From: gwern0@gmail.com
Date: Sun Mar 02 2008 - 15:52:38 MST
On 2008.03.02 22:09:56 +0000, Krekoski Ross <rosskrekoski@gmail.com> scribbled 1.9K characters:
> Why has there not been any discussion that I can find, regarding the very real possibility
> that quantum entanglement plays a large role in the functioning of the human brain?
> It certainly is a factor in the low-level motion of particles, and in a chaotic system where
> local disturbances can lead to large systemic changes, such as cascade effects in neurons, it
> seems to be a significant oversight to not at least acknowledge it's likely presence. It has
> significant implications for the processing capacity of the human brain since it multiplies
> the number of interactions by a significant number of orders of magnitude, and is also quite
> relevant therefore in talking about at what point we have the machine capacity with current
> architecture to begin to simulate things.
>
> Rgds
>
> Ross
Long story short, I think it's because most people don't buy Penrose's general arguments about Strong AI being impossible, and more particularly believe entanglement not an import process both because simulations of neural networks seem to work fairly well (that is, they don't seem to have demonstrated any fatal flaws as far as emulating consciousness goes, in theory), and because neurons simply operate on scales magnitudes beyond quantum events; proponents of Penrose's position don't seem to have any convincing story about how quantum influence could reach all the way from the atomic level to the thermally noisy and active gross macroscopic level of the neuron.
-- gwern AGT. unclassified POCSAG Bubba NAVSVS FB-111A Coderpunks intelligence GRU intelligence
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