Quantum
Consciousness: What is Consciousness? by Stuart
Hameroff, MD
.
The
Problem of Consciousness
Conventional explanations portray
consciousness as an emergent property of classical computer-like
activities in the brain's neural networks. The prevailing views
among scientists in this camp are that 1) patterns of neural
network activities correlate with mental states, 2) synchronous
network oscillations in thalamus and cerebral cortex temporally
bind information, and 3) consciousness emerges as a novel
property of computational complexity among neurons.
However, these
approaches appear to fall short in fully explaining certain
enigmatic features of consciousness, such as:
The nature
of subjective experience, or 'qualia'- our 'inner life'
(Chalmers' "hard problem");
Binding of
spatially distributed brain activities into unitary objects
in vision, and a coherent sense of self, or 'oneness';
Transition
from pre-conscious processes to consciousness itself;
Non-computability, or the notion that consciousness involves
a factor which is neither random, nor algorithmic, and that
consciousness cannot be simulated (Penrose, 1989, 1994,
1997);
Free will;
and,
Subjective
time flow.
Brain imaging
technologies demonstrate anatomical location of activities which
appear to correlate with consciousness, but which may not be
directly responsible for consciousness.
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