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Speaker 1: What is more mysterious than consciousness? Where does our subjective

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Speaker 1: experience come from? It's certainly a puzzle that has baffled

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Speaker 1: philosophers for eons. But wait, what about quantum mechanics. That's

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Speaker 1: a big puzzle too. Why can quantum objects maintain a

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Speaker 1: superposition but classical objects, which are made from quantum objects,

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Speaker 1: somehow cannot? And what's the difference between a quantum and

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Speaker 1: classical object? Also a major source of philosophical confusion. But

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Speaker 1: hold on a second, what about the conflicts between quantum

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Speaker 1: mechanics and gravity? How can we have two beautiful theories,

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Speaker 1: both of which have been stress tested to an extraordinary level,

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Speaker 1: but which clash in their basic description of the universe?

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Speaker 1: Can they ever be harmonized? These three questions battle for

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Speaker 1: supremacy in the world of philosophy and physics. Each one

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Speaker 1: has been attacked from many sides, the greatest minds in

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Speaker 1: history struggling to make concrete progress. But what if we

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Speaker 1: could solve not just one, not just two, but all

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Speaker 1: three with one theory, one idea that explains consciousness, quantum measurements,

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Speaker 1: and harmonizes quantum mechanics with gravity. Today we'll explore a

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Speaker 1: controversial theory that claims to do just that and a

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Speaker 1: little more. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's extraordinarily ambitious universe.

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Speaker 2: Hello. I'm Kelly Winer Smith. I study parasites and space,

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Speaker 2: and today we are talking about all of the topics

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Speaker 2: that make Kelly's brain go ouch.

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Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I like

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Speaker 1: to insert all of those topics into your brain. Not

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Speaker 1: to make your brain go ouch, but to make your

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Speaker 1: brain go oh.

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Speaker 2: Do you have a topic that makes your brain just

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Speaker 2: like when you hear about it you immediately go ouch?

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Speaker 1: Chemistry?

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Speaker 3: Oh?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, but that's a whole field. Is there

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Speaker 2: like a particular topic in chemistry that makes you go ouch?

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Speaker 1: There's a topic in chemistry which overlaps with physics a

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Speaker 1: little bit, which is statistical physics and thermodynamics, and it

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Speaker 1: has the same issues for me as chemistry that there

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Speaker 1: are lots of different scenarios with different assumptions which on

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Speaker 1: need different formulas and it's hard to sort out when

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Speaker 1: you do what. And it's the one class in grad

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Speaker 1: school which I was terrified I was not going to pass.

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Speaker 2: Well, does that mean you got an yeah?

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Speaker 1: Something?

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Speaker 3: Oh?

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Speaker 1: Daniel, and the instructor for that was like a real

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Speaker 1: old school Berkeley dude. He used to smoke cigars in

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Speaker 1: his office at Berkeley, and like there's a strict no

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Speaker 1: smoking policy, but he had strict ignored that no smoking

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Speaker 1: policy policy.

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Speaker 2: Good to have tenure.

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Speaker 1: He was like a thousand years old when I got

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Speaker 1: to Berkeley, And yeah, he taught like it.

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Speaker 2: Does he still persist.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. And actually I was supposed to meet him.

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Speaker 1: I took my final and I turned it in and

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Speaker 1: I was terrified about how it went, and he sent

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Speaker 1: me a message saying, please come meet me, and I

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Speaker 1: just didn't go because I was so terrified. But I

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Speaker 1: ended up getting an AUS in the class, and so

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Speaker 1: whatever happened happened. And I don't believe that he's any

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Speaker 1: longer with us.

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Speaker 2: Oh all right, well you turned out pretty okay, So

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Speaker 2: that's awesome.

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Speaker 1: As long as I focus on the particles and the

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Speaker 1: tiny stuff and not like millions of buzzing things interacting,

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Speaker 1: then yeah, it all makes sense to me. And my

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Speaker 1: goal on this podcast is to make it all make

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Speaker 1: sense to you, which is why we dig into complicated

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Speaker 1: topics and we answer questions from listeners who want to

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Speaker 1: understand and crazy theories about the universe.

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Speaker 2: Well, and one of the things that I love about

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Speaker 2: being your co host is that the topics that usually

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Speaker 2: make my brain go ouch definitely make my brain hurt

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Speaker 2: less when you're explaining them to me, and so I

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Speaker 2: have the best chance of understanding them on today's show.

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Speaker 2: So let's go ahead. Today we're going to talk about

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Speaker 2: does consciousness come from quantum processes in the brain.

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Speaker 1: That's right, it's a smoothie if all the heart is

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Speaker 1: problems in the universe blended together with quantum gravity. And

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Speaker 1: this is not a random topic that we have chosen.

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Speaker 1: This is the subject of a theory by one of

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Speaker 1: the smartest guys out there, Roger Penrose. He who won

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Speaker 1: the Nobel Prize in physics for understanding black holes. So

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Speaker 1: definitely a very smart dude. And he has this crazy

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Speaker 1: theory about consciousness. And we got a question from a

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Speaker 1: listener who asked us to explain it. Here's Scott's question.

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Speaker 4: Helloja, Daniel and Kelly. Roger Penrose and Stuart hammer Off

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Speaker 4: have hypothesized that the rise of consciousness, the hard question

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Speaker 4: in neuroscience, comes from the collapse of quantum superpositions inside

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Speaker 4: microtubules in neurons. To me, this sounds like a perfect

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Speaker 4: crossover of quantum physics and biology. So I'd love to

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Speaker 4: hear your explanation of and take on the orchestrated objective

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Speaker 4: reduction theory.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, all right, So my question to you, Daniel

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Speaker 2: is this is this another case of a physicist jumping

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Speaker 2: into like biology and thinking, oh, this is lesser because

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Speaker 2: it's biology. So I'm just going to assume that I

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Speaker 2: can do it without really doing any research.

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Speaker 1: It's not quite so bad, Okay. He started out just

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Speaker 1: thinking about the physics, the quantum mechanics of it, and

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Speaker 1: then was thinking a little bit about the philosophy of it.

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Speaker 1: And there's a terrible track record there of physicists doing

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Speaker 1: philosophy without really knowing what they're doing with panos He's

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Speaker 1: a smart guy. He's thought a lot about quantum foundations,

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Speaker 1: so what he says on that topic is not just nonsense.

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Speaker 1: And then he paired up with a biologist, an anesthesiologist actually,

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Speaker 1: who helped him connected to the brain. And so not

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Speaker 1: only are we going to be talking about consciousness and

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Speaker 1: quantum mechanics and quantum gravity and quantum computing. We're also

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Speaker 1: going to touch on anesthesiology.

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Speaker 2: Oh, we don't understand any of those things.

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Speaker 1: Amazing, so maybe they're all the same thing, right, This

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Speaker 1: is the wonderful temptation. I see this from listeners all

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Speaker 1: the time. They're like, you don't understand dark matter. You

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Speaker 1: also don't understand antimatter. What if dot dot dark matter

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Speaker 1: is antimatter? And I totally get that temptation, because there

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Speaker 1: are times in the history of science when two things

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Speaker 1: we didn't understand click together perfectly to make one beautiful

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Speaker 1: thing we do understand. And so what a great moment

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Speaker 1: that would be. Dark matter is not anti matter, unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: and the jury is still out on whether Penrose's theory

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Speaker 1: of consciousness makes any sense.

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Speaker 2: All right, well, speaking of making any sense, let's see

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Speaker 2: if this question makes any sense to our extraordinaries. Because

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Speaker 2: you went ahead and ask them, does consciousness come from

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Speaker 2: quantum processes in the brain. Let's hear what they had

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Speaker 2: to say.

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Speaker 1: The choices I make are not deterministic. Therefore, I'm in

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Speaker 1: favor of a quantum explanation of consciousness.

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Speaker 3: Jeez, I believe so I'm speaking for ignorance here, but

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Speaker 3: consciousness I believe doesn't come from the quantum processes that

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Speaker 3: embedded in the brain. Perhaps it has something to do

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Speaker 3: with the virtual particle popping in that I resistance.

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Speaker 4: My first reaction is no, we can't even agree on

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Speaker 4: what consciousness is. But since it's biology, I'd have to say,

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Speaker 4: we don't really know.

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Speaker 3: Everything comes from quantum processes, but consciousness. Who knows how.

