No mechanistic limits on consciousness
posted by Jonathan | March 10, 2010
- Login or register to post comments
- Print this page
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Propeller
Reddit
Magnoliacom
Newsvine
Furl
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
Technorati
IcerocketOur potential may reach farther than what the brain-as-computer metaphor provides. This is the idea that the basic computing component of the brain is the neuron and therefore our potential is limited to what is possible at the cellular and chemical level. Furthermore, the brain can be described in terms of computing power and capacity is limited by a finite number of brain cells. Look deeper. We may already be leveraging the power of subatomic interactions in how we interact with the universe. Although the neuron obviously plays some part, there is new evidence that consciousness may rise out of quantum interactions. Boundaries of time and space that exist in the mechanistic conception of reality do not exist at the level of quantum reality. Far-reaching concepts like non-locality, multiple dimensions, and time travel become reality. Perhaps the threshold that we are fast approaching is a full realization and consequently a deeper utilization by the brain of the power of the quantum realm. My point is that beliefs have the power to limit us. We box ourselves in with narrow metaphors. This is just a heads up for those who have not heard of the idea. Do a search on quantum mind for more information.
Comments
quantum shift
— Mar 11, 2010
Very cool. Thanks for taking this and running with it and showing some of the supporting arguments.
A more general contemplation I have is about certain momentous breakthroughs in human history and how they might be tied in with a revolutionary development in which the brain reaches some critical threshold and bang, new possibilities emerge. For instance, around 40,000 years ago, cave paintings suddenly appeared on a global scale (give or take a millennia). Unprecedented. What in earth’s history compares to that event? Another example might be the human faculty for language. How about burial of our deceased? Belief in an afterlife (or in a more spiritual sense, an awareness of eternity)? These are major shifts in human consciousness, which suddenly expand our potential. How about the advent of reason, particularly ‘a priori’ knowledge? These curiosities appear to exhibit characteristics more like quantum phenomenon rather than drivers of evolution. What’s next for us?
Indeed we are quantum
— Mar 12, 2010
Indeed we are quantum beings... but I do not choose to look at us in terms of our brains being computers, that's way too simplistic and linear a way of seeing it. First of all because there is no computer as we currently conceive them to be, nor will there ever be, that can hope to compete with the mystery and wonder of the human being. We hold memory, awareness and consciousness throughout the network of our whole being, and more, not just in our brain matter.
I like your quantum leap investigation. Terrence McKenna discusses this at length in his time wave zero concept. There are bursts of awareness and consicousness which punctuate human history. And from that technological developments and scientific acheivements. Like the development of logic on all sides of the globe at once between 500-300 BC. And no there was not the level of trade to justify this emergence of logical awareness all over in almost a single century. The pattern moves forward to today with diffusion becoming more and more rapid to the point that we are almost leaping ahead to see where we need to be. Yes! Break the prisoner of beliefs, and wander in the freedom of creation and the random coalesence of possibilties are infinitely adaptable and exciting to consider. This is why it would be hard for me to imagine a computer, as we currently know it to be, that can do what humans can.
BUT... and this is scary. Quantum memory has just been developed. Quantum computer processors with bubble chem memory units are coming... this is not the computer of the past, this is the emergence of the intersetion between the physical manifestation of awareness in the biological and the machine structure that is developing from the technologs and scientists. Hum... not really a silicon chip any more, it is a brain connected into a computer. And the lines start to blur. Will this lead to awareness being replicated into the machine matrix. Probably.
Humans are on a collision course of attempting to replicate themselves beyond death - aka to live longer than the physical, or the earthly changes that allow us this current optimum to exist. We have a drive towards that kind of immortality. Quantum computers and awareness of our selves as quantum beings... is all part of that drive to replicated ourselves into perminence. I honor impermience, so much more creative, really.
I hope that when we do this that our creations are better behaved than we are with each other. Great simulation to the mind, thanks for this thread. Peace.
