Subconsciousness and Humanity.

[Navigator]

Invoking "Well we don't know for sure" is intellectually dishonest. It's basically throwing your hands up and going "Evidence, shemevidence... I'm gonna think stuff at random."

When we know mostly everything, we can say we know much.
Until then the most honest expression is “I don’t know” otherwise the same mistake the woo’s are criticised for doing, is repeated by non-woos.

One does not have to throw ones hands in the air and exclaim “ anything goes.” One simply has to remain in the position of finding and testing for facts and not jumping ahead of those facts in eagerness spurred on by whatever emotion spurs that on.

And let's just say this particular subforum's track record with people invoking "We don't even know what we don't know" style arguments is less then stellar.

Sometimes over exposure can bend ones bias one way or the other...take the middle ground, be patient with Science and cease jumping to conclusions to soon.

 

[JaysonR]

That you are on any side gives indication of your bias,

Yes; I'm quite openly a physicalist.
That said, I openly entertain any possible ideas. I may not be able to follow the idea to something I can be familiar with, yet I'm willing to leave things as possible and just note that I haven't anything to offer in aiding the support of such a position.

And this is able to be done because there is no evidence either way.
One can speculate the continuation of Consciousness upon death as being possible, but one cannot then declare what that is going to be like.
That data of speculation is irrelevant

To a degree.
But it works as a tool for examining possibilities in looking for further information.
We just have to keep in mind that axioms are tools; not literally absolute conditions.
On the whole, I'd say neuroscience is actually pretty good at this openness.

From the data I have experienced, the most likely explanation for the Physical Universe is that it is a Simulation.

Some agree with this idea.
I'm not one of them, but there's plenty in the field that openly pursue this possibility (quite a few have given talks about it at TED as well).

By ‘officially’ do you mean ‘pretence’?

By official I mean; the accepted stance within the field.
The accepted stance within the field is to remain open to possibilities; mostly because everyone in the field is rather aware of how massive the brain is as a task to understanding, and how the field has (in the past) made the mistake of holding on to some ideas as permanent law and found that it was just not really the case at all; and probably another reason is that we're just barely entering into the era of computers capable of aiding in neurscientific research much more robustly than previous (estimates are about 30 to 50 years for a quantum computer to aid in simulations, and there's already one group who has begun building a simulator of the human brain and succeeded in small sections of the brain so far).

There is no need to explore the possibility that Human Consciousness comes from somewhere else, if that somewhere else has to do with some other universe.
That is irrelevant, because it is here in this one and can be regarded as being a product of the process of evolution, via the brain.

Mostly the "somewhere else" concept refers to somewhere other than the physicalist description of conciousness arriving from our brain as our brain.
It doesn't usually refer to other dimensions and universes.

Only if there are scientific hints which might point to their being some kind of invisible universe which might be seen as possibly interacting with this one – as some people claim the double slit proves – would it be necessary to include the possibility of a ‘before the big bang’ or Consciousness from the invisible universe somehow being able to inject itself into this one, via the brain.

If there are no hints, then we needn’t go there.

The holographic universe model gives that hint in theory that provokes the continued idea of somehow arriving at consciousness that isn't from the brain exclusively.

I'm not one who subscribes to that theory, but it does exist.

We can simply take it that consciousness came about naturally in this universe, but we cannot say that it is not a natural part of the process that consciousness can continue to exist outside of the brain which birthed it.
We don’t know.

As a physicalist, I hold that such isn't possible.
That said, one giant elaphant in the room in neuroscience that everyone is anxious to actually arrive is whether or not fully functional AI (such as the previous simulations mentioned) will inherently have consciousness arise out of the processing, or whether all of the parts will be accounted for, but consciousness never-the-less ceases to exist.

It wouldn't give a solid answer, once such a thing comes around, but it would offer a big leap forward in the inquiry over the nature of consciousness.

Precisely.
I think your analogy of the water and waves is a bit confusing. Waves are caused by some action which involves water but also other things, like wind and stones and falls etc...

The conceptual analogy is a thinking analogy intended to be isolated (it's actually a much longer analogy than the simple one I put forward, but essentially, it's one of those "vacuum" models of thought).

Essentially it is easy to see where Consciousness is, in relation to the individual and their life experience.
It is exactly right where you (the individual) are.
In terms of Humanity, it is on this planet doing its thing.
In terms of the Galaxy, it is scattered about all over the place.

Quite right; it is very easy to point to where consciousness is philosophically.
It is far more difficult (currently impossible) to point to it topographically.