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Speaker 2: I think that quantum processes are at a different scale

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Speaker 2: neurological processes.

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Speaker 3: Perhaps that's how we achieve official general intelligence through the

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Speaker 3: use of quantum computing.

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Speaker 4: Well, I think at the end of the day, everything

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Speaker 4: comes from quantum processes, but I'd still say yes.

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Speaker 1: And neurons definitely rely on quantum processes. I will say

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Speaker 1: yes because of the electricity in our brain, which I

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Speaker 1: believe comes from the Sun, which gave rise to life

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Speaker 1: on Earth.

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Speaker 3: I don't think so.

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Speaker 4: The amount of entanglement juice needed to power the flux

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Speaker 4: capacitor and the brain would be too much for this task.

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Speaker 4: I don't think so. I think consciousness comes from feedback loops.

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Speaker 4: I suspect that Daniel's answer is no because the brain

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Speaker 4: is too wet of an environment. The mush insider our

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Speaker 4: skulls is quantum, and quantum consciousness comes from that. Quantum

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Speaker 4: mechanics is inherently tied to chemistry, and the way that

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Speaker 4: the brain works is all based on chemistry.

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Speaker 1: So I'd say, yeah, definitely, I do not know, but

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Speaker 1: that's a great theory.

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Speaker 2: Now, no one respects the extraordinaries more than me. But

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Speaker 2: I'm going to go ahead and say that a lot

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Speaker 2: of these answers made no sense it all.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the question is kind of bonkers, ye, but

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Speaker 1: I do love the flux capacitor answer like nice reference.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yep.

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Speaker 1: And the person who sent back their file with the

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Speaker 1: title quonsciousness, I can't believe that's not a word, Like,

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Speaker 1: that's an awesome word, counsciousness.

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Speaker 2: It should be a word. Yes, now it is.

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Speaker 1: And let me clarify something which was brought up by

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Speaker 1: a few of the listeners, like what does it mean

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Speaker 1: to be quantum?

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 1: Quantum processes? In a sense, everything is quantum because we're

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Speaker 1: all made from quantum objects. Right, I'm made out of particles.

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Speaker 1: Those particles are quantum, So in that sense, I'm quantum,

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Speaker 1: and my whole process relies on being quantum. All of

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Speaker 1: biology is quantum because biology is just big chemistry, and

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Speaker 1: chemistry is just big physics. So in that sense, it's

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Speaker 1: a silly question because the answer is always yes, it's quantum,

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Speaker 1: but that's not really what we mean. Sometimes when you

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Speaker 1: zoom out from quantum processes, the quantumness of it all

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Speaker 1: average out, like when you have a baseball and you

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Speaker 1: throw it across the field. Yes, it's made out of

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Speaker 1: ten to the twenty nine quantum objects, obeying the Shrotiner equation.

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Speaker 1: But you don't need to know quantum mechanics to describe

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Speaker 1: it because all of the interesting quantumness averages out, and

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Speaker 1: you can just use classical physics. And so what we're

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Speaker 1: asking here today is not are we made out of

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Speaker 1: quantum objects? The answer to that is obviously yes. The

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Speaker 1: question is is it crucial that we're made out of

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Speaker 1: quantum objects? Is the quantumness of those objects somehow propagate

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Speaker 1: up to our consciousness and our experience and our free

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Speaker 1: will in an important way?

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Speaker 2: Okay, so we've set that groundwork. But now all right,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to read our question one more time. Yes,

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Speaker 2: here is our question. Our question is does consciousness come

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Speaker 2: from quantum processes in the brain?

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 2: Okay, So first let's unpack the word consciousness. And we

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Speaker 2: actually have a whole episode with doctor Megan Peters where

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Speaker 2: we talked about consciousness, what it means, what we understand

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Speaker 2: about it. You can go check that out, but we're

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Speaker 2: gonna summarize it here a little bit. So, Daniel, for starters,

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Speaker 2: what is the hard problem of consciousness?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So in order to understand Penrose's theory, we

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Speaker 1: have to figure out first what it's solving. And there's

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Speaker 1: multiple problems it's solving. The first one is consciousness, and

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Speaker 1: so the hard problem of consciousness is essentially saying, why

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Speaker 1: do I have an experience? Why is it something there's

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Speaker 1: like to be me right? Like, I feel like I'm

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Speaker 1: in my body and it's not just that photons hit

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Speaker 1: my eyeball and send a message to my brain. I

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Speaker 1: experience red, and red is like there's something reddish about

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Speaker 1: red in a way that like I can't describe to

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Speaker 1: you completely. This is famous thought experiment about a woman

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Speaker 1: who lives only in a room filled with black and

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Speaker 1: white objects. Could you describe read to her in a

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Speaker 1: way that when she leaves the room she could identify

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Speaker 1: red from blue in any way other than showing her

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Speaker 1: something red right. It tries to probe why there is

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Speaker 1: an experience of being you, Why a complex series of

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Speaker 1: things in your brain emerges somehow to you having a

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Speaker 1: first person experience, Because as far as I know, a

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Speaker 1: rock doesn't have a first person experience, a car doesn't

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Speaker 1: have a first person experience, an ant probably doesn't, you know,

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Speaker 1: my AI probably doesn't. But where does that happen? How

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Speaker 1: does that happen? That's the question of consciousness.

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Speaker 2: And I remember we had an interesting discussion with Megan

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Speaker 2: about you know, should we be worried about whether or

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Speaker 2: not AI does some octopus have a first person experience?

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Speaker 2: And how would we even try to measure that exactly?

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Speaker 1: And measuring it is crucial because so many times in

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Speaker 1: science we begin by measuring something and then trying to

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Speaker 1: explain it. We want to understand why electron goes left

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Speaker 1: and right. Well, we make some measurements, and then the

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Speaker 1: nature those measurements are what we're trying to predict. And

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Speaker 1: the fact that in quantum mechanics those measurements are fuzzy

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Speaker 1: is a whole issue. In mechanics we'll talk about in

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Speaker 1: a minute, But in consciousness, like can I measure that.

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Speaker 1: All I know is that I'm conscious. You tell me

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Speaker 1: that you're conscious, but I can't measure your consciousness at all.

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Speaker 1: And in philosophy they have this famous thought experiment called

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Speaker 1: philosophical zombie that says, for example, is it possible to

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Speaker 1: have another version of Kelly who acts exactly the same way,

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Speaker 1: claims to be conscious, acts as if she.

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Speaker 2: Was, But isn't It's Kelly pre coffee, That's what it is.

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Speaker 1: Is there something about consciousness which can be measured from

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Speaker 1: the outside or is it purely an internal, interior thing.

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Speaker 1: And if it's purely internal, an interior like I think

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Speaker 1: it is, then it's by construction not measurable, which means

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Speaker 1: it might be outside the bounds of science, it might

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Speaker 1: be purely in the realm of philosophy. And I don't

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Speaker 1: mean that in a negative way at all. It's just

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Speaker 1: that science can only answer questions about things that we

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Speaker 1: can predict and on, and so things that we can't

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Speaker 1: are philosophical questions, which doesn't mean they're less valid. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: it means they're bigger picture questions, but it does limit

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Speaker 1: us in how we probe them and understand them.

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Speaker 2: Well, So now I'm particularly interested in how a physicist

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Speaker 2: is going to address this question of consciousness if it's

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Speaker 2: a thing we can't even really measure.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and this connects also not just to consciousness, but

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Speaker 1: also to free will, right, like this feeling we have

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Speaker 1: of being inside our heads and sort of driving our bodies.

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Speaker 1: I decide to have coffee, I decide not to have coffee.

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Speaker 1: I decide what to talk about on this podcast. You know,

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Speaker 1: where's the room for that in our physical understanding of

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Speaker 1: the universe. Is it just part of the physical systems

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Speaker 1: that we are made out of that we sort of

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Speaker 1: draw a dotted line around and say, this is the

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Speaker 1: decision making part. This is me making a decision. Or

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Speaker 1: is there something separate, non physical, which is like driving

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Speaker 1: the system but is not made of the phys bits

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Speaker 1: and bobs. And so it's this experience not just of

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Speaker 1: having an experience, but having agency that's important. And so

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Speaker 1: a few years ago a philosopher named David Chalmers identified

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Speaker 1: this as the hard problem of consciousness, to separate it

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Speaker 1: from the easy problem of consciousness, which is like, you know,

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Speaker 1: how does the brain work and all the mechanisms inside

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Speaker 1: it and the optic nerve and all that stuff. He says, quote,

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Speaker 1: even when we have explained the performance of all the

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Speaker 1: cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience perceptual discrimination, categorization,

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Speaker 1: internal access, verbal report, there may still remain a further

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Speaker 1: unanswered question. Why is the performance of these functions accompanied

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Speaker 1: by experience? Essentially, why is it like anything.

