view of consciousness studies, the discussion in this paper might suggest greater caution in proposing simplistic dismissals of the possible influence of quantum coherence in neural tissues. This paper indicates the possibility that quantum entanglement helps to sustain coherence at biological temperatures, and also that fluctuations between coherent and decoherent mechanisms may be important within the same system.

16 JUNE 2010
ENTANGLEMENT IN PHOTOSYNTHETIC PROTEIN
A paper by Caruso, F. et al of Imperial College, London studies the evolution of quantum entanglement during exciton energy transfer (EET) in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) complex in sulphur bacteria. In these bacteria energy from sunlight has to be transferred from antennae that collect it to the reaction centre which changes it into chemical energy. The efficiency of this energy transfer through light harvesting complexes, such as the FMO or a similar structure in other organisms known as the LH-1, is surprisingly high at 99%. In recent studies, such as Engel (2007), evidence of quantum coherence has been found in these structures, and it has been suggested that this could have a role in the high efficiency of energy transfer. Surprisingly the tendency for quantum states to decohere in the environment and the random noise of the environment is thought to play a positive role in energy transport.

Light harvesting complexes such as the FMO consist of several chromophore molecules coupled to one another by dipolar interactions, and situated within a protein scaffold. Sun light induced excitations on individual chromophores can undergo quantum coherent transfer from site to site and are thus delocalised as a wave form over multiple chromophore molecules. Quantum coherence is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the existence of quantum entanglement. P. Efficient exciton energy transfer in light harvesting complexes is traced to the interplay between quantum coherent and incoherent processes, with the quantum correlations that are characteristic of coherence partially suppressed by noise, but not completely destroyed. The interplay between entanglement over short distances and times followed by the destruction of entanglement over longer distances and times is seen as necessary for optimal energy transport.

From the point of view of consciousness studies, there is an interesting contrast between the mixed coherent/incoherent systems discussed here, which appear to be functional in photosynthetic protein, and the insistence that any decoherence in the brain is a sudden death as far as the efficacy of quantum states is concerned. We may have to await further clarification of this.

15 JUNE 2010
QUERYING OF LIBET
Paula Droege's paper in the Journal of Consciousness Studies queries the Libet based approach to consciousness and freewill. The main drive of this paper is to query the mainstream neuroscience dismissal of conscious agency or freewill on the basis of the Libet and similar experiments with consciousness. Droege suggests that this approach which refers only to the kind of trivial actions dealt with in Libet-type experiments is too narrow in its conception of freewill. For instance, she draws attention to the fact that brain studies done over the last few years (refs. 1-4) reveal structural connections between episodic memories and imagination that gives consciousness a role in our sense of extended time.

Further to this Droege argues that our choice of actions derives from a wider base of past beliefs than the Libet experiments allow for. She takes the example of seeing an animal trapped and freeing it. The act of freeing it is here viewed as a spontaneous reaction, but it is based on beliefs, feelings etc. regarding animals that have been developed and held in consciousness over a period of time. Similarly creative inspirations are often seen as springing quite fully formed from the unconscious, but here again this may in its turn derive from ideas that have been consciously contemplated.

Droege sees the role of consciousness as the integration of information for the formation of plans for future use. Decisions may not be conscious but they are based on both conscious and unconscious states in the past.

13 JUNE 2010
LIMITS OF QUANTUM SPEED UP IN PHOTOSYNTHETIC LIGHT HARVESTING
This paper argues that quantum speed up requires both long-lived quantum coherence and excitons delocalised as a wave form across an entire photosynthetic (FMO) complex. Such completely delocalised excitons do not exist in the FMO complex, and are thought unlikely to exist in other light harvesting complexes. The transfer of energy across the FMO complexes is not viewed by the authors as a quantum search. It is considered more likely that long-lived quantum coherence contributes to the overall efficiency and robustness of energy transport, as in the ability to cope with variations in external conditions. In the LH2 complex of purple bacteria quantum coherence has been shown to enhance both the speed and robustness of energy transport.

