The Ghost in the Quantum Turing Machine

Aaronson, Scott

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511863196.018

Cited by 26 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 81 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The quantum amplification mechanism has been adopted also by Scott Aaronson whose recent “freebit” theory of free will “postulates that chaotic dynamics in the brain can have the effect of amplifying freebits to macroscopic scale” ( Aaronson, 2016 , but see also criticism of this quantum ampflification idea in Clarke, 2014 ). A similar theory has already been proposed by Jordan (1938) .…”

Section: Two Possibilities Of the Impact By Quantum Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Revisiting the Quantum Brain Hypothesis: Toward Quantum (Neuro)biology?

Jedlicka

2017

Front. Mol. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The nervous system is a non-linear dynamical complex system with many feedback loops. A conventional wisdom is that in the brain the quantum fluctuations are self-averaging and thus functionally negligible. However, this intuition might be misleading in the case of non-linear complex systems. Because of an extreme sensitivity to initial conditions, in complex systems the microscopic fluctuations may be amplified and thereby affect the system’s behavior. In this way quantum dynamics might influence neuronal computations. Accumulating evidence in non-neuronal systems indicates that biological evolution is able to exploit quantum stochasticity. The recent rise of quantum biology as an emerging field at the border between quantum physics and the life sciences suggests that quantum events could play a non-trivial role also in neuronal cells. Direct experimental evidence for this is still missing but future research should address the possibility that quantum events contribute to an extremely high complexity, variability and computational power of neuronal dynamics.

show abstract

Section: Two Possibilities Of the Impact By Quantum Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…“[B]rains seem “balanced on a knife-edge” between order and chaos: were they as orderly as a pendulum, they couldn’t support interesting behavior; were they as chaotic as the weather, they couldn’t support rationality” ( Aaronson, 2016 ).…”

Section: Two Possibilities Of the Impact By Quantum Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting the Quantum Brain Hypothesis: Toward Quantum (Neuro)biology?

Jedlicka

2017

Front. Mol. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Either it does not exists at all or everything has free will-including electrons. For further reading, see, for instance Aaronson (2016). Free Will in Neuroscience There are certain contexts in which the free will of a person is restricted.…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

Subjective Consciousness: What am I?

Glattfelder¹

2019

The Frontiers Collection

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Consciousness is a fact. In this very moment your eyes are scanning these words and your mind is creating understanding of and context for the contents utilizing memory. However, astonishingly, we don't know how to accommodate consciousness into our scientific view of the world. Until quite recently, the nation of consciousness was taboo for scientists and philosophers alike. Today, a central problem is: How does the feeling of subjective experience emerge from neural activity? As a corollary: How does the ethereal mind interact with the physical world? Insights from neuroscience have uncovered that our perceptions of reality are not faithful representations, but constructed virtual reality simulations. Memories are also constructed and not retrieved. The sense of self is a result of a complex cognitive effort. The role of our consciousness is to narrate and rationalize the decisions emerging from the subconscious brain, in retrospect. Context and expectations influence and shape perceptions and experiences. The human mind exhibits countless irrational behaviors-cognitive biases abound. The mind can also suffer from a wide array of pathologies. Finally, free will is a very controversial topic, as experiments question its reality. Level of mathematical formality: not applicable. The phenomenon of consciousness represents the last enigma. After the long journey of the human mind-attempting to decode the workings of the universe-it has returned and is now facing its own existence. Just as the understanding of the fundamental nature of reality turned out to be an elusive quest, the challenge of understanding one's own mind appears truly stupendous. The psychologist Susan Blackmore summarizes (Blackmore 2005, p. 1): What is consciousness? This may sound like a simple question but it is not. Consciousness is at once the most obvious and the most difficult thing we can investigate. We seem either to have to use consciousness to investigate itself, which is a slightly weird idea, or have to extricate ourselves from the very thing we want to study.

show abstract

“…Since Alan Turning publishing his seminar paper [13] on the computable numbers, there are already many research papers [14][15][16][17] and books [18][19][20][21][22] about the relationship among a Turing machine, Godel incompleteness theorem, and the human brain. The question whether the same real number can be generated using a computer is a simplified way to examine the complicated relationships among these three fields.…”

Section: Can the Same Real Number Be Generated Using A Computer?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Commonly Shared Foundation of Mathematics, Information Science, Natural Science, Social Science, and Theology

Wayne

2014

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Through a simple thought experiment, this paper shows that there must be a shared foundation of mathematics, information science, natural science, social science, and theology. The thought experiment is to ask a volunteer to write down an arbitrary real number between 0 and 1 with many digits. For example, 0.19823765010367129462…. would be one of such numbers. Then we analyze this experiment result by asking five simple questions: Is the real number a random real? Can the observed real number be produced by a computer? What laws of physics govern the real number creation process? How to predict which number the volunteer choose to write? What is the meaning of the real number creation actions? Without answering these questions, this paper proves that these five questions are fundamental to mathematics, information science, physics, social science, and theology respectively. These five lines of questioning are universally applicable for all human choices. Because these five lines of questions are closely related with each other, we conclude that there must be a commonly-shared logic foundation for mathematics, information science, physics, social science, and theology.

show abstract

The Ghost in the Quantum Turing Machine

Cited by 26 publications

References 81 publications

Revisiting the Quantum Brain Hypothesis: Toward Quantum (Neuro)biology?

Revisiting the Quantum Brain Hypothesis: Toward Quantum (Neuro)biology?

Subjective Consciousness: What am I?

Commonly Shared Foundation of Mathematics, Information Science, Natural Science, Social Science, and Theology

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About