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Speaker 4: To be you?

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Speaker 2: I love that the easy problem is a problem we

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Speaker 2: like still haven't really figured out, and then the hard

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Speaker 2: problem is a problem that we aren't actually sure we'll

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Speaker 2: ever figure out. So they're both kind of hard problems,

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Speaker 2: but is just even harder?

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Speaker 1: I know, and I saw yesterday on Twitter somebody said, quote,

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Speaker 1: the hard problem of consciousness was invented by philosophers to

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Speaker 1: sell more philosophy. Yeah, kind of true. True anyway, of course,

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Speaker 1: there's a bunch of different ideas about the hard problem

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Speaker 1: of consciousness, of various schools of thought, so let's survey

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Speaker 1: them quickly. One of them is called physicalism, which says

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Speaker 1: there is no hard problem, consciousness just emerges. And this

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Speaker 1: is like Daniel Dennett's theory. He says that it's a

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Speaker 1: bit of an illusion, like there is no moment when

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Speaker 1: you're aware. Your brain is just like weaving together a

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Speaker 1: story about what happened, and your sense of being aware

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Speaker 1: is actually your memory of the immediate past. That there

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Speaker 1: is no like moment of awareness. That's just you're remembering

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Speaker 1: something you didn't actually experience, and you think of that

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Speaker 1: as experience.

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Speaker 2: Does that suggest that you don't actually have consciousness, you

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Speaker 2: just have like a thing happening in your brain.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And it's weird to read a book about

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Speaker 1: how you're not actually reading a book, you know, or like,

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Speaker 1: who is the you in this version who's not experiencing

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Speaker 1: consciousness but is having it explained to them how they're

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Speaker 1: not conscious. It's very confusing.

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Speaker 2: It's hard to think about these problems and disconnect like

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Speaker 2: not wanting an answer to be the answer from how

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Speaker 2: you feel about these things. Like my first thought is,

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Speaker 2: well I don't want it to be that, but of

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Speaker 2: course that doesn't make it wrong. But anyway, I haven't

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Speaker 2: Maybe I should read Consciousness Explained by Dennett.

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Speaker 1: Critics of that book like to call it consciousness Explained Away.

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Speaker 2: Oh all right, what other theories do we have?

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Speaker 1: Another one is called emergentism, and that says that consciousness emerges,

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Speaker 1: but it rejects the sort of reductionist approach that says,

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Speaker 1: you know, everything has to be explained in terms of

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Speaker 1: the microscopic that you need to like understand how this

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Speaker 1: comes out of the little bits, and Bobs says it

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Speaker 1: emerges on its own, that it's not reducible to some

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Speaker 1: lower level description. This is what philosophers called strong emergence.

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Speaker 1: Says that not everything comes out of the smallest bits,

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Speaker 1: that there can be fundamental laws at different scales. So like,

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Speaker 1: it's not that F equals M is some average of

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Speaker 1: all the quantum processes. There's a new set of laws

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Speaker 1: at the classical level than there are at the quantum

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Speaker 1: mechanical level, and maybe there's a new set of laws

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Speaker 1: that deal with how complicated neurons interact with each other.

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Speaker 1: And consciousness emerges from that, not from the smallest bits. Right,

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Speaker 1: it can't be reduced to that it's something new and

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Speaker 1: that comes out at this scale. It's a very weird

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Speaker 1: kind of idea for those of us who are physicists

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Speaker 1: who like to think of the universe as determined by

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Speaker 1: what's happening on the microscopic level.

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Speaker 2: Okay, but it's still not saying that like it's spiritual

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Speaker 2: or you know, magical in any sense. It's just there's

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Speaker 2: physical okay, physics happening at the quantum level and physics

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Speaker 2: happening at the classy level, and something about what's happening

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Speaker 2: at both of those levels is giving you consciousness.

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Speaker 1: That's right, it's happening at its own level, and it's

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Speaker 1: not just bubbling up from below. It's its own thing.

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Speaker 1: But it's still physical.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 1: Then you get to dualism, and that says, yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: not physical at all. There are two kinds of things

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Speaker 1: in the universe. There's physical stuff which can't think and

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Speaker 1: have an experience, and then there's non physical stuff. Consciousness

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Speaker 1: is non material. It's non physical. And you know this

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Speaker 1: isn't talking about a soul necessarily, but this is like Descartes,

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Speaker 1: you know, the spirit and the body, these things are separate,

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Speaker 1: and you know, it just says that it does not

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Speaker 1: have to follow the same rules. And that's why you

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Speaker 1: can't explain it using physical theories because it's not a

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Speaker 1: physical thing.

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Speaker 2: Okay. Does this make pronouncements upon like do octopus have consciousness?

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Speaker 2: Or can you ask questions like that?

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Speaker 1: Under this theory you can ask questions like that, and

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Speaker 1: under variant of this theory occupy do have consciousness because

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Speaker 1: they can have this non physical stuff to them which

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Speaker 1: attributes them consciousness.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, okay, cool, all right, what else do we have?

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Speaker 1: And then my favorite kind of crazy theory is called

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Speaker 1: pan psychism, and this says everything is conscious. Electrons have

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Speaker 1: a little bit of consciousness, and two electrons have a

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Speaker 1: little bit more, and ten of the twenty nine electrons

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Speaker 1: have quite a bit, and all the stuff that makes

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Speaker 1: you up together makes your complicated consciousness. So the whole

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Speaker 1: universe is aware. And this is kind of cool because

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Speaker 1: it doesn't draw a dotted line between us and the universe.

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Speaker 1: It says, you know, we are the part of the

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Speaker 1: universe that is maybe most aware because we have these

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Speaker 1: complicated things going on inside of us. There's arrangements of

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Speaker 1: the stuff we're made out of. It makes us more aware.

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Speaker 1: But we're all aware and that's kind of cool, I guess.

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Speaker 1: But it's also pretty out there to say that electrons

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Speaker 1: have a first person experience, that there's something it's like

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Speaker 1: to be an electron.

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Speaker 2: So it's not just how much mass or how many

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Speaker 2: particles you are made of. It's also about the arrangement

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Speaker 2: those particles, and somehow humans are at the best arrangement

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Speaker 2: of particles for consciousness. Is that right?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So then Penrose comes in and Penrose is

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Speaker 1: deeply influenced by Girdle's theorem. Girdle is a mathematician about

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Speaker 1: one hundred years ago, and he was around when David

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Speaker 1: Hilbert was trying to find the axioms of mathematics, like

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Speaker 1: what are the fundamental underlying rules of all of mathematics

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Speaker 1: from which you can derive any bit of math? Which

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Speaker 1: was a cool program, but then Godel showed that it

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Speaker 1: is actually impossible. Godele's famous theorem, the incompleteness theorem says

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Speaker 1: that there's no consistent set of axioms that are capable

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Speaker 1: of proving all true things about arithmetic.

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Speaker 2: For example, What a downer this guy is.

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Speaker 1: I know, it's kind of mind boggling, but it means

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Speaker 1: that you can have like a system of math with

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Speaker 1: a consistent set of axioms. But there are things that

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Speaker 1: are true that you can't prove. Okay, right, facts that

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Speaker 1: are true that there's just no algorithmic way to show

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Speaker 1: that they are true. So there's like no procedure you

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Speaker 1: can find.

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Speaker 2: But you can be sure that they're true.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't prove it, but they exist.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 1: One example of this is the halting problem. So like,

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Speaker 1: can you given an arbitrary computer with a program and

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Speaker 1: an input, can you tell whether that program will run

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Speaker 1: forever like spinning beach ball of death or it will

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Speaker 1: ever stop? Because computers can get stuck in loops. Right,

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Speaker 1: And so it turns out this is a non computable problem, like,

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Speaker 1: not only can we not solve it, it's not solvable

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Speaker 1: in principle. Okay, so Penrose said, that's pretty cool. Godal

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Speaker 1: is showing that there are things that we can't understand,

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Speaker 1: but we can understand Godle's theorem.