12 JUNE 2010
QUANTUM COMPUTING AND ENTANGLEMENT
Entanglement where the properties of quantum particles can be changed instantaneously over distance has traditionally been considered a requirement for quantum computing. Entanglement usually requires isolation from the environment, and decoherence as a result of interaction with the environment has been both a major obstacle to the development of quantum computers and also the most cogent argument against the existence of quantum computing in the brain. However A.G. White and team of the University of Brisbane have been arguing for the possibility of a degree of quantum computing without entanglement, and have published a paper entitled 'Experimental quantum computing without entanglement' in Physical Review Letters (2008). Quantum computing is based on qubits, but instead of many qubits, White argues it might be possible to work with only one qubit isolated from the environment, and that for certain classes of problems entanglement may not be necessary.

12 June 2010
GREEN QUANTUM COMPUTERS
An article by Gregory Scholes at the Toronto University Centre for Quantum Information provides another account of recent experiments relative to quantum coherence and entanglement in photosynthetic protein. The discussion towards the end of the article relative to the possibility that this type of quantum processing in protein might have implications for brain processing is perhaps predictably unsatisfactory given the general unpopularity of this topic, and a suspicion that associations with quantum consciousness could be a threat to funding. The assumption here appears to be a steam age one, where the brain has to be interpreted only in terms of large scale components, as originally described in 19^th century science. The main argument against relevance to brain processing is supposed to be that the photosynthetic systems described take place on a nanometre scale of size and picosecond scale of time. However, these are exactly the sort of scales that are relevant to processing within neurons, making the argument presented here appear unconvincing.

7 JUNE 2010
EXPLAINING THE BRAIN
Carl Craver's book, 'Explaining the Brain could be viewed as an attempt to clear away some of the undergrowth of 20^th century philosophy that has tended to constrain the interpretation of neuroscientific discoveries, and hindered attempts to understand the physical basis of consciousness. Craver is critical of those philosophers who have interpreted neuroscience in terms of simple and predictable laws deriving purely from the neuron level. He suggests that this approach is lacking in evidential support. He argues that complete explanations in neuroscience capture all the causal relations between the components of a mechanism. Explanations in practical neuroscience are seen to describe mechanisms, and show how components make something work, rather than relating to the effect of general laws. Particular components arranged in a particular system is what is seen as necessary for explanation.

The author also argues against any absolute concept of 'levels' that cannot interact with one another. Levels are only seen as a constraint within a particular mechanism. So the hippocampus and the pyramidal cells might be at different levels in a particular mechanism, but this should not be seen as a general rule that must apply to these components in all instances. The levels in neuroscience are argued to be levels within a particular mechanism, rather than levels applying as a general law.

30 May 2010
ANOTHER SUGGESTION FOR THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
In the latest issue of 'New Scientist', Kate McAlpine describes recent research by Christof Mast and Dieter Braun. They have performed experiments suggesting that DNA replication could have occurred in pores around the ocean floor hydrothermal vents that are frequently suggested as locations for the origin of life. In general short stands of DNA and loose nucleotides would have been too diluted in ordinary seawater for replication to have emerged. However, it is suggested that the situation could have been different inside undersea hydrothermal vents. Magnesium-rich rocks could react with seawater to drive convection currents within pores in the rock. This could possibly concentrate nucleotides, strands of DNA and polymerase sufficiently for replication to emerge. Mast and Braun performed an experiment involving polymerase, nucleotides and DNA strands in a state of thermal convection in water, and produced a doubling of DNA every 50 seconds (Physical Review Letters, vol 104, p. 188102). It is further suggested that fatty acids in the water could have conveyed replicated DNA between pores. An experiment performed by another team at Harvard showed that fatty acids driven by convection could form membranes capable of catching and transporting genetic material (Journal of the American Chemical Society, DOI: 10.1021/ja9029818).