Sounds like the field of neuroscience is not exactly on the same page, but I don’t suppose it is any different for a lot of the Sciences.

Quite.
Which is why the field is very exciting.

 

[Navigator]

Topographically.

Can you give me a link which might help me understand what you are saying in relation to Consciousness and Topography?

 

[JaysonR]

Not really...that's the "holy grail".
The giant "where".

Even as a state, the "where" still has to be answered in reference to "where" during which "when" for "what".
So in a sense, the "state" theory complicates things more than simplifies it (though for the common thinking, it may seem to simplify rather than complicate).

 

[Navigator]

Yes; I'm quite openly a physicalist.
That said, I openly entertain any possible ideas. I may not be able to follow the idea to something I can be familiar with, yet I'm willing to leave things as possible and just note that I haven't anything to offer in aiding the support of such a position.

Yes indeed. Therefore one can hold whatever bias they choose to align with as long as it is understood it is not to be confused with ‘The Truth’ This way, as evidence might present to either increase the reason for bias or diminish it, it does not have to become a closed book or unchangeable belief.

To a degree.
But it works as a tool for examining possibilities in looking for further information.
We just have to keep in mind that axioms are tools; not literally absolute conditions.
On the whole, I'd say neuroscience is actually pretty good at this openness.

So it appears. It would also perhaps be likely that should real evidence come along which confirms consciousness can indeed exist outside of the brain it once occupied, then there will be accompanying evidence as to what the nature of its situation and environment is.

Some agree with this idea.
I'm not one of them, but there's plenty in the field that openly pursue this possibility (quite a few have given talks about it at TED as well).

Yes. The idea is not that far fetched really.

By official I mean; the accepted stance within the field.

Okay – I just wondered because I think you placed the word in quote-marks which made me think it really wasn’t ‘official’

Mostly the "somewhere else" concept refers to somewhere other than the physicalist description of conciousness arriving from our brain as our brain.
It doesn't usually refer to other dimensions and universes.

Okay thanks for clarifying that.

This is to say then that Consciousness may not literally be our brain but rather it might literally a product of our brain?

The holographic universe model gives that hint in theory that provokes the continued idea of somehow arriving at consciousness that isn't from the brain exclusively.

I'm not one who subscribes to that theory, but it does exist.

Unless of course the Simulation is based upon what has already been and that all Consciousness originated from biological brains to begin with, and evolved from there and onwards into biologically created machinery.

That you do not subscribe to the holographic universe model does not mean that you don’t agree with it being a possibility, if I am reading you correctly.

As a physicalist, I hold that such isn't possible.

If it isn’t possible, then is that just your bias talking, or that there is evidence to say that it isn’t possible?

That said, one giant elaphant in the room in neuroscience that everyone is anxious to actually arrive is whether or not fully functional AI (such as the previous simulations mentioned) will inherently have consciousness arise out of the processing, or whether all of the parts will be accounted for, but consciousness never-the-less ceases to exist.

It wouldn't give a solid answer, once such a thing comes around, but it would offer a big leap forward in the inquiry over the nature of consciousness.

How would this be tested? For example, what if the AI had the same complexity as the human brain with all functions working and was unable to communicate its consciousness to its creators?
What if a machine consciousness was so different to a biological Consciousness that there is no easy way to make the connections?
How do we know that part of developing Consciousness has to do with the having at least some of the 5 senses and even the ability to intuit and ‘gut instinct’ type attributes?

What about the effect of initial input in terms of data? Will the AI be left to its own devices in order to work things out for itself from the go get?

Also, how will it be ascertained that its consciousness would cease to exist once it had been ascertained that it was conscious?

Which is why the field is very exciting.

Do you think being on the same page would be boring? Perhaps it could actually help the processes and even increase the excitement because of this.

Navigator: Topographically.

Can you give me a link which might help me understand what you are saying in relation to Consciousness and Topography?

 

[Dancing David]

I'm on the side of the table that predicts that there's no separation between consciousness and the brain, however, to be honest about the state of this declaration in the field - it's not ruled out or in yet.
This idea comes up at least once in just about every lecture or brainstorming session on consciousness in the field.

Some neurophysicists in the field really throw screwballs into the conversation as they bring in quantum states into the consideration of how consciousness is possibly accomplished.

then they have no idea about QM and are grossly wrong and inaccurate.

I'm not one who sides with the idea of the holographic universe or the Copenhagen interpretation of human consciousness, but it has to be noted that such things are actively thrown on the table for serious consideration within the field, since we haven't yet concluded what consciousness is, or where it is tangibly.

We can conclude from what is known of QM that is nothing to do with consciousness whatsoever or that neurons act with an QM effects, the only QM is teh well established nature of chemical interactions.

Anyone who thinks there is any sort of QM harmonics or in QM 'microtubules' is a fool, perhaps a very smart fool but a fool none the less.

Again, I agree with this, but we can't actually push it as solid fact yet.
This view is conjecture so far, as we don't actually have a final bead on the matter.

When someone shows evidence of consciousness absent teh organic stucture of a brain, then there will be something to discuss.

That is a strong conclusion.

Neuroscience is rather open (officially) to the possibility that consciousness comes from something else somehow.
There's all sorts of theories out there in the field on consciousness; many of which would probably surprise most skeptics to find in the mainstream of an official field.

I am curious how widely held and accepted they are and how often such research is cited by other neurobiologists.

Now, me personally...I'm more a simple physicalist; where a "wave" is described as an action of a body of water and not a thing that comes into water from something else (a common analogy in consciousness discussions).

But, again, we can't actually slam that down on the table and declare all other ideas impossible since we don't actually have solid verification of what consciousness is yet, how it exactly works, and where it is.

Yet, more and more neurscientists are tossing the search for "where" consciousness is and moving to a conceptual model of it being a state (as I hold it, and you appear to hold it as well) rather than a finite location.

When anyone shows it outside a brain there will be something to discuss.

 

[Dancing David]

Jayson, I think we can safely state strongly absolutely no evidence exists for consciousness existing outside of neurological structures.

And those who suggest QM states of communication between neurons are seriously mistaken.

 

[Manopolus]

And those who suggest QM states of communication between neurons are seriously mistaken.

Why?

If there is some effect/change that occurs at that level, than it is by definition a type of communication. The question is the degree of relevance isn't it? Admittedly, I don't know enough to answer that question.

 

[dlorde]

Why?

If there is some effect/change that occurs at that level, than it is by definition a type of communication. The question is the degree of relevance isn't it? Admittedly, I don't know enough to answer that question.

QM underlies everything, including biochemistry, but even in cases where QM has direct effect at an unexpectedly large scale, e.g. the reaction centres of photosynthetic molecules, it acts entirely in accordance with our understanding of QM in the way it improves the efficiency of those biochemical pathways.

If such large scale QM effects were found to occur in the biochemistry of neurons (and as far as I know there is no evidence of that), it is reasonable to assume that they too would behave according to our understanding of QM (and would probably also improve biochemical efficiency).

However, the scale of activity of neural networks is at least a couple of orders of magnitude beyond even such unusually large scale QM influence, and their activity appears to be fully accounted for by conventional neurophysiology.

I'm sure JaysonR will correct me if I've gone astray.

 

[JaysonR]

Yes indeed. Therefore one can hold whatever bias they choose to align with as long as it is understood it is not to be confused with ‘The Truth’ This way, as evidence might present to either increase the reason for bias or diminish it, it does not have to become a closed book or unchangeable belief.

I can only speak for myself, but I've never really had much of a problem with this.
I held Higgs Boson to be an incredible unlikelihood and yet there I was sitting watching the live feed report of finding the Higgs.

I don't currently hold a belief that consciousness outside of a brain is likely, though I do think that what we define as "brain" may be radically shaken over the next fifty to hundred years as we continue to use computers to simulate the brain, and continue to mix biology (and physics; such as the photon transmitter) into computer processing circuitry.

So it appears. It would also perhaps be likely that should real evidence come along which confirms consciousness can indeed exist outside of the brain it once occupied, then there will be accompanying evidence as to what the nature of its situation and environment is.

That seems reasonable to assume.

Yes. The idea is not that far fetched really.

To me; the idea is far fetched.
However, that is me and I side with the "classicist" view of physicalism; mainly because we so far haven't anything to suggest a reason to hold a different view.

But should someone figure out how to show consciousness outside of the brain, then I'll repeat how I felt on the Higgs report.
Admittedly, there's a bit more of a problem with consciousness outside of the brain than with the Higgs theory had as the Higgs theory was a theory of how and what to look for.
Currently, there's no theory or description of what to even look for in the general concept regarding conciousness outside of the brain.

This is an example of why neuroscience really needs a unified theory; because there's not even a theory to bounce other theories against to propose investigations for verification.

If someone says that consciousness exists outside of the brain, neuroscience can only hold that nothing has shown that yet, but neuroscience can't even turn around and offer a standard view of consciousness yet; so it's not even a denial of a view through lack of evidence, as neither has evidence or even a definition.

For one thing, when we state that consciousness can exist outside of the brain, we aren't even definitively stating anything in neuroscientific terms because neuroscience has yet to lay down a finite description of what consciousness is defined as in full; thereby, the proposition that consciousness can exist outside of the brain is a proposition that a thing we haven't yet defined properly and verified its actual existence empirically is capable of existing in property states we aren't even certain exist.

Essentially, what I'm saying here is that the proposition of consciousness existing is about equally on par with consciousness not existing at all.
We could be absolutely wrong and consciousness could not exist and that would toss everything upside down; including the concept of consciousness existing outside of the brain.

Again, this is why neuroscience is in need of a unified theory (currently being worked on).

This is to say then that Consciousness may not literally be our brain but rather it might literally a product of our brain?

Yes, that is the "somewhere else" basic proposition.
It splinters from there into further different versions of what the "somewhere else" is.

Unless of course the Simulation is based upon what has already been and that all Consciousness originated from biological brains to begin with, and evolved from there and onwards into biologically created machinery.

That you do not subscribe to the holographic universe model does not mean that you don’t agree with it being a possibility, if I am reading you correctly.

Yes.
I hold that it's possible, but not very probable.

If it isn’t possible, then is that just your bias talking, or that there is evidence to say that it isn’t possible?

A physicalist perspective holds possibility based on what is verified and repeatable physically.
Since all attempts so far made to find consciousness connections remotely have failed, it remains as not possible.

Now, stepping outside of the physicalist view, I can say it remains possible (similar to it remains possible for alternative universes to exist), but it really doesn't look probable considering what we do know.

Before I had mentioned how little we know about consciousness empirically; I'll circle back around to that and reinforce that point by noting that we have no empirical evidence that consciousness exists.
What we have for evidence that consciousness exists is anecdotal evidence from every human alive; we experience consciousness so therefore it must exist.
It's a granted axiom from first hand experience, so far.

For all we know, we could wake up one day and find out the neuroscience has discovered that consciousness simply doesn't exist and the impression of it is entirely a trick of the brain.
This gets brought up in the neuroscience philosophical debates over whether or not there is free will.

How would this be tested? For example, what if the AI had the same complexity as the human brain with all functions working and was unable to communicate its consciousness to its creators?
What if a machine consciousness was so different to a biological Consciousness that there is no easy way to make the connections?
How do we know that part of developing Consciousness has to do with the having at least some of the 5 senses and even the ability to intuit and ‘gut instinct’ type attributes?

What about the effect of initial input in terms of data? Will the AI be left to its own devices in order to work things out for itself from the go get?

Also, how will it be ascertained that its consciousness would cease to exist once it had been ascertained that it was conscious?

We don't know.
That's the problem. We can't even empirically verify our own consciousness yet, let alone determine if another living organism has consciousness or not...so it's incredibly difficult to know what the simulation would produce and how we would determine if it was conscious or not.

There's actually an ethical debate that continues regarding these kinds of simulations; the question isn't clear as to whether or not rebooting the computer running the simulation would be murder.
It's also been raised as an ethical question whether or not we would even be aware that we were committing murder, since we can't measurably identify when something has consciousness.
Would we create consciousness and fail to recognize it; thinking that what we saw was just a simulation of consciousness?
Is there a difference between simulated consciousness and consciousness?

These are questions no one can measurably answer yet.

Do you think being on the same page would be boring? Perhaps it could actually help the processes and even increase the excitement because of this.

The comment wasn't about it being exciting because of the different pages, but instead that we know so little and have so much to yet learn, which causes all of these differences, that it is then exciting.

Navigator: Topographically.

Can you give me a link which might help me understand what you are saying in relation to Consciousness and Topography?

I can't give you a link.
Topography of the brain is another way of saying "where something is located in the brain".
We don't even know if consciousness exists empirically, so we don't have a topographical outline of where something like that might exist.

We can identify that the thalamus regulates consciousness versus unconsciousness (awake vs. not awake), and there's some role involved from the superior temporal sulcus and the temporo-parietal junction, as we can observe individuals with damage to these regions and notice dramatic decrease in sentient consciousness in the individuals.
However, this doesn't mean that this concludes consciousness topographically, as these may be integral to consciousness, but that doesn't mean they are the entirety of consciousness.

Another proposition (which follows more of the "state" concept of consciousness) proposes that consciousness is all brain activity within the gamma wave spectrum of brain activity.

Now, interestingly, the way we traffic gamma waves on neurons is that we pack up seven gamma phases onto one delta wave phase, and then upon reception, the gamma phases are "unpacked" off of the delta wave phase.

The idea of consciousness being a state related to gamma waves hasn't been confirmed, but it is a popular inquiry.

 

[JaysonR]

then they have no idea about QM and are grossly wrong and inaccurate.

I stay out of it, honestly, until we actual get more neurophysicits and they get more solid work established on the state of QM in the brain.
It's rather clear that QM does exist in the brain, as it exists anywhere, but whether or not there's any impact to it has not been identified in either direction at all.

My pseudo-brother (very, very close friend) is in his last couple years of post-grad work before entering into the neurophysics field; it's a pretty confusing and fascinating field.
Most of it is a bit beyond my comprehension so far (though I think most of it is probably above many neuroscientist's heads as well).

We can conclude from what is known of QM that is nothing to do with consciousness whatsoever or that neurons act with an QM effects, the only QM is teh well established nature of chemical interactions.

I honestly don't know enough to weigh in on the matter.

What I do know is that a single neuron, internally, is about as complex as the city of San Francisco, yet we know next to nothing about the workings of the neuron in regards to this internal layer, and are even far less versed on anything within a constituent of that internal layer.

Anyone who thinks there is any sort of QM harmonics or in QM 'microtubules' is a fool, perhaps a very smart fool but a fool none the less.

I have no idea. I do think that it's very easy for people to get caught up in a grand many QM theories very easily based on mathematical articulations and lose sight of practical application and verification.

When someone shows evidence of consciousness absent teh organic stucture of a brain, then there will be something to discuss.

That is a strong conclusion.

I'm with you on this.

I am curious how widely held and accepted they are and how often such research is cited by other neurobiologists.

Widely accepted as discussion, once in a while investigated in tests, pretty much never cited as principles to other studies.

To my knowledge, no study so far has succeeded in showing any positive results to testing external consciousness beyond accounting for the out of body experiences as phenomenon produced within the brain.

 

[JaysonR]

Jayson, I think we can safely state strongly absolutely no evidence exists for consciousness existing outside of neurological structures.

So far, yes.
People still look at testing these things, but so far; yeah.

And those who suggest QM states of communication between neurons are seriously mistaken.

This one I am less certain on.
We just need a lot more study in neurophysics...possibly another two decades before we get anything usable to determining anything like this in either direction.

 

[JaysonR]

QM underlies everything, including biochemistry, but even in cases where QM has direct effect at an unexpectedly large scale, e.g. the reaction centres of photosynthetic molecules, it acts entirely in accordance with our understanding of QM in the way it improves the efficiency of those biochemical pathways.

If such large scale QM effects were found to occur in the biochemistry of neurons (and as far as I know there is no evidence of that), it is reasonable to assume that they too would behave according to our understanding of QM (and would probably also improve biochemical efficiency).

However, the scale of activity of neural networks is at least a couple of orders of magnitude beyond even such unusually large scale QM influence, and their activity appears to be fully accounted for by conventional neurophysiology.

I'm sure JaysonR will correct me if I've gone astray.

For my view of things, I can side with this mostly.
I don't expect there to be a huge QM breakthrough for the brain, but there's a small nagging voice in the back of my head that keeps in mind recent finds in botany on the matter of QM, so I'm very interested to see where neurophysics goes.

Now, on the last paragraph, no; we don't have neuronal activity fully accounted for by conventional neurophysiological description.
The inside of a neuron is massive for such a tiny object; it's about as complex as San Francisco city in each neuron.
We don't know that "blue print" inside of the neuron very well at all.

There's also the fact that we keep finding more cells in the brain that participate in brain activity than we thought were involved.

We only recently figured out just how important oligodendrocytes are, and that without them, we would process information up to thirty times slower than we do (this helped us understand Alzheimer and, specifically, MS much better as it allowed us to understand that a shortage of oligodendrocytes leads to reduced myelin sheathing, and that just rapidly degrades brain efficiency).

Another example is that it was only recently that we found out that astrocytes don't just eat dead neurons and feed them nutrients, but can also augment the transmission signals of a neuron to change what the neuron relays from a received signal entirely, and they do this purely chemically and not electronically (which is why we couldn't see it going on, because with EEGs, MRI and fMRI's, we're looking for BOLD and electrical activity; not chemical exchanges).