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Speaker 4: Hmm.

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Speaker 2: Okay, all right, So.

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Speaker 1: We can understand this theorem about how some things can't

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Speaker 1: be proven. That means that our understanding is non computable. Right,

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Speaker 1: Some things are non computable, like the halting problem, But

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Speaker 1: our understanding of the halting problem means that our understanding

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Speaker 1: the process we use to understand things can handle non computability.

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Speaker 1: Because we can understand noncomputability, this is sort of meta. Therefore,

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Speaker 1: consciousness itself is non computable, non simulatable.

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Speaker 2: So isn't wouldn't our understanding of Girdle's theorem be computable

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Speaker 2: because we understand his theorem.

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Speaker 1: We understand his theorem, but it's a theorem about noncomputability, right,

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Speaker 1: And so you're right, and like scholars on Goodle are

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Speaker 1: like deeply unimpressed with this leap of logic. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: you're right to be skeptical because in principle Godle's theorem

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Speaker 1: itself can be proven right, and it exists in a

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Speaker 1: larger set of axioms, and so understanding it doesn't mean

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Speaker 1: that our brains have to be non computable in some way.

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Speaker 1: But this is Pedrose's argument, and he says, therefore, our

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Speaker 1: minds are rooted in non computable physical law. There's some

439
00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 1: part of physical law that's non computable, and our minds

440
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:06,640
Speaker 1: are using that non computable element of it to work

441
00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:11,320
Speaker 1: because we can understand noncomputability. Therefore our minds must be

442
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:14,240
Speaker 1: non computable. And I agree with you that that step

443
00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:17,720
Speaker 1: is suspect, But that's his argument. So now he's thinking

444
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 1: about consciousness, and he's looking for something in the universe

445
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:26,120
Speaker 1: which is non computable, which is physical, which he can

446
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:29,000
Speaker 1: then use to establish as a basis for consciousness.

447
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:34,000
Speaker 2: Okay, So pretend you were explaining this to someone and

448
00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:36,120
Speaker 2: you were going to skip Gotle's theorem and you were

449
00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:38,160
Speaker 2: just going to say, here is a piece of information

450
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:41,479
Speaker 2: you need to know. How would you explain that? Like,

451
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:44,320
Speaker 2: I think I'm getting tripped up on the non computable thing,

452
00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 2: just like, give me a sentence that bottom lines. Penrose

453
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:48,880
Speaker 2: believes that our brains are.

454
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:52,880
Speaker 1: Penrose believes that our brains operate on some principles which

455
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 1: can't be computed. That there's no algorithm to go from

456
00:24:56,720 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 1: what you're feeling and thinking now to what you're feeling

457
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,639
Speaker 1: and thinking in a second. Okay, that there's no computer

458
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:04,320
Speaker 1: program you could write to predict it because it relies

459
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:07,480
Speaker 1: on some physical process which is non computable.

460
00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:09,679
Speaker 2: Okay. Does that relate to any of the theories that

461
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 2: we were just talking about.

462
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:13,679
Speaker 1: No, No, it's very different from any of these theories.

463
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:17,760
Speaker 1: It's its own personal theory of consciousness. But it does

464
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 1: connect to his theories of the foundation of quantum mechanics,

465
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about after the break.

466
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:46,439
Speaker 2: All right, So Penrose has decided that our brain is

467
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 2: not like a computer. Yeah, and now we are talking

468
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 2: about the next step of this complicated process. Daniel, where

469
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:56,200
Speaker 2: are we going next?

470
00:25:56,480 --> 00:25:59,240
Speaker 1: So Penrose says, our brains are not like a computer.

471
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:03,160
Speaker 1: Look out in the universe to find some physical thing

472
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,680
Speaker 1: which seems like not a computer, and maybe we can

473
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:09,240
Speaker 1: use that as the basis of our theory of consciousness.

474
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 1: All right. So his target here is quantum mechanics, because

475
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:18,640
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics is very weird, and computers are like deterministic, right,

476
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 1: they operate under basic rules of algebra and logic, and

477
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:24,439
Speaker 1: so you can always predict what they're going to do,

478
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,640
Speaker 1: whereas quantum mechanics is fuzzier and weirder and we don't

479
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:31,119
Speaker 1: quite understand it and how one thing gets chosen. And

480
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:33,880
Speaker 1: so it sounds like maybe a promising area to find

481
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:37,240
Speaker 1: some non computable physical law that you could use as

482
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: your basis of consciousness. All right. So let's remind ourselves

483
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 1: what is the other really hard philosophical problem out there

484
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:47,359
Speaker 1: right now, not just consciousness. Put that in a box.

485
00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:50,639
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, the

486
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:55,119
Speaker 1: other major thing that everybody else struggles with. And this

487
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 1: is a question of how the universe decides what we

488
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 1: see when we measure or quantum object. Because remember The

489
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:04,440
Speaker 1: cool thing about quantum objects is they can be in

490
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 1: a superposition. You have an electron, you put it through

491
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 1: a machine, it can either go left or right before

492
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:14,640
Speaker 1: you measure it. It's in a superposition of left and right.

493
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:16,639
Speaker 1: It's not that it's gone left and you don't know it,

494
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:18,760
Speaker 1: or that it's gone right and you don't know it,

495
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 1: or even that it's somehow done both right. You see

496
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:24,040
Speaker 1: that in popular science all the time. Instead, it's in

497
00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 1: a superposition of both of those states. And that's something

498
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:29,680
Speaker 1: that quantum objects can do. They can have a superposition.

499
00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 1: They cannot be settled into one particular outcome. But then

500
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 1: when we measure something, we put a detector to say

501
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:39,040
Speaker 1: did it go left or did it go right? Then

502
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 1: the universe picks one. The superposition collapses into either left

503
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 1: or either right. Okay. And how this happens and why

504
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:51,439
Speaker 1: it happens is the question of quantum measurement, because this

505
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 1: seems to happen when we measure quantum object with a

506
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 1: classical detector, Like I have a big detector in my

507
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: lab and it's made of big physical things, and you

508
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 1: know I'm moveing around. It's a size and scale of me.

509
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 1: It's not the kind of thing that can be in superposition.

510
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 1: I can't be in a superposition. You can't be in

511
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:10,840
Speaker 1: a superposition. It makes a definitive measurement a left or

512
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:13,199
Speaker 1: a right. It doesn't come back and say lefty and

513
00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 1: right y at the same time. Right. It measures left

514
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:19,280
Speaker 1: or right. And when a classical object like that measures

515
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: the quantum object, the quantum object collapses into either left

516
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: or right. Superposition is gone. The super weird bit is

517
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 1: that that doesn't happen if we interact our quantum object

518
00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 1: with another quantum object, like say I shoot in another electron,

519
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 1: and I can entangle them together, and now they can

520
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:38,400
Speaker 1: be like one is left and one is right, and

521
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 1: or one is right and one is left. They can

522
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 1: maintain their superpositions even though they interact. But when they

523
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: interact with the classical detector, boom collapse happens. And that's

524
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 1: super weird because what's the classical detector made out of?

525
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 1: Well quantum objects, So why does interacting with the classical

526
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 1: detector have to collapse the superposition? When you interact with

527
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 1: the first first quantum object, that's the very tip of

528
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 1: the detector, that should just be like interacting with another

529
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 1: quantum object, you should stay in a superposition and then

530
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 1: in the next particle, and then the next particle. At

531
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 1: what point is your classical object, which is made of

532
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 1: quantum objects, no longer capable of being in a superposition?

533
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,840
Speaker 1: Why does that happen? That's the measurement problem in quantum mechanics.

534
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 1: How and when and why you go from superposition to collapse.

535
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 2: That was a really good explanation. I don't think you've

536
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 2: given that particular explanation on the show before, and excellent.

537
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 2: So what's the best answer we have for that, Daniel?

