Classical physics fails to explain how you read this essay

PearLark

We can be conscious of more than one concept at the same time. You are holding multiple words in your mind while reading this sentence. It is so obvious, it hardly seems worth explaining. However, there are only two routes to an explanation and classical physics fails at both. The first is that this ‘simultaneity’ exists in experience only, with its information content mapping to a chain of physical activity over time. But the core equations of classical physics are Markovian: they depend only on current states. The second is that ‘phenomenal simultaneity’ maps to ‘physical simultaneity’ operating on data distributed across space. But classical physics permits only local interactions that take time to propagate. Quantum physics rejects the first route, but provides options under the second. Candidate mechanisms – from either classical or quantum physics – can be explored empirically.

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Ulla Mattfolk

PearLark this ‘simultaneity’ exists in experience only

Indeed, and this is an important point. So it is a superposition, a contradiction of two similar but opposite states. We know emotions can be like this. We have to choose one if we want to cont. It will fade by itself with time, because it carries a lifetime of its own...
Ulla.

Steve Dufourny

PearLark
Hello,
Congrats on your essay. You analyze carefully, step by step, there is consistency, structure, argumentation, and ontology. You are clear about the links between physics, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind. I liked how you differentiate classical computation for cognitive complexity from phenomenal complexity, which may require nonclassical physics. We need these kinds of extrapolations for the hard problem of consciousness. The descriptions of our classical systems and quantum frameworks are important, I think. It seems evident that classical physics probably fails at specific levels of analysis. We need to analyze the problem beyond Markovian processes and locality, I believe. I do not assert this, of course, but we lack the physical and ontological structures to understand these things beyond classical physics.

So your approach with nonMarkovian models is insightful.Of course, we must be cautious about ontology, and we cannot conclude yet, but we can extrapolate simultaneities indeed and mirror them, after all, without asserting them. That is why your exploration of possible quantum ways for phenomenal simultaneities is interesting.The entanglement, the qualia,..... indeed, can be extrapolated. I also liked the approach concerning wave function collapse and Orch-OR.your analysis is fair and nuanced. Your assumption regarding the vacuum is also a good one, ontologically speaking. We need speculations, and we must recognize our ontological and physical limitations. I agree that classical physics cannot explain simultaneous phenomenal complexity. Congrats.

ShockwaveRider

Sorry, but your information theory is outdated. Shannon Entropy has been around for a long time, and is the very best math anyone has to work with, but has finally fallen apart entirely. The math you need is either heavily classified, or simply doesn't exist. I'm creating my own paradoxical math, based on what physicists call "Not Quantum Mechanics" because they have no clue what quantum mechanics are either.

AloBiof98

The essay is intellectually ambitious and demonstrates technical mastery of classical and quantum physics, but its argumentation is flawed by extrapolating scientific principles to the field of consciousness without empirical support. The transition from the "failure" of classical physics to the need for a quantum explanation is more of a philosophical inference than a scientific conclusion, as it ignores contemporary models of consciousness such as IIT or Global Workspace, which explain phenomenal integration on classical and neurobiological grounds.

Furthermore, the proposed quantum mechanisms (entanglement, wave function collapse, quantum vacuum) lack biological plausibility and ultimately sound metaphorical. The text is stimulating and conceptually refined, but its explanatory scope is limited: it is more of a philosophical speculation on the limits of physicalism than a testable scientific theory of consciousness.

PearLark

AloBiof98 Thank you for engaging with the essay - and I agree that parts of the argument are philosophical in nature. If I can follow up, what about the empirical approach in section 4 is not testable in your perspective? It is certainly difficult and operates within certain assumptions, but so does all ambitious science.

You mentioned IIT. IIT is a great example of a solution to binding that goes beyond the equations of classical physics. However, IIT is not ignored in the essay - it's mentioned in technical note (d). To elaborate: The definition of a 'complex' in IIT is a new concept (a new equation) added on top of a classical physics ontology. This does provide a solution to phenomenal binding but does so within the constraints of the essay; it is not an example that shows the essay's argument is wrong.

Regarding global workspace theory, I've not seen an explicit account of this which addresses arguments around the combination problem or phenomenal unity. You could interpret the GWT solution as "the information that is simultaneously represented within the global workspace is phenomenally bound together, with that information represented across sets of neurons behaving classically". However, this would be vulnerable to the critique made in the essay that there would be no classical information transfer between those neurons that preserves the simultaneity we're looking for. Something being neurobiological at that level of description doesn't provide new resources beyond the equations of classical physics. That said, I'm open to reading & thinking more here...