<story><title>The strange postulated link between the human mind and quantum physics (2017)</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170215-the-strange-link-between-the-human-mind-and-quantum-physics</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bascule</author><text>This article covered more than I was expecting, but still manages to squeeze a small amount of substance into a relatively large article. Here&amp;#x27;s a tl;dr:&lt;p&gt;- Penrose and Hameroff postulate microtubules might have quantum mechanical behavior in their Orch-OR hypothesis. This hypothesis was refuted by Max Tegmark in the 90s. Penrose doesn&amp;#x27;t care and keeps preaching his hypothesis, and has not put forth any new scientifically compelling arguments in the past 2 decades.&lt;p&gt;- Photosynthesis is shown to be quantum mechanical. I&amp;#x27;m not sure quantum mechanical behavior in plants is the best argument that quantum mechanics are responsible for consciousness.&lt;p&gt;- Fischer hypothesizes that phosphate ions in biological cells might exhibit distinctly quantum mechanical behavior, but is wary about any link to &amp;quot;quantum consciousness&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;This is pretty much all of the substance of the article.&lt;p&gt;Even if there were a conclusively demonstrated link between quantum mechanical behavior in human cells (there isn&amp;#x27;t), using that to argue that our brains are quantum computers and that consciousness is a fundamentally quantum phenomenon would be a huge non sequitur.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mannykannot</author><text>Furthermore: &amp;quot;Photosynthesis is shown to be quantum mechanical&amp;quot; - well, yes, just like everything else in physics, with the possible exception of those issues, like black holes, where gravity is dominant. The quantum-mechanical basis of chemistry has been included in high-school chemistry curricula for at least half a century, so it would be quite remarkable if photosynthesis were a exception.&lt;p&gt;While it is possible that the human mind has no classical-approximation explanation, the equating-of-ignorance argument, stated in the article&amp;#x27;s subtitle, is no reason to think it is so (and quantum mechanics is much better understood than the human mind, anyway.)</text></comment>
<story><title>The strange postulated link between the human mind and quantum physics (2017)</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170215-the-strange-link-between-the-human-mind-and-quantum-physics</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bascule</author><text>This article covered more than I was expecting, but still manages to squeeze a small amount of substance into a relatively large article. Here&amp;#x27;s a tl;dr:&lt;p&gt;- Penrose and Hameroff postulate microtubules might have quantum mechanical behavior in their Orch-OR hypothesis. This hypothesis was refuted by Max Tegmark in the 90s. Penrose doesn&amp;#x27;t care and keeps preaching his hypothesis, and has not put forth any new scientifically compelling arguments in the past 2 decades.&lt;p&gt;- Photosynthesis is shown to be quantum mechanical. I&amp;#x27;m not sure quantum mechanical behavior in plants is the best argument that quantum mechanics are responsible for consciousness.&lt;p&gt;- Fischer hypothesizes that phosphate ions in biological cells might exhibit distinctly quantum mechanical behavior, but is wary about any link to &amp;quot;quantum consciousness&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;This is pretty much all of the substance of the article.&lt;p&gt;Even if there were a conclusively demonstrated link between quantum mechanical behavior in human cells (there isn&amp;#x27;t), using that to argue that our brains are quantum computers and that consciousness is a fundamentally quantum phenomenon would be a huge non sequitur.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SubiculumCode</author><text>What do you think of this paper?&lt;p&gt;Nuclear Spin Attenuates the Anesthetic Potency of Xenon Isotopes in Mice: Implications for the Mechanisms of Anesthesia and Consciousness.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Xenon is an elemental anesthetic with nine stable isotopes. Nuclear spin is a quantum property which may differ among isotopes. Xenon 131 (Xe) has nuclear spin of 3&amp;#x2F;2, xenon 129 (Xe) a nuclear spin of 1&amp;#x2F;2, and the other seven isotopes have no nuclear spin. This study was aimed to explore the effect of nuclear spin on xenon anesthetic potency.&lt;p&gt;CONCLUSIONS: Xenon isotopes with nuclear spin are less potent than those without, and polarizability cannot account for the difference. The lower anesthetic potency of Xe may be the result of it participating in conscious processing and therefore partially antagonizing its own anesthetic potency. Nuclear spin is a quantum property, and our results are consistent with theories that implicate quantum mechanisms in consciousness.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pubmed&amp;#x2F;29642079&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pubmed&amp;#x2F;29642079&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>