538
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 1: We have a bunch of weird answers. The most common

539
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: answer is nonsensical. This is the Copenhagen theory, and it says, look,

540
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: there's two kinds of things in the universe, this quantum stuff,

541
00:29:42,840 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 1: which can mean superposition, and this classical stuff, which cannot

542
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 1: be in superposition. And then you ask, well, what's the

543
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 1: difference between classical and quantum stuff? And they say, I

544
00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 1: don't know. They say, well, where's the line between quantum

545
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 1: and classical stuff? And they say undefined. So it's not

546
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:00,760
Speaker 1: really an answer, right. It just says, let's just say

547
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 1: that there is classical stuff and there is quantum stuff.

548
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 1: So it's one of these like answers only by definition

549
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 1: that doesn't really satisfy anybody.

550
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 2: It's just like throwing their hands up in the air

551
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 2: and being like, oh, I don't know, I quit yeah.

552
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:15,239
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's weird because it's, on one hand, the

553
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 1: most common explanation and the one you see in like

554
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 1: quantum textbooks and in popular science, but in philosophy of physics,

555
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:23,840
Speaker 1: people like it's incoherent. It's not even a theory, like

556
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 1: it doesn't even explain it, it doesn't even try. But

557
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 1: you know, it allows you to move forward and like

558
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: calculate stuff without worrying about it. So if you don't

559
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:33,800
Speaker 1: really care about the answer, you can just sort of

560
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 1: accept that and move on.

561
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 2: It does sound impressive, The Copenhagen interpretation does sound It

562
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:40,960
Speaker 2: sounds impressive.

563
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:44,200
Speaker 1: Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen.

564
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 2: Yes. But then the good news is, now that you've

565
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:49,040
Speaker 2: listened to this podcast, the next time someone says the

566
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 2: Copenhagen interpretation, you can go the Copenhagen interpretation, and now

567
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 2: you get to sound snotty.

568
00:30:56,800 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 1: So another famous interpretation is the Many World's interpretation, and

569
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 1: this says there is no collapse. What happens is that

570
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 1: the universe branches. There's a version where the universe goes

571
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 1: left and a version when the universe goes right. We

572
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:10,520
Speaker 1: happen to be in one of them and not the

573
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 1: other one. But there is no real collapse. And this

574
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 1: is a beautiful theory because collapse is weird, like collapse

575
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 1: doesn't exist in the equations of quantum mechanics. The equations

576
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 1: suggest everything just keeps evolving and maintaining the wave function,

577
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 1: and so this is in some sense the most natural

578
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 1: interpretation of quantum mechanics. Sean Carroll is a big advocate

579
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:35,120
Speaker 1: for this and talks about it very eloquently. He was

580
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 1: on our podcast to talk about that. It was a

581
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,920
Speaker 1: lot of fun and essentially in that scenario, you become

582
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 1: part of the system, like you make our measurement. Now

583
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:45,960
Speaker 1: you are in one branch or the wave function. The

584
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 1: superposition still exists, the electron can still be left or right,

585
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 1: but you are in the right branch, which is why

586
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 1: you're measuring right, and there's another version of you in

587
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 1: the left branch, and that version of you is measuring

588
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 1: the left. This is often misunderstood is like the whole

589
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: universe is duplicated, like we make a copy and create

590
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 1: more electrons, but instead just think of it as like

591
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 1: the superposition of possibilities just keeps flowing man right, and

592
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 1: now you're part of the system instead of looking at

593
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:14,600
Speaker 1: it from the outside.

594
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:17,959
Speaker 2: So, but how does that answer the question about like

595
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 2: you're this big classical object that's making the measurement, and

596
00:32:22,520 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 2: as you're moving from one electron to another in the

597
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 2: classical object, how do you go from being an electron

598
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:30,640
Speaker 2: to being a classical object?

599
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 1: Like there are no classical objects. Everything is quantum whoa,

600
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 1: And every time you interact you become entangled with the system.

601
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 2: That is a lot for my brain to handle.

602
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:46,719
Speaker 1: Okay, Another really fun idea is called Bomian mechanics, and

603
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 1: this says, forget all this random stuff. Quantum mechanics is

604
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 1: not actually random. It's deterministic. It's controlled by some global

605
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:59,200
Speaker 1: pilot wave. And this has an end run around Bell's experiments,

606
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:02,200
Speaker 1: which if you member proved that there's no local hidden

607
00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 1: variables controlling quantum mechanics, that truly is random. By saying

608
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 1: oh there's no local hidden variables, there can be global

609
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 1: hidden variables and that's the pilot wave. It's this like

610
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 1: weird thing that sits on top of the universe and

611
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 1: decides where particles go, and so there's no randomness at all.

612
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 1: It's just all determined by this pilot wave that we

613
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:24,440
Speaker 1: can't see or measure that's deciding and it makes it

614
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 1: look like it's random, but it really isn't.

615
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 2: Is there any way to test this.

616
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:31,280
Speaker 1: There's no way to test these two theories. They make

617
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:35,960
Speaker 1: exactly the same predictions for all experiments, so they're just interpretations.

618
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 1: They're just ways of saying what's happening behind the scenes invisibly,

619
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:42,960
Speaker 1: and because it's the invisible part we're talking about, and

620
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 1: that's the only place they differ, we can't come up

621
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:48,479
Speaker 1: with experiments to differentiate between these two. Okay, But the

622
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 1: crucial thing for our conversation about Penrose is that in

623
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:55,320
Speaker 1: the Copenhagen interpretation, where you have this like weird moment

624
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 1: where we go from superposition to collapse, that collapse is

625
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 1: what interested Penro right, because it sounds on the surface

626
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 1: of it like, hmm, maybe this is something that can

627
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 1: help us establish consciousness because it's something weird that's happening here.

628
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:13,879
Speaker 1: But the hurdle immediately is that collapse in the Copenhagen

629
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:18,479
Speaker 1: theory is random, okay, but it's computable in the sense

630
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:21,600
Speaker 1: that you can't tell exactly what's gonna happen, but you

631
00:34:21,640 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 1: can predict the probabilities. And so Penrose is looking for

632
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 1: something that's not random and not computable, so he can't

633
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:33,560
Speaker 1: use this Copenhagen collapse theory. So he comes up with

634
00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:37,840
Speaker 1: his own theory of the measurement problem, his own theory

635
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 1: of collapse. It's called objective reduction. He comes up with

636
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 1: a theory that has a collapse of the wave function,

637
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:48,399
Speaker 1: but the collapse is not random, but it is non computable.

638
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:51,319
Speaker 1: So he's come up with his own theory, not Copenhagen,

639
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: not many Worlds, not Bowman, his own explanation for collapse

640
00:34:55,880 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 1: that provides a not random, non computable mechan for the collapse,

641
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:02,880
Speaker 1: which is what he's going to need later for his

642
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 1: theory of consciousness.

643
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:08,560
Speaker 2: Does this do a better job of explaining quantum mechanics

644
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:12,400
Speaker 2: or is this just like motivated by a desire to

645
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:16,320
Speaker 2: explain consciousness and so he's creating a whole new world.

646
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 1: It sort of does a better job in that it's

647
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:22,799
Speaker 1: more ambitious. Not only is he going to try to

648
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:27,279
Speaker 1: solve the measurement problem, huge outstanding puzzle in philosophy, in

649
00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:30,200
Speaker 1: order to set him up to solve the question of consciousness,

650
00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:33,880
Speaker 1: another huge outstanding puzzle in philosophy. He's going to do

651
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 1: it by trying to simultaneously solve the quantum gravity puzzle. Wow,

652
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: which physicists have been banging their head against the wall

653
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:44,640
Speaker 1: for for one hundred years. Right, He's like, oh, maybe

654
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:47,239
Speaker 1: I can go for a home run here, Let's go

655
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 1: for the trifecta a hat trick. Yes exactly.

656
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 2: I think that's you get three things in a row

657
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:53,360
Speaker 2: with the hat trick. That's what we want.

658
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, well he's going to go for four in a minute.

659
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:59,840
Speaker 2: Oh okay, let's take a break and we'll let Penrose

660
00:35:59,880 --> 00:36:02,040
Speaker 2: do his hat trick, and then he can do his

661
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 2: hat trick plus one, because I don't know enough about

662
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:10,360
Speaker 2: sports to know what happens when you get four points

663
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:29,439
Speaker 2: and we're back, and so let's go ahead and talk

664
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:34,880
Speaker 2: about how Penrose solves the quantum mechanics problem in a

665
00:36:35,080 --> 00:36:38,239
Speaker 2: non computable way. Did I say the science words in

666
00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 2: the right order? There?

