I don’t think it’s even necessary to debate whether quantum phenomena manifest somehow at the macro level of the brain
You might think it is important that the facts about consciousness contribute to our beliefs about them in some way. Our beliefs about consciousness are surely a phenomenon of the macro level. So if our beliefs are somehow sensitive to the facts, and the facts consist of quantum effects, we should expect those quantum effects to generate some marcoscopic changes.
This is the sticking point for me with quantum theories: there doesn’t seem to be any obvious mechanism for general quantum level truths to exert the kinds of very targeted influences that would be necessary for them to explain our beliefs about consciousness. And if they don’t, then it seems like we’re left with beliefs insensitive to the truth, and that is deeply unintuitive. What do you think?
there doesn’t seem to be any obvious mechanism for general quantum level truths to exert the kinds of very targeted influences that would be necessary for them to explain our beliefs about consciousness
I think it will turn out that the mechanism will not be obvious, mainly because quantum mechanics and fundamental physics more broadly are extraordinarily complex (and I expect that understanding consciousness will be just as difficult as understanding, say, quantum field theory). But, that being said, I do think there exist candidate quantum mechanisms that might explain the macro-level phenomenon of binding, such as entanglement.
Another assumption behind my position (which I also outlined in Indirect realism illustrated (and why it matters so much for consciousness debates)) is that, since I believe consciousness/qualia are real (and a thing, not a process), the only sense in which they can be really real is for their 3rd-person physical correlates to be found at the deepest level of reality/physics. Any correlates that are not at the deepest level—however elaborate—are just useful fictions, and thus (IMO) no different than what e.g. computational functionalists claim.
You might think it is important that the facts about consciousness contribute to our beliefs about them in some way. Our beliefs about consciousness are surely a phenomenon of the macro level. So if our beliefs are somehow sensitive to the facts, and the facts consist of quantum effects, we should expect those quantum effects to generate some marcoscopic changes.
This is the sticking point for me with quantum theories: there doesn’t seem to be any obvious mechanism for general quantum level truths to exert the kinds of very targeted influences that would be necessary for them to explain our beliefs about consciousness. And if they don’t, then it seems like we’re left with beliefs insensitive to the truth, and that is deeply unintuitive. What do you think?
Thanks for reading and for your comment, Derek!
I think it will turn out that the mechanism will not be obvious, mainly because quantum mechanics and fundamental physics more broadly are extraordinarily complex (and I expect that understanding consciousness will be just as difficult as understanding, say, quantum field theory). But, that being said, I do think there exist candidate quantum mechanisms that might explain the macro-level phenomenon of binding, such as entanglement.
Another assumption behind my position (which I also outlined in Indirect realism illustrated (and why it matters so much for consciousness debates)) is that, since I believe consciousness/qualia are real (and a thing, not a process), the only sense in which they can be really real is for their 3rd-person physical correlates to be found at the deepest level of reality/physics. Any correlates that are not at the deepest level—however elaborate—are just useful fictions, and thus (IMO) no different than what e.g. computational functionalists claim.
Hope that makes my views a bit clearer.