Introduction to Conscious-Quantum Computer Musicology: New Genres, Technology and Ontology of Experience

Abstract

Quantum computing (QC) is imminent; can it add to the seasoned fields of electronic and computer music? After all, it seems unwarranted to requisition time on a massively parallel peta FLOP (10 15 , quadrillion calculations per second) supercomputer like the Chinese Sunway TaihuLight, the world's fastest, reaching 93.015 pFLOPS. There is however, something QCs will be able to do that will remain impossible on even a putative yottaFLOP (10 24 ) Turing machine if Cartesian interactive dualism is the correct solution to the problem of awareness/consciousness. A special, 2 nd generation class of conscious-QC modeled after the mind-body interface will be able to transduce physically real stored (extracellular) elements of mind (qualia): thought, mood, feelings, emotion directly into the awareness of the subject in a manner breaking down the so-called 1 st person -3 rd person barrier. The theoretical model introduced, a paradigm shift in terms of current thinking in Cognitive Science (mind = brain) or cognitive musicology, is sufficiently mature to be experimentally testable suggesting that conscious-QC music may only be a couple of decades away.