Brain Processing

[Glaran K'erman]

Does our brain interpret information using quantum processes?

[DuoDex]

No. It uses complex biochemical pathways generally known as a "neural network", made up of a very large number of neurons which are interconnected.

Though I suppose that those neurons, on a very basic level, do use quantum processes to function. As the current scientific and medical understanding of the brain is, however, those neurons function like a silicon processor, with no quantum mechanics improving their response times or whatnot.

[Gaarst]

(I'm not a neuroscientist so don't take what I say for granted)

The brain doesn't use quantum processes to interpret informations, but there are some research hypotheses that suggest similarities between the structure and workings of the brain, and some quantum phenomenons.
I don't have an article to link right now, so I can't be more precise about this, but still, it exists.

[DuoDex]

2 minutes ago, Gaarst said:

(I'm not a neuroscientist so don't take what I say for granted)

The brain doesn't use quantum processes to interpret informations, but there are some research hypotheses that suggest similarities between the structure and workings of the brain, and some quantum phenomenons.
I don't have an article to link right now, so I can't be more precise about this, but still, it exists.

I'd love to see that article, this is a field of particular interest to me

[Glaran K'erman]

9 minutes ago, Gaarst said:

(I'm not a neuroscientist so don't take what I say for granted)

The brain doesn't use quantum processes to interpret informations, but there are some research hypotheses that suggest similarities between the structure and workings of the brain, and some quantum phenomenons.
I don't have an article to link right now, so I can't be more precise about this, but still, it exists.

Ok yea this was what I was getting at. Many of the amazing things the brain does have been well explained by what @DuoDex mentioned in the first reply. However, many processes of the brain are not well understood, but when described, sound so much to me like quantum phenomena.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Glaran K'erman

[Bill Phil]

If electron transportation is quantum.

The brain is very strange compared to your average computer. It uses a varying mixture of chemicals that have varying actions, unlike transistors witch are very basically an electronically (rather than physically) activated switch.

[DuoDex]

5 minutes ago, Glaran K'erman said:

Ok yea this was what I was getