Lorraine Ford
Dear Lorraine, nobody can assert but we can speculate and explore possibilities . A person asserting to know lie because this person does not know the mechanisms, Physicists, neuroscientists, philosophers, and theorists have proposed that consciousness may involve quantum phenomena (such as superposition, entanglement, or non-computable quantum collapse).
If this is true, then quantum computers or quantum substrates must be studied with this prudence I explained.
There is no experimental proof for quantum consciousness. Many scientists are highly skeptical indeed but they don t assert.They agree or disagree actually.We cannot assert it is non sense because it is not proved actually.
Ontologically, we cannot assert anything: we simply do not know what consciousness fundamentally is.
Thus, quantum-substrate consciousness is possible, but unproven.Here is a list of thinkers I found on internet considering that the consciousness is from quantum processesand so are skeptical, they tell it is a possibility, so we must be prudent, they don t assert , them, they just explain that we don t know.Roger Penrose,Stuart Hameroff,Eugene Wigner,Henry P. Stapp,David Bohm,BasilHiley,Paavo Pylkkänen,Matthew P. A. Fisher,Hiroomi Umezawa,Kunio Yasue,Mari Jibu,Giuseppe Vitiello,Karl,Pribram,Walter Freeman,Federico Faggin,Johnjoe McFadden,Anirban Bandyopadhyay,Satyajit Sahu,Jack A. Tuszynski,Menas Kafatos,Erwin Schrödinger ),Wolfgang Pauli ,Jung(historical discussions with Jung on psyche/quantum),Niels Bohr,David Chalmers (engages quantum ideas, not a proponent but includes them as possible),Giulio Tononi (IIT sometimes linked to quantum information by others),Radek TrnkaMichael C. Wiest,Vittorio Ricciardi (Ricciardi–Umezawa model lineage),Freeman Dyson (speculative comments on mind in physics)Florian Neukart quantum-AI researcher speculating about conscious substrates),Amit Goswami (quantum consciousness advocate),Sir John Eccles (interactionist hypotheses sometimes tied to quantum effects),Sebastian Deffner (speculative writing on quantum cognition substrates),Jerome Busemeyer (quantum cognition modeling ,mathematical but part of the landscape),Andrei Khrennikov (quantum-like models of mind, sometimes extended to physical interpretation)
These thinkers do not all agree with each other. They come from different disciplines and propose very different mechanisms. Some (Penrose, Hameroff, Fisher) propose technical biological mechanisms; others (Bohm, Wigner) explore philosophical/physical interpretations; others use quantum math metaphorically.What they have in common is only this:
They consider it plausible or worth investigating that consciousness might involve quantum processes ,and therefore that quantum-based artificial systems might, in principle, support consciousness.
But again,nobody knows.
No one can make an ontological claim that quantum substrates create consciousness and no one can claim it is non sense without having proved his, her aqssertion. It remains an open scientific and philosophical question.
