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by RandomOpinion 3105 days ago
> I'm not sure why you think the underlying physics is deterministic.

If conclusive evidence were found that human consciousness is fundamentally dependent on QM processes to function, that would be a Nobel Prize-worthy discovery. Aside from some minor papers exploring the topic, no such evidence has been found AFAIK.
1 comments
njarboe 3105 days ago
The functioning of chemistry in individual cells definitely are influenced by quantum effects. Over a short period of time the functioning of the neurons in the human brain will be influenced by QM enough that the billiard ball, clock work, deterministic view of the future unfolding is not correct.
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RandomOpinion 3104 days ago
> The functioning of chemistry in individual cells definitely are influenced by quantum effects.

So? Transistors used in modern computers directly depend on quantum effects (semiconductor physics was an outgrowth of QM) as well, yet we do not need to take into account QM when writing software or designing microprocessors.

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njarboe 3104 days ago
Where will my body be in five years? Quantum effects will definitely be manifest enough that the answer to that is not deterministic. Maybe because I am not a professional philosopher I'm missing the special meaning of the work deterministic as used here. I think the point of the OP was that computers are a specially designed system that is very complicated, but at the bottom created by humans who have spent a lot of time and effort to make it deterministic unlike the the "real" world.
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haZard_OS 3104 days ago
It isn't enough that the processes are affected. The processes must be affected in such a way that the idea of determinism at other scales is compromised.

  In any event, positing some sort of "QM consciousness" does nothing to save the concept of free will. Where is the "free will" in a fundamentally random phenomenon? Whether one accepts determinism or not, the notion of free will is incoherent.
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