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[Xris]

http://scienceray.com/physics/quantum-p ... searchers/

Interesting article about two assumed eminent scientists who have made the strangest of claims. Can we trust them to make any claim without questioning the scientific knowledge that they so obviously have and we have not. Is the soul contained within a quantum of our brain? I am not really questioning their claim but questioning their right to be so certain. It is just another result of quantum theoretical science giving us concepts that we have to accept.

Personally I would love it to be correct but has science become the ideological faith many crave for? I'm finding more and more that theoretical science is becoming the new religion answerable to no one.

[Prabhubct]

Soul is responsible for good or bad our body does. so pure or evil soul concept. But about soul, a person hit on head is remember no things. He can not judge to do good or bad. then if some magic he regain his original brain activity. what account for in between vacuum period? is soul got stains on it or it's status-quo for soul?

[Xris]

Soul is responsible for good or bad our body does. so pure or evil soul concept. But about soul, a person hit on head is remember no things. He can not judge to do good or bad. then if some magic he regain his original brain activity. what account for in between vacuum period? is soul got stains on it or it's status-quo for soul?

No idea but then by what they claim the soul does not reside in our memory. The question remains can quantum science make certain claims and not be questioned? I have questioned their conclusions before and have been classified as heretic but now they are making even stranger claims, where are all those ardent believers now? I hear nothing from them.

[Steve3007]

It is a strange article. I read "The Emporer's New Mind" by Roger Penrose (one of the researchers mentioned in the article) years ago and I vaguely recall him banging on about quantum effects inside the brain way back then too. Clearly it's something of a hobby horse. I guess he is, if nothing else, consistent.

Anyway Xris, I know we've crossed on this kind of subject more than once before on this forum and this is nothing really new but: I just don't see the arrogant certainty that you seem to be reading into this.

Can we trust them to make a claim without questioning it? Of course not. Question away. What evidence do you have that this strange piece of research is going to be accepted without question by anyone?

The only person I've ever seen accusing you of being a "heretic" is yourself. You seem like a genuine rebel without a cause!

[Xris]

It is a strange article. I read "The Emporer's New Mind" by Roger Penrose (one of the researchers mentioned in the article) years ago and I vaguely recall him banging on about quantum effects inside the brain way back then too. Clearly it's something of a hobby horse. I guess he is, if nothing else, consistent.

Anyway Xris, I know we've crossed on this kind of subject more than once before on this forum and this is nothing really new but: I just don't see the arrogant certainty that you seem to be reading into this.

Can we trust them to make a claim without questioning it? Of course not. Question away. What evidence do you have that this strange piece of research is going to be accepted without question by anyone?

The only person I've ever seen accusing you of being a "heretic" is yourself. You seem like a genuine rebel without a cause!

No I have not been accused directly but I have been accused of acting as such. So there is no cause? So particles as a concept are being seriously questioned? The indeterminate nature of quantum is still to be determined? And the big bang as a concept is open to a full and critical enquiry by science? Well if this is the case, show me the evidence?

[Steve3007]

I really don't want to get back into technical arguments about particles, and big bangs and all that. We've been there so much already and it doesn't seem to have resolved anything on the previous occasions. I guess there's always a cause to some extent, but just not as big a cause as you think. Anyway we're clearly going to have to agree to disagree.

I just piped up on this particular thread because you seemed to be using this particular bit of research as an exemplar of arrogant dictatorial science. I don't know why. The article certainly seems to indicate that the researchers are making some extraordinary claims, but people do that a lot.

[Misty]

http://scienceray.com/physics/quantum-p ... searchers/

Interesting article about two assumed eminent scientists who have made the strangest of claims. Can we trust them to make any claim without questioning the scientific knowledge that they so obviously have and we have not. Is the soul contained within a quantum of our brain? I am not really questioning their claim but questioning their right to be so certain. It is just another result of quantum theoretical science giving us concepts that we have to accept.

Personally I would love it to be correct but has science become the ideological faith many crave for? I'm finding more and more that theoretical science is becoming the new religion answerable to no one.

Hi Xris,

This is not an argument against you.

I read the article you posted. Here is part of it:

"Researchers say that when people enter into a state of clinical death, the microbutule lose their quatum state, but the information in them is not lost. In other words, the "soul" dies, but then comes back to the universe. Let's say a heart stops beating, blood stops flowing and the microtubulele lose their quantum state.

"Quantum information is lost, because it can not be destroyed, but dissipates and is distributed in the universe, said Dr. Hameroff." "If a patient is resuscitated, quantum information is the microtubule and the patient says "I had a near death experience, adds the researcher.

Maybe it is just me, but this seems to make no sense. How can something, die, dissipate, be redistributed into the universe, but be intact when the person is resuscitated and then the person speaks with no loss of information? If one is in this circumstance they would be hooked up to medical equipment that keeps the person "alive." Could this be quackery?

[Xris]

I am not supporting this Misty but pointing out that quantum science appears to be capable of making any strange concept acceptable. As I have pointed out on many occassions. I am glad I am seen as a rebel. My cause is justified and I will continue to confront these false concepts.

[Misty]

I am not supporting this Misty but pointing out that quantum science appears to be capable of making any strange concept acceptable. As I have pointed out on many occassions. I am glad I am seen as a rebel. My cause is justified and I will continue to confront these false concepts.

Xris,

I knew you were not supporting it, I was just baffled by the "scientists" conjecture. I am glad you courageously confront false concepts.

Misty

[A Poster He or I]

Maybe it is just me, but this seems to make no sense. How can something, die, dissipate, be redistributed into the universe, but be intact when the person is resuscitated and then the person speaks with no loss of information? If one is in this circumstance they would be hooked up to medical equipment that keeps the person "alive."

There is a known precedent for this sort of phenomenon on a less outrageous scale. Since the early 2000s, physicists have been able to slow light to a stop within certain materials, then start it again. While the light is stopped, it is gone. There is no light; however the light's quantum states are entangled with those of the surrounding medium. That is, the information is still there. When the light is re-started, this information is somehow retrieved and the light recreated with the same properties it had before.

So if a dead person's synapses and neurons are not yet damaged from oxygen deprivation, then in principle one need only "re-supply" the information about previous quantum states when the body's bio-electrical activity is reactivated to restore the whole person to his previous quantum state. I will not speculate about how practically one could actualize this principle. My point is merely to illustrate that the idea is not nonsense.

Much more intriguing and mysterious to me is where such information would be re-supplied from, calling into question what the article actually means by "dissipation and redistribution into the universe." There are models that can answer this, but they are certainly not mainstream science.

Could this be quackery?

Sure. There's bad or unscrupulous scientists same as bad or unscrupulous priests and auto mechanics.

[Prabhubct]

In Dolly cloning, cells were taken from mammary gland as source of DNA, not nervous system, still dolly came into existence. Question remains how much we cut individual into parts and find in which part soul lies? Does soul of HeLa cell line still exist in her cells?

[Steve3007]

Xris: Did you, not long ago, post a comment saying that you'd listened to that radio 4 programme that I mentioned? Or am I going mad? I thought I saw it, but now can't see it anywhere.

Anyway, I didn't actually listen to the programme properly myself. It was on in the background while I was doing something else. Just heard "blah blah black hole blah blah big bang blah blah dark matter" and thought of you! I don't personally know enough about the subject to be able to make any kind of informed judgement as to the relevance of the Higgs Boson experiments.

[Xris]

Xris: Did you, not long ago, post a comment saying that you'd listened to that radio 4 programme that I mentioned? Or am I going mad? I thought I saw it, but now can't see it anywhere.

Anyway, I didn't actually listen to the programme properly myself. It was on in the background while I was doing something else. Just heard "blah blah black hole blah blah big bang blah blah dark matter" and thought of you! I don't personally know enough about the subject to be able to make any kind of informed judgement as to the relevance of the Higgs Boson experiments.

I did listen for a while but it was quite boring. I did hear that this Higgs particle appears to be dependent on the BB. I asked if you had that impression.

[Quotidian]

I saw Hameroff speak at a conference about this topic some years back, and couldn't make head or tail of what he said. My view is that we will never develop a 'theory of consciousness' because we are not apart from it, so we can't objectify it. Everything we say about it begs the question, because we must utilize the very thing we are trying to explain in order to create the explanation.

People are using the word 'quantum' in all kinds of ways without any idea what it means. It is in movie titles and all sorts of faddish products and self help books. I have done at least some reading in the implications of quantum theory for philosophy, but it is such a confused and confusing topic that it is best left alone, unless you're prepared to do some serious reading and thinking through its implications.

And don't forget what Neils Bohr said about it: if you are not shocked by it, you haven't understood it yet.

[Steve3007]

Another one of the well known sound bites associated with quantum theory is: "shut up and calculate!" (I've heard it attributed to Richard Feynman. Could be wrong.)

This often seems to be interpretted as simply a dictatorial expression of arrogance. I think it is really a practical statement about what it is possible, and not possible, to definitively say about the world using science.