667
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:43,840
Speaker 1: You totally dead, Yes, you science stick correctly. So we

668
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:46,640
Speaker 1: have this problem in physics, which is that we have

669
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 1: two wonderful theories. We have quantum mechanics, which explains particles

670
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:53,800
Speaker 1: and randomness and has been tested like ten decimal places

671
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:57,520
Speaker 1: and is totally correct, and it's amazing and beautiful. And

672
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:00,200
Speaker 1: we also have gravity, and we have a theory of

673
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: general relativity, which tells us a story about space and time,

674
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 1: and it's been tested to ten decimal places and is

675
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: totally correct, and that's wonderful, except that the two theories

676
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:13,359
Speaker 1: are fundamentally at odds with each other, and we do

677
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 1: not know how to bring them together. And most of

678
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:19,400
Speaker 1: the time that's not a problem because things are either gravitational,

679
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:21,719
Speaker 1: like the way the Earth moves around the Sun or

680
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 1: the way black holes form, or they're quantum mechanical, like

681
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:28,040
Speaker 1: the way electrons interact in a system, or what happens

682
00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:30,839
Speaker 1: when you smash protons at the large Hadron collider. You

683
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:33,720
Speaker 1: can ignore one, and you can choose one and ignore

684
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:36,520
Speaker 1: the other. But there are sometimes in the universe when

685
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 1: both are at play, like what's it the heart of

686
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:41,279
Speaker 1: a black hole? Or what was it like in the

687
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:45,000
Speaker 1: early universe. In those regimes, we don't know how to operate.

688
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 1: We can't make predictions for example, before the earliest moment

689
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 1: in the universe, because we don't have a theory of

690
00:37:50,560 --> 00:37:53,320
Speaker 1: quantum gravity, and we can't tell you what's inside a

691
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:55,840
Speaker 1: black hole because we don't know how to do gravity

692
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 1: for tiny particles. Okay, so major stumbling block for particle

693
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 1: physics and for cosmology. And one of the issues is

694
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 1: that when you try to do gravity for particles, you

695
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 1: get stuck, and you get stuck like this. Well, if

696
00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:14,400
Speaker 1: particles can have probabilities of being in different locations, like

697
00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:17,800
Speaker 1: is the electron left or is the electron right, then

698
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:22,839
Speaker 1: that location determines where space is curved right. Then that

699
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:26,040
Speaker 1: means that like space can have different curvatures. So if

700
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:28,160
Speaker 1: the electron could be left and could be right, it

701
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: means that space could be bent over here or it

702
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:33,879
Speaker 1: could be bent over there. And so now you have

703
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 1: like this weird thing where the curvature of space isn't

704
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 1: known because you don't know where the masses are. The

705
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:40,800
Speaker 1: masses only have a probability of being in certain places.

706
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:44,799
Speaker 1: So either you have like the probability of different curvatures

707
00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:48,520
Speaker 1: or space has probabilities built into it, And so nobody

708
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:49,840
Speaker 1: knows how to tackle that problem.

709
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:52,120
Speaker 2: I'm so glad biology has everything figured out.

710
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 1: So Penrose says, all right, well, what have each of

711
00:38:56,239 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 1: those superpositions, those different possible arrangements of men which caused

712
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:05,200
Speaker 1: their own different space time curvatures. What are those different possibilities?

713
00:39:05,520 --> 00:39:09,439
Speaker 1: That's what causes the collapse. So think of like one

714
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 1: arrangement of particles having one set of curvature, and another

715
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:17,080
Speaker 1: possible arrangement of the same state, right, quantum mechanical superposition

716
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:20,880
Speaker 1: having a different arrangement. And if those two arrangements of

717
00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:25,200
Speaker 1: space time, which cause different curvatures, get different enough, then

718
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:29,839
Speaker 1: something becomes unstable in the universe and collapses. Okay, So

719
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:34,719
Speaker 1: when the gravitational difference between two quantum branches exceed some threshold,

720
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:39,640
Speaker 1: then the wave function collapses from superposition into one option.

721
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 2: So now instead of just talking about electrons, we're talking

722
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 2: about groups of particles.

723
00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:48,720
Speaker 1: It could also just be one electron, because in principle

724
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 1: electron has mass and it should curve space time, okay,

725
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:53,759
Speaker 1: And the question is does it curve space time over

726
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:57,400
Speaker 1: here or over there? And Penrose is saying if the

727
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 1: difference between those two things gets big enough enough particles

728
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:05,000
Speaker 1: in there, then it collapses and there's a threshold there,

729
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: and it doesn't rely on observation or on interaction, but

730
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:12,239
Speaker 1: the bigger the tension between the two gravitational possibilities, and

731
00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:16,160
Speaker 1: whenever it gets above some threshold, it collapses. And so

732
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 1: this is his theory called objective reduction. So we're not

733
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 1: yet a consciousness. This is just Penrose's theory of why

734
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:25,879
Speaker 1: things collapse. And along the way he's going to try

735
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 1: to reconcile quantum mechanics and gravity. So he's saying that

736
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:33,000
Speaker 1: it's this tension between the different gravitational results of two

737
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:36,520
Speaker 1: elements of the superposition that causes them to collapse down

738
00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:36,879
Speaker 1: to one.

739
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:40,479
Speaker 2: So then what does Penrose's idea do with the fact

740
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 2: that we know that when you observe something, you get

741
00:40:43,520 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 2: a collapse.

742
00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:47,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Penrose is saying, well, when you observe with

743
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:49,759
Speaker 1: a quantum object, you're adding a bunch of stuff to

744
00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:52,239
Speaker 1: the system that goes above the threshold because now you

745
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:55,760
Speaker 1: have like enough gravity in there to get above the threshold.

746
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 1: Your big classical detector, which has you know, a big

747
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 1: piece of material on it, has so much gravity in

748
00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:03,960
Speaker 1: it that it can't be in two states at once

749
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:07,320
Speaker 1: without those two things collapsing. So that's why classical things

750
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:11,320
Speaker 1: can't be in a superposition because they exceed this threshold,

751
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 1: which is very very small. It's like plank scale threshold.

752
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:16,759
Speaker 1: And so only really tiny stuff can be in a

753
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:21,480
Speaker 1: superposition because bigger stuff exceeds this threshold. And this is

754
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 1: a cool idea. Nobody's proven it. Nobody knows whether this

755
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:27,359
Speaker 1: is true. We can't test it at all. And like

756
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:30,200
Speaker 1: many theories in quantum gravity, we can't test them because

757
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:32,480
Speaker 1: we can't probe this stuff. We can't go inside a

758
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:35,840
Speaker 1: black hole, we can't visit the early universe. For Penrose,

759
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: the cool thing about this is now, the collapse is

760
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:44,440
Speaker 1: not random, but it's also not algorithmic, okay, it's non computable.

761
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 1: It's determined by something he calls, you know, the platonic

762
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:50,759
Speaker 1: truth of the universe, and so you know why it

763
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:54,040
Speaker 1: goes into left or right, why collapses into one or

764
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 1: the others? Not random, but it's non computable, okay. And

765
00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:00,440
Speaker 1: so he's tried to solve this measurement problem along the

766
00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 1: way come up with a proposal for quantum gravity unification.

767
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:08,360
Speaker 1: And what he ended up with is a explanation for

768
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics and the measurement problem, which says that the

769
00:42:11,480 --> 00:42:16,399
Speaker 1: collapse is not random but also non computable, and that's

770
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 1: what he thinks consciousness is, right, and so he thinks

771
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:25,400
Speaker 1: that maybe this kind of experience, having these micro states

772
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:30,480
Speaker 1: collapse using his objective reduction theory is a fundamental building

773
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:33,520
Speaker 1: block of consciousness because remember he was looking for something

774
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:36,600
Speaker 1: in the physical universe which is not random but also

775
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:39,680
Speaker 1: non computable. And you know that's not enough. It's not

776
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 1: like saying, hey, consciousness has these two characteristics, and this

777
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:46,840
Speaker 1: thing I just came up with also has those two characteristics.

778
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:50,160
Speaker 1: Therefore they're the same thing. Like not everything that's big

779
00:42:50,200 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 1: and red is a fire truck. Right, Having two things

780
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:55,839
Speaker 1: in common doesn't mean that they're identical, but it's sort

781
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 1: of a hint in the right direction.