30 May 2010
SCIENCE, OPINION & REPRESSION: MMR and CLIMATEGATE
Without wanting to take sides in either the autism/vaccine or the climate disputes, the scientific establishments approach to both these areas looks to be disturbingly repressive. The General Medical Council has taken the extreme step of erasing Dr. Wakefield's name from the medical register on what look like rather nit picking grounds, when the real offence is to oppose establishment views. Climategate is of course much worse. Assuming the scientific consensus on climate change is more or less correct, the apparent willingness to suppress any contrary opinion and evidence, has damaged the credibility of attempts to avert the damaging effects of climate change. Unfortunately, consciousness studies has manifested similar tendencies to ridicule, ignore or misrepresent anything that diverges from a narrow orthodoxy, despite the lack of much scientific basis for that orthodoxy.

24 May 2010
CRAIG VENTER - IMPORTANCE MAY BE PRACTICAL RATHER THAN PHILOSOPHICAL
Craig Venter and team have created synthetic bacteria by putting together stretches of DNA and transferring these into the cell of another microbe, whose DNA had been removed. The synthetic bacteria are virtually identical to natural versions of the same bacteria. Venter's company is involved in the development of bio-fuels, and it is hoped to design synthetic algae that can capture carbon dioxide from the air and produce hydrocarbon fuels. There may also be healthcare uses, notably the more rapid development of vaccines.

What is much more doubtful is whether there are any major philosophical implications to this work. One professor of bioethics seems to have gone rather overboard in saying that 'Venter's achievement would seem to extinguish the argument that life requires a special force or power to exist.' If we are talking just about life as such, the idea of vitalism, or a special force that powered life was discarded in the early part of the last century at latest. It seems probable that the professor is really thinking of consciousness rather than life, but as there is no general agreement as to which organisms are or are not conscious, and as even with humans much activity is unconscious, the two terms cannot be seen as interchangeable. Recent research shows that quantum coherence plays a functional in some microbes. At a stretch, and if one sees quantum consciousness as feasible, this might be seen as implying some very basic consciousness in microbes, but any such consciousness would be a function of particular quantum structures rather than of the fact of bits of DNA being stitched together. The appearance of consciousness in a synthetic organism would be an achievement on the same level as that of a human couple producing a conscious child.

Further to this, the Venter achievement does not solve the problem of the actual origin of life on Earth. The problem here is the improbability of having biomolecules assemble in exactly the right order to produce a replicator. One study has suggested that the primordial soup would need to be larger than the observable universe for this to happen by chance. Venter's work is not relevant to the conditions of the Earth 3.8bn years ago, as there was then no Craig Venter and team, no DNA and no cells into which to transfer the DNA. However the blog of 28th April (in more detail under Origins of Life) mentioned the work of Di Mauro at the Sapienza University of Rome as suggesting cyclic nucleotides, a chemical variant of RNA could produce chains of RNA, indicating a possible solution to the origin of life.

24 May 2010
EMOTIONS, REASONING AND MORALITY
An advertising piece by the Templeton Foundation in the most recent issue of 'New Scientist', with contributors as diverse as Antonio Damasio and a lecturer in Islamic theology, could be seen as highlighting our conscious experience of emotions as a common neural currency that amongst other lies behind morality, which in turn can be viewed as adaptive, because our species gains an evolutionary advantage in the degree to which they cooperate. Jonah Lehrer, a writer and journalist, says that psychopaths have above average reasoning abilities, and sound memory and attention spans, but studies show a deficit in emotional responses, which is seen as the basis of a lack of moral actions or restraints. Aref Ali Nayed, a lecturer in Islamic theology sees morality emerging from what he calls compassion, which many might refer to as empathy, and which can be read as a subjective emotional state encouraging cooperation with other members of the species. Damasio is more circumspect, admitting that moral action needs to go beyond reasoning, but uncertain as how morality arises. In terms of the first two commentators, the subjective or conscious emotional context or morality could be interpreted as an adaptive function for consciousness.

20 May 2010
THE DOG THAT DOESN'T BARK IN THE NIGHT
Our latest review is a paper by Hugo Critchley (under Emotions) relating to the basis of subjective emotional experience.This paper discusses evidence for the involvement of bodily responses in brain processes, particularly those related to emotional experience. There does, however, seem to be 'a dog that doesn't bark in the night' somewhere in this paper. There seems to be an unspoken assumption that there is an important distinction between volitional or motivational actions and unconscious activity, and also an assumption that subjective emotions are somehow important to the former. This of course flies in the face of the rigid orthodoxy of psychology and most neuroscience to the effect this distinction is an illusion, and that subjective emotions and other experience are of little scientific relevance. An additional problem in reading this paper is that it is not clear whether the author thinks that all emotional experience is derived from bodily sensations or only some. While the studies discussed in the paper certainly support the latter, the former looks less plausible.

In support of Damasio's somatic marker theory, the experience of feedback from bodily states is hypothesised to be the basis of the subjective experience of emotion. This argument seems sound up to a point, but it is difficult to think that external stimuli, especially the more urgent ones, for instances phobic fear reactions, cannot occur without being laboriously processed through internal organs. The same qualification could apply to emotions arising from cognitive activity. Again it seems laborious and maladaptive in terms of use of energy for everything to have to go via the internal organs, before it can be assessed in terms of emotional experience. Another objection dating back to the 1920s is that bodily arousal is too limited in its range to account for all the variations in subjective emotional experience. The impairment of judgment, decision taking and behaviour in patients with orbitofrontal and ventral prefrontal damage is seen as supportive of the somatic marker idea, but at least some of the deficits here can also be viewed as a consequence of impaired communication between the frontal and limbic areas of the brain. The finding that autonomic arousal is reduced in patients with lesions does not seem that surprising, as outward as well as inward signaling is likely to be impaired by the lesions in the brain. In particular, this does not seem enough to support Damasio's rather vague notion of the self arising from representations of the body state. This is not to say that the body plays no part in it, but it would seem to require considerably more evidence to suggest that the body by itself creates the self.

18 May 2010
SENSITIVE SOULS
In the penultimate chapter of his book, 'Sensitive Souls', Brian J. Ford describes the sophisticated behaviour of many single-cell organisms. This includes identification and location of prey, taking advantage of reproductive opportunities and complex navigation and awareness of position. All of this is achieved without the support of the nervous systems and brains found in multi-cellular organisms. This has led some to suggest the use of quantum computing to support the marvelously complex behaviour of such cells, a form of computing that could subsequently have been passed down to the evolutionarily later multi-cellular organisms.

17 May 2010
CONSCIOUSNESS DENIAL?
The latest (May 15) issue of 'New Scientist' runs a series of articles on 'Denial' referring to popular or special interest denial in a number of areas of science such as climate change and evolution. I would not take issue with the main drift of these articles, but it is noticeable that many of the criticisms justifiably aimed at 'deniers' in these articles could be applied to mainstream philosophers, psychologists and sometimes neuroscientists in consciousness studies.

The 'New Scientist' articles start with a piece by Michael Shermer where he says "A climate denier has a position staked out in advance and sorts through the data applying, confirmation bias - the tendency to look for and find confirmatory evidence for pre-existing beliefs and ignore or dismiss the rest." This is a position all too familiar from consciousness studies, where the Newtonian preference for a universe of bits of macroscopic matter bumping into one another, the neo-Cartesian view that consciousness is non-physical and the 19th century-based concept of neurons as simple switches is often stated first as a metaphysical mantra unsupported by evidence, or is subsequently apparent as a premise which justifies otherwise unsupported conclusions. These believes appear to derive not from science, but from a metaphysical or religious take on the universe, which determines the subsequent treatment of scientific data. To quote Shermer again, "Denialism is typically driven by ideology or religious belief, where the commitment to the belief takes precedence over the evidence. Belief comes first, reasons for belief follow, and reasons are winnowed to ensure that the belief survives intact."

Some other probably justified criticisms of 'deniers' can also be leveled at the consciousness mainstream. Deniers are accused of setting up fake or pseudo experts to justify their cases. While I wouldn't go as far as this with consciousness studies, there is a tendency to set up particular philosophers or even popular writers as authorities that can't be challenged, without bothering with any detailed analysis of their position. This has tended to produce a circularity in much of consciousness studies. Philosophers often seem to conceive of themselves as under-labourers in justifying the Newtonian world picture, while neuroscientists think they should refer to philosophers when discussing consciousness, when sometimes they might be better of following their own knowledge and intuitions.

In the last of this series of articles, Michael Fitzpatrick of Exeter University cautions that crying denialism is a way of discrediting an opponent without having to go to the trouble of marshaling evidence. Unfortunately, similar name throwing is common in consciousness studies. Accredited scientists who don't toe the orthodox line can be denounced as 'hallucinating pseudo-scientists', while non-orthodox approaches can be denounced for allegedly justifying belief in the after-like or God, thus ignoring the prime scientific requirement that theories stand or fall on observation or experiment alone rather than what they might subsequently imply. Fitzpatrick warns that this tendency in modern science is taking us away from one of the achievements of the Enlightenment which was "the liberation of scientific inquiry from dogma".

9 May 2010
GENES & PROTEIN
A recent article in the popular science magazine 'Focus' based on work by Michael Snyder's team at the Stanford University Center for Genomics emphasises the influence of protein on the expression of genes. The article says that the assumption that there is a simple relationship between heriditary features and genes is now being challenged. Genes are coming to be seen as only part of the story. Snyder's team suggest that the other 'non-coding' areas of DNA are more important than genes in creating heriditary differences. Genes are essential as a code for all the proteins that make up the main building blocks of organic life, but not necessarily for the way they are expressed or organised. Scientists looking for the causes of heriditary diseases have not been able to find them in the differences between genes.

The genes are likened to dimmer switches in that they can be turned up or down. Protein molecules called transcription factors bind to what are here referred to as control areas of the DNA, which boost the genes in their production of proteins. If the transcription doesn't bind, the gene may not produce the protein. If there is a defect in the DNA control area, the transcription factor may fail to bind to the control area, and the gene may fail to function properly. Snyder's research suggested that the difference between regulatory regions of DNA in human individuals could be 1,000 times greater than the variation in genes. A similar high degree of variability was found in the ability of control DNA to bind a transcription factor related to the regulation of genes involved in the immune system. Snyder argues that we shouldn't be surprised by the importance of the control areas, because organisms might not function at all, if there was a substantial variability in genes. From our point of view, the article is interesting in emphasising the importance of protein in influencing DNA.

9 May 2010
QUANTUM NOTES & THEIR FAILINGS
The cover story of the May 8 2010 issue of New Scientist provides what might be described as a useful series of notes on quantum theory, that tackles some of the 'weirdness' factors, without requiring the reader to confront a full description of the theory, which can be quite daunting even in popular books. Aspects of the quantum world that are covered include wave-particle duality, the Casimir effect, the Elitzur-Vaidman bomb test, sometimes referred to as counterfactuals, entanglement and superconductivity.

On the flip side, there are a number of short comings to this articles approach. The emphasis on acceptance of Neils Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation is a bit surprising, given the extent to which the younger generation of physicists has moved away from Copenhagen. The gloss that we are ill equipped to see underlying quantum reality does not correctly describe what Copenhagen proposes, which is that the quanta have no reality at all, but are merely mathematical abstractions that allow us to calculate classical realities. As quoted on the home page of this site, Neils Bohr himself said that 'there is no deep reality, there is no quantum world'. This leaves us with the seemingly dualistic proposition that reality arises from mathematical abstractions that are themselves usually conceived as products of the human mind.

The suggestion that parallel universes is the only alternative to Copenhagen is misleading. When first proposed by Everett in the mid 20th century the idea gained little support, and has only really become fashionable in the last 20 years. Incidentally, this proposal should be distinguished from the idea that multiple universe were created during a brief period of inflation in the early universe. The only thing that these two theories appears to have in common is that they provide a convenient escape pod to avoid uncomfortable conclusions about the nature of the universe.

Furthermore, there are other ways of trying to account for what happens in quantum theory. One recently popular idea is that the collapse of a wave to particle never occurs, but is somehow rather fudgily averaged out in larger scale matter. This derives some support from the fact that technical advances have allowed experimenters to observe larger and larger particles in a wave or superposition form, as in the example given in this New Scientist article of a 60 carbon atom 'buckyball'. Another suggestion, discussed elsewhere on this site is Penrose's objective reduction hypothesis, where particles isolated from the environment collapse when their individual spacetimes become separated by more than the Planck length of 10^-35 metres.