There's a pretty good one-sheet run-down of some of this here:
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/reward/cells.html

But basically...no, we don't have neurons nailed down just yet.
We just have them nailed down enough to watch the "Christmas light" show.

 

[dlorde]

Now, on the last paragraph, no; we don't have neuronal activity fully accounted for by conventional neurophysiological description.

I understand that neurons their accompanying cells are complex and their interactions are still being clarified, but in what respect is the functional activity of the neural network (e.g. signal processing, etc.) not accounted for by conventional neurophysiology? What feature(s) of the function of a neuronal network are unaccounted for ?

[a crude analogy: I may not understand precisely how my car achieves all it does, or exactly how all the parts work together, but I know that its basic functions when transporting me from a to b can be fully accounted for by conventional understanding of internal combustion, mechanics, and electronics].

 

[Dancing David]

So far, yes.
People still look at testing these things, but so far; yeah.


This one I am less certain on.
We just need a lot more study in neurophysics...possibly another two decades before we get anything usable to determining anything like this in either direction.

Not really, sorry but what is know about QM, and that is quite a bit, and growing totally and absolutely precludes it being used by neural networks as an extra layer of communication.

I have looked at the papers that say silly things about QM and neurons, they are by and large wrong. Yes QM is inherent in biochemistry but there is no possibility of QM effects at the size of a single neuron, much less structures composed of neurons. QM has very specific areas of application, cells are way too big.

 

[Navigator]

Transhumanism H+

In relation to the thread topic and OP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism

 

[JaysonR]

I understand that neurons their accompanying cells are complex and their interactions are still being clarified, but in what respect is the functional activity of the neural network (e.g. signal processing, etc.) not accounted for by conventional neurophysiology? What feature(s) of the function of a neuronal network are unaccounted for ?

[a crude analogy: I may not understand precisely how my car achieves all it does, or exactly how all the parts work together, but I know that its basic functions when transporting me from a to b can be fully accounted for by conventional understanding of internal combustion, mechanics, and electronics].

The difference between the car and the neuron is you know the car was made by someone, which limits the build to standard mechanics.

But perhaps I should rephrase the statement to read, "we don't have neuronal activity fully accounted for".

The focus wasn't on the "neurophysiology" portion, but that we don't yet have them fully accounted for, and since they weren't made by a known mechanic yet, we simply don't know what to expect inside.

Further, we don't know what neuron is talking to what neuron definitively yet.
We keep finding new ways neurons behave.

I'm not increasing elbow room for whatever we want to put in there, I don't want to give off that idea (others may take the opportunity to leave such room, but I'm a physicalist, so that's not my intention).

More I am just pointing out that we just don't know, and what we don't know is shockingly too much.

We can't make the claim that we have the neuron fully accounted for.
What we can claim is that all activity so far discovered related to the neuron has been accounted for with neurophysiological explanations sufficiently (though not always in full).

 

[JaysonR]

Not really, sorry but what is know about QM, and that is quite a bit, and growing totally and absolutely precludes it being used by neural networks as an extra layer of communication.

I have looked at the papers that say silly things about QM and neurons, they are by and large wrong. Yes QM is inherent in biochemistry but there is no possibility of QM effects at the size of a single neuron, much less structures composed of neurons. QM has very specific areas of application, cells are way too big.

I will submit to your knowledge on the matter as I can't stand very well on the subject either way.
I understand QM up to a point, but then I honestly become lost.
Quarks et. al. is where I get lost...as soon as someone talks about "flavors", my brain fails to compute that concept and I can't visually or spatially comprehend the behavior of these levels.
I can grasp gluons because that interacts with bosons and I grasp the behavior of the propagating boson, but below that level...that's where I lose track of what's the floor and what's ceiling.

 

[JaysonR]

In relation to the thread topic and OP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism

Generally speaking, any such dialogue of transhumanism should be met with a reminder of eugenics history as a very strong cautionary tale.

 

[Dancing David]

I will submit to your knowledge on the matter as I can't stand very well on the subject either way.
I understand QM up to a point, but then I honestly become lost.
Quarks et. al. is where I get lost...as soon as someone talks about "flavors", my brain fails to compute that concept and I can't visually or spatially comprehend the behavior of these levels.
I can grasp gluons because that interacts with bosons and I grasp the behavior of the propagating boson, but below that level...that's where I lose track of what's the floor and what's ceiling.

Fair enough, basically a neuron is too large to have QM interactions capable of transferring information.


Flavors are strange, it is basically a conservation property..