782
00:42:57,840 --> 00:43:01,840
Speaker 2: Okay, right, because right now that would say that rocks

783
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:05,240
Speaker 2: have consciousness because they have these features, right.

784
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:08,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And so now we come to the biological

785
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 1: side of this. There's a guy, an nisc theologist named

786
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 1: Stuart Hammeroff, and he's been thinking about anesthetics and consciousness,

787
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:20,959
Speaker 1: as aniseciologists will do, and he read about Penrose's theory

788
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:23,880
Speaker 1: of objective reduction, and he went to chat with Penrose,

789
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:26,759
Speaker 1: and he said, I have an idea for where this

790
00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:30,520
Speaker 1: quantum stuff is happening. And so there's these things inside

791
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:36,000
Speaker 1: neurons that are protein scaffolds. They're called microtubules, and they're

792
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 1: really tiny little things. They're like fifty micrometers long, they're

793
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:43,719
Speaker 1: really thin, they're like twenty five nanometers thin, and you

794
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 1: know they're involved in like maintaining the structure of the

795
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:50,160
Speaker 1: cell and they form a cytoskeleton. And so these things

796
00:43:50,200 --> 00:43:53,319
Speaker 1: are inside your neurons and they're really really small, and

797
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:57,759
Speaker 1: he thought maybe these things support quantum superpositions, like they

798
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:01,480
Speaker 1: can be in two different states, like you know this

799
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:05,120
Speaker 1: twist or that twist, and because they're so small, they

800
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:09,319
Speaker 1: can be in a superposition of different states. And he

801
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:15,280
Speaker 1: has this idea that anesthetics work by binding two microtubules

802
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 1: to turn off your consciousness. He thinks microtubules are quantum

803
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:22,520
Speaker 1: objects in that you know they can be in this

804
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:26,880
Speaker 1: superposition and that their collapse is where the moment of

805
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 1: consciousness comes from. That when these quantum tubules become unstable

806
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:35,919
Speaker 1: and they collapse in this non random, non computable way,

807
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 1: that's the moment of consciousness. So Hammer Off and Penrose

808
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: came together to make this theory called orchestrated objective reduction theory.

809
00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:49,320
Speaker 1: So member Penrose came up with objective reduction, which explains

810
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 1: how things collapse quantum mechanically. This orchestrated objective reduction theory says, Okay,

811
00:44:55,719 --> 00:45:00,440
Speaker 1: it's microtubules in your neurons that are collapsing, and the

812
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:04,520
Speaker 1: neural processes in those neurons orchestrate the build up of

813
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 1: these superpositions which then become unstable and they collapse, and

814
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 1: every time they collapse, that's a little bit of the

815
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 1: conscious experience. And so this orchestration is like the physical

816
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 1: basis for intentional control. It's not like, you know, you

817
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:22,879
Speaker 1: are outside the universe and you're determining it in some

818
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:25,840
Speaker 1: spiritual way. But they can like affect the way that

819
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:29,880
Speaker 1: the collapse happens and in that way impact the decisions

820
00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:34,920
Speaker 1: you're making. So hammer Off, the anesthesiologist helps by proposing

821
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,719
Speaker 1: like exactly where this quantum process might be happening in

822
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:42,120
Speaker 1: the brain, which is non computable and non random in

823
00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:43,720
Speaker 1: the way that Penrose wanted.

824
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:46,359
Speaker 2: All right, so first, I think I'm constrained by the

825
00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:49,320
Speaker 2: metaphor that I always use when I think about microtubules,

826
00:45:49,360 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 2: which is, I think of them as like the studs

827
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:55,000
Speaker 2: and joists of like yourselves. You know, they give your

828
00:45:55,160 --> 00:45:58,480
Speaker 2: it the structure. So this idea that they're like in

829
00:45:58,520 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 2: a superposition is foreign to me. So the idea is

830
00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:08,800
Speaker 2: that they're like twisted and they untwist. Is that that's true,

831
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:09,919
Speaker 2: question mark.

832
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:13,719
Speaker 1: It's about the confirmational states. I don't think it has

833
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:17,560
Speaker 1: to be twists necessarily, okay, But these things are not firm, right,

834
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:20,440
Speaker 1: They can wiggle a little bit, okay, and so you know,

835
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:22,960
Speaker 1: they have a possibility to wiggle this way, wiggle that way,

836
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 1: or stretch this way or stretch that way. Here, we're

837
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 1: definitely at the very edge of my biological knowledge.

838
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:30,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I'm not a microtubule person unfortunately.

839
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:32,719
Speaker 1: And so and these are also not the things that

840
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:36,920
Speaker 1: give Jedis the force in Star Wars, right, those are

841
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:37,880
Speaker 1: the Midi Chlorians.

842
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:40,919
Speaker 2: Oh, I wasn't seeing where you were going there. Thank

843
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:43,600
Speaker 2: you for walking me the rest of the way. Okay.

844
00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:47,360
Speaker 2: So you get consciousness in like little drips and drops

845
00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:51,440
Speaker 2: every time these superpositions collapse.

846
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:55,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, that's the idea. And so you know, we've

847
00:46:55,600 --> 00:46:59,560
Speaker 1: tried to explain consciousness by saying, it's the collapse of

848
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 1: this dates of these microtubules in your brain, which is

849
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:09,720
Speaker 1: non computable yet not random, and happen when this superpositions

850
00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 1: get big enough that they go above this quantum gravity

851
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:17,960
Speaker 1: threshold that Penrose has postulated. That's a big idea. So

852
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:20,840
Speaker 1: these microtubules are basically in these quantum states, and the

853
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:24,720
Speaker 1: collapse of those states is your experience. There's a lot

854
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:27,400
Speaker 1: of like big leaps here that is just sort of

855
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:30,000
Speaker 1: dot dot dotting over. Even if this is all true,

856
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:33,600
Speaker 1: and microtubules are in quantum super positions and that collapse

857
00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:37,120
Speaker 1: is non computable and non random, I don't see how

858
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:40,200
Speaker 1: that connects to consciousness. Like we thought that link was

859
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:43,920
Speaker 1: kind of weak earlier saying that we can understand the

860
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:48,239
Speaker 1: theory of noncomputability, therefore our thinking itself is non computable.

861
00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:50,799
Speaker 1: That seems kind of weak. And even if you accept that,

862
00:47:51,160 --> 00:47:53,760
Speaker 1: just because our thinking is non computable and there's something

863
00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:58,359
Speaker 1: non computable happening inside our brains doesn't mean again that

864
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 1: it's the fire truck. Right, There's no clear thing connecting

865
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:05,640
Speaker 1: one to the other. But you know, Hameroff's argument is

866
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:09,560
Speaker 1: these things are connected to consciousness, because anesthetics bind to

867
00:48:09,600 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 1: these things to turn off your consciousness. Right, So there's

868
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:16,120
Speaker 1: our fourth element of the hat trick. We're also going

869
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:17,759
Speaker 1: to explain the mystery of anesthetics.

870
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:21,200
Speaker 2: But when we did the episode on general anesthetics and

871
00:48:21,239 --> 00:48:24,839
Speaker 2: I was interviewing an anesthesiologist, she said that when you

872
00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:29,240
Speaker 2: inject noble gases, which don't react to anything, into people,

873
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 2: you get a similar effect to knock people out, and

874
00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 2: they're probably not binding to the microtubules, right, And so

875
00:48:37,719 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 2: we don't understand what's happening with anesthetics at that level.

876
00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:44,000
Speaker 2: I thought, Yeah.

877
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:46,239
Speaker 1: So we've tried to present the best case we can

878
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:49,359
Speaker 1: for this. Now it's time to you know, hook at

879
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:52,200
Speaker 1: some of its weaknesses. Hey, we've handed at a few

880
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:53,960
Speaker 1: of those already, and the point you made is a

881
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:58,160
Speaker 1: great one. But more broadly, people think that microtubules are

882
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:01,440
Speaker 1: anyway just too noisy to make any sort of coherent

883
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:05,640
Speaker 1: quantum superpositions, Like they're big. You know, these things are

884
00:49:05,640 --> 00:49:10,680
Speaker 1: not individual particles. They are micrometers long. And Max tech

885
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:14,360
Speaker 1: Mark's response to this theory is, quote, the brain is

886
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:17,520
Speaker 1: about as quantum coherent as a cup of warm, wet oatmeal,

887
00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:21,600
Speaker 1: Like the idea that these things could maintain a superposition,

888
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:24,840
Speaker 1: which requires being isolated from the rest of the environment

889
00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:27,360
Speaker 1: in order to maintain that superposition until the moment you

890
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:30,919
Speaker 1: want to collapse. Right, seems hard to do because they're

891
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:33,960
Speaker 1: already big and connected with each other, and so to

892
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 1: have them individually collapsing, they need to be isolated so

893
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 1: they can maintain that superposition, and that seems pretty tough.

894
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:43,359
Speaker 1: The big concern here, though, is that this is a

895
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:46,200
Speaker 1: lot of speculation, and you know, a lot of it

896
00:49:46,239 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 1: could be right, but most of it can't really be tested.

897
00:49:49,719 --> 00:49:52,120
Speaker 1: Like we can't test the theory of quantum gravity, we

898
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:56,560
Speaker 1: can't test quantum mechanical interpretations, we can't test these questions

899
00:49:56,560 --> 00:50:00,160
Speaker 1: about consciousness. It's also beyond our ability to probe. So

900
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:02,640
Speaker 1: it's sort of like saying, hey, these four things that

901
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:06,719
Speaker 1: we can't really ever test. What if there's one coherent explanation? Yeah, man,

902
00:50:06,800 --> 00:50:09,880
Speaker 1: past the banana peels. That sounds cool, but what are

903
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:10,680
Speaker 1: we gonna do with that?

904
00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:11,080
Speaker 3: Right?

905
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:14,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, that doesn't mean it's not a good exercise, you know,

906
00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:16,800
Speaker 2: to think about and ponder and use to like generate

907
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:18,200
Speaker 2: new novel ideas and stuff.

908
00:50:18,239 --> 00:50:21,800
Speaker 1: But absolutely, Yeah, so I did talk to my friend

909
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 1: who's a neuroscientist. She does research on fruit flies and

910
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:27,960
Speaker 1: stuff like this, and I asked her, like, do you

911
00:50:28,040 --> 00:50:33,040
Speaker 1: think neurons are random or deterministic? Like if you feed

912
00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:35,600
Speaker 1: a neuron the same input twice, are you going to

913
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:38,120
Speaker 1: get the same answer or does it depend on the

914
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:40,440
Speaker 1: quantum nature of the things that neurons made out of?

915
00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:44,160
Speaker 1: And she was like, neurons are totally deterministic, Like there's

916
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:47,040
Speaker 1: noise reduction stuff that's happening in there. You tweak a

917
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:49,320
Speaker 1: neuron the same way twice, you're gonna get the same answer.

918
00:50:49,640 --> 00:50:52,080
Speaker 1: And you know, she latches onto neurons in the lab

919
00:50:52,120 --> 00:50:54,200
Speaker 1: and does this, so she knows a lot about neurons.

920
00:50:54,640 --> 00:50:58,080
Speaker 1: So already it seems hard to build consciousness out of

921
00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:03,520
Speaker 1: neurons if those neurons already have the quantumness averaged out,

922
00:51:03,640 --> 00:51:06,880
Speaker 1: the neurons essentially already being classical, they're like the baseball's

923
00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:10,480
Speaker 1: more than they're like electrons. I mean, I guess Penrod's

924
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:13,719
Speaker 1: argument is that this goes deeper than neurons, but I'm

925
00:51:13,760 --> 00:51:15,839
Speaker 1: skeptical of that as well. But you know, these are

926
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:19,399
Speaker 1: not hard criticisms because there isn't really anything you can

927
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:22,560
Speaker 1: concretely attack in this theory. Because there are no experiments

928
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:24,840
Speaker 1: that you can do. You can just argue about the

929
00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:26,200
Speaker 1: ideas well.

930
00:51:26,320 --> 00:51:29,520
Speaker 2: I think that we have all earned ourselves some self

931
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:32,360
Speaker 2: care this evening. So get in a bubble bath with

932
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:35,120
Speaker 2: a bath bomb. Go have a bottle of whisk not

933
00:51:35,160 --> 00:51:37,280
Speaker 2: a bottle of whiskey. I mean a glass of whiskey,

934
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:41,279
Speaker 2: not the whole bottle. Make good choices, friends. This was

935
00:51:41,920 --> 00:51:43,640
Speaker 2: There was a lot going on in this episode, but

936
00:51:43,680 --> 00:51:45,680
Speaker 2: we learned a lot and you got us through it, Daniel,

937
00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:47,200
Speaker 2: in a really gentle way.

938
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:50,000
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's send this back to Scott and

939
00:51:50,120 --> 00:51:53,280
Speaker 1: see if his bubble bath and his glass of whiskey

940
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:55,640
Speaker 1: have put him in a place where he goes ouch

941
00:51:55,880 --> 00:51:59,040
Speaker 1: or mmm, I get it now. Thank you very much

942
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:01,240
Speaker 1: for sending in your question, Scott. Let's hear what Scott

943
00:52:01,360 --> 00:52:02,000
Speaker 1: has to say.

944
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:05,719
Speaker 4: Hello, Daniel and Kelly, thanks so much for responding to

945
00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:10,240
Speaker 4: my question about Penrose and Hammeroff's orchestrated objective reduction theory

946
00:52:10,239 --> 00:52:14,399
Speaker 4: of consciousness. Kelly well captured my experience when she said

947
00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:16,960
Speaker 4: that was a lot for my brain, which is fairly

948
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:20,320
Speaker 4: typical when I listen to you guys, not exactly ouch,

949
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:23,600
Speaker 4: but not totally I get it now either. But whether

950
00:52:23,719 --> 00:52:27,040
Speaker 4: or not my consciousness arises from the collapse of quantum

951
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:30,640
Speaker 4: superpositions in the microtubules and the neurons in my brain,

952
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:35,600
Speaker 4: it does love being challenged and stretched and exploring new ideas,

953
00:52:35,760 --> 00:52:38,000
Speaker 4: which I think is actually a form of self care.

954
00:52:38,840 --> 00:52:41,720
Speaker 4: I feel like I have at least some new understandings

955
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:45,680
Speaker 4: of theories of quantum superposition and theories of consciousness, as

956
00:52:45,719 --> 00:52:49,680
Speaker 4: well as the challenge of testing those theories. I appreciate

957
00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:52,440
Speaker 4: them putting forward this idea to expand our thinking around

958
00:52:52,480 --> 00:52:56,000
Speaker 4: the hard question, and I also appreciate the skepticism that

959
00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:59,560
Speaker 4: Daniel brings to the idea. So thanks again for answering

960
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:02,680
Speaker 4: my question, or at least trying your very best to

961
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:02,960
Speaker 4: do that.

962
00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:08,080
Speaker 2: Mallow Well, Daniel's explanations today made me go hmmm, not

963
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:11,799
Speaker 2: ouch today, So thank you for that great explanation of

964
00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:13,360
Speaker 2: a super interesting.

965
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:15,360
Speaker 1: Theory, all right, and thank you very much E Briddy

966
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:17,600
Speaker 1: for being curious about the universe and for wanting to

967
00:53:17,719 --> 00:53:21,440
Speaker 1: understand these ideas on the cutting edge. Please please share

968
00:53:21,480 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 1: your curiosity with us, send us your questions and lend

969
00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:26,120
Speaker 1: us your ears.

970
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:28,520
Speaker 2: And if you're enjoying the show, feel free to leave

971
00:53:28,600 --> 00:53:38,440
Speaker 2: us a review on your favorite podcasting app. Daniel and

972
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:42,479
Speaker 2: Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio. We would love

973
00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:44,440
Speaker 2: to hear from you, We really would.

974
00:53:44,600 --> 00:53:47,359
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975
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 1: Extraordinary Universe.

976
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:52,239
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977
00:53:52,239 --> 00:53:55,239
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978
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:55,680
Speaker 2: back to you.

979
00:53:55,960 --> 00:53:59,440
Speaker 1: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

980
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:02,719
Speaker 1: at quests Kinds at Danielankelly.

981
00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:03,839
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982
00:54:03,960 --> 00:54:07,759
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983
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:09,799
Speaker 2: all of those platforms. You can find us at D

984
00:54:10,239 --> 00:54:11,800
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985
00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:13,480
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