DO WE NEED QUANTUM MECHANICS TO EXPLAIN HOW THE BRAIN WORKS?
Anna Yuryevna Storozhuk
Institute of Philosophy and Law Siberian Branch of the Russian Akademy of Sciences, 8, Nikolaev st., Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia
Keywords: квантовая природа сознания, степени свободы нейронов, сложность системы, детерминизм, quantum nature of consciousness, degrees of freedom of neurons, system complexity, determinism
Abstract
The article analyses R. Penrose’s viewpoint on the nature of consciousness according to which mathematical non-computability of consciousness can be explained only by attracting quantum mechanics as a source of probability. We consider a criticism of his concept from J. Lucas’s perspective which implies that complexity of a system results in appearance of additional qualities which are not reducible to original ones. We compare degrees of complexity of the human brain and those of modern neural networks. It is shown that complexity of a system may itself be a source of uncertainty to a sufficient extent, so it is possible to do without quantum mechanics. However, it is assumed that quantum-mechanic effects may cause uncertainty of some processes occurring in “building blocks” of the brain, i.e. neurons.
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