The discussion of entanglement is not as clear as it might be. The introduction of a second controversial area in the form of freewill is perhaps not helpful. The author seems to assume that predetermination, as opposed to freewill, is unlikely. This puts him at loggerheads with the neuroscientific and psychological establishment. Although I think that the latters' arguments are very superficial and unconvincing, assuming their wrongness creates an added layer of difficulty. Although entanglement is a counter intuitive theory the mainstream rules for how it should be viewed are quite clear. This says that quantum properties such as spin can be transmitted instantaneously over any distance, but that matter, energy and normal information, which is instantiated in matter or energy, cannot be transmitted faster than light, thus making sure that entanglement is still consistent with special relativity.

Entanglement has relevance for some of the subjects discussed on this site. Quantum coherence in protein is essential for at least some theories of quantum consciousness, and has recently (Nature, 2007 & 2010) been shown to exist in some forms of photosynthetic protein. Coherence (meaning the wave or superposition form of quanta) is necessary but not sufficient for entanglement, which could however facilitate coherence over macroscopic distances in protein.

Two other aspects seem to be missing from this article. Firstly, there is the extent to which the quantum world indicates fundamentals or given properties of the universe, which have to be accepted, and are not apparently reducable to anything else. These are quantum properties of mass, charge and spin and the forces of nature, which are gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear force. The argument discussed on this site is that in view of the apparently insuperable difficulty of describing consciousness in terms of classical physics, it will have to be described as an irreducable fundamental or at least in terms of such fundamentals.

The other feature of the quantum, which is not perhaps given sufficient room, is randomness. When the wave function collapses the choice of position of the particle is random. This is different from the randomness of government lotteries. The latter is pseudo-random, with the winning number arising from an algorithm. By contrast there is no apparent algorithmic basis for the choice of the particle's position. This is an effect without a cause, which forms a complete breach with the dearly-beloved Newtonian universe of algorithm-based cause and effect. This explains the popularity of the otherwise far-fetched Everett idea, which is the only escape from acausality. For the consciousness theories discussed on this site, acausality (but not randomness as such) is interesting because it might share with consciousness the characteristic of lying outside any framework of algorithms.

4 May 2010
K+ ION CHANNELS/PHOTOSYNTHETIC PROTEINS
Carl Branden & John Tooze's book, Introduction to Protein Structure is a generally useful text book on protein, and includes sections dealing with K+ ion channels and photosynthetic proteins. These are usefully read in conjunction with sections on this site dealing with the ideas of Gustav Bernroider, and also sections dealing with studies made since the publication of this book, relative to quantum coherence in photosynthetic proteins. Other sections deal with G-proteins and second messenger signalling in protein, and also with the interaction of protein and DNA. The folding problem, or the difficulty of predicting how a protein will fold, just from its amino acid sequence, is seen as being usually described in terms of the computing power needed for searching through all the possible conformations of a polypeptide chain, for the conformation that requires the least energy (the energy minimum). The author has no particular solution to this problem, which might, however, be resolved by quantum computing within protein. If quantum states in protein are related to consciousness, reading of this or similar good text books is recommended.

28 April 2010
ORIGIN OF THE FIRST REPLICATOR AND OF LIFE?
A team led by Ernesto Di Mauro at Sapienza University of Rome may point a way to solving the problem of the origin of life on Earth. It is thought most likely that life developed from RNA replicators. The problem here has been as to how the first replicator emerged, with an impossibly high probability against the molecules of the first replicator arranging themselves in a chain of the right order simply by chance. The nucleotides that make up RNA do not tend to form chains without a catalyst, but the catalysts that act to produce such chains are proteins, which are themselves made by RNA. This creates a classic chicken and egg conundrum, but long before there were either chickens or eggs on Earth.

However, experiments by Di Mauro's team suggest a possible solution. They have shown that cyclic nucleotides, a chemical variation of the nucleotides that make up RNA, can join up to form RNA chains. The 'black smoker' hydrothermal vents in the oceans are seen as suitable locations for this to happen, although this step has not been experimentally tested.

It will be interesting to see whether this theory can establish itself as an orthodox explanation for the emergence of the first replicators. If it's as simple as all that, it would seem to suggest the near certainty of some form of life on Earth-like planets elsewhere in the universe.

28 April 2010
AGORA: AN ALLEGORY FOR CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIES?
The recently released film, Agora, shows the last gasps of ancient religion and philosophy in Alexandria during the take over of intellectual and political power by a fanatical version of Christianity. The main character is Hypatia a philosopher and astronomer who is murdered by the Christian mob because of their suspicion of science.

Little is known about Hypatia's actual work, but in the film she is allowed to anticipate both Galileo with respect to frames of reference and Kepler with respect to the elliptical shape of orbits. In the latter case, even the insightful Hypatia is for a long time blinded by Greek philosophy's obsession with the perfection of the circle, and the semi-religious idea that the celestial bodies must move in circles. It is only at the very end of her life that she grasps that the elliptical orbits can solve the problem of understanding the solar system, and that a circle is just a special case of ellipse. Unfortunately, this insight dies with her, and does not reemerge until the Renaissance.

It is possible to compare the mental stranglehold of the traditionally entrenched perfect Greek circle concept to the modern stranglehold of Newtonian physics and the 19th century neuron doctrine on consciousness studies, requiring more and more convoluted arguments to sustain it, and more importantly blocking the path to anything with greater explanatory power.

26 April 2010
NEWS ITEM: OPENING OF SACKLER CENTRE FOR CONSCIOUSNESS SCIENCE AT SUSSEX UNIVERSITY
On April 21 2010 the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science (SCCS) was opened at Sussex University (UK). The centre is intended to take a multi-disciplinary approach to consciousness studies, including the disciplines of psychology, neuroscience and computer science. Physics is conspicuous by its absence. The remit is aimed at broadening a bit beyond the Crick and Koch inspired orthodoxy of concentrating on the correlates of consciousness, and hoping that this will lead on to an explanation of how consciousness arises. It is argued that conscious experiences are composed of many different parts. The experience of redness, which might be part of a conscious experience, is viewed as one point within the space of consciousness, an image which might appear to derive from physics. The hope is to identify brain processes that are present when particular conscious experiences are reported. There seems to be a plausible hope that understanding the binding problem that allows a single conscious unity will give a lead to understanding consciousness.

Anil Seth, who heads the centre, argues that consciousness is not a unitary phenomena, but comes in different forms such as vestigial consciousness in some forms of coma, dreams, full consciousness, and also in different modalities such as visual and auditory and the difference between sensations of this kind and experiences of self and freewill. I am not sure about this. The important question seems to be to be the existence of subjective consciousness in relation to these states and modalities. Jeffrey Gray's compression of the consciousness question into the issue of qualia or subjective experiences seems more to the point in this respect.

One of the more promising aspects of this project is the prominence given to emotions, an area which normally plays a limited role in consciousness studies, and was to a good degree off limits to neuroscience as a whole in much of the 20th century. A team led by Hugo Critchley is to focus on the neural mechanisms that mediate emotional and cognitive states. The team has identified the right anterior insula as the neural area that integrates conscious experience of bodily arousal with external stimuli.

Emotion is an extremely interesting area for dealing with consciousness, because it is where our conscious experience of emotions instantiated in the various limbic areas of the brain interacts with rational processes in the prefrontal, and particularly the orbitofrontal. Arguably this interaction generates a common neural 'currency' that allows us to evaluate different future scenarios presented by the rational mind. The freewill questions of experience of intention and agency are seen as an area for research, rather than something that has been closed off by the Libet experiments.

Another profitable area that Anil Seth wants to address is the function of consciousness. This is of interest because of the conventional tendency to dismiss consciousness as something of little or no functional importance. Seth is inclined to dismiss these views as red herrings. He is interested in the role of consciousness in relation to volition and responses to complicated environments, acquisition of skills, correction of errors and simulations of threats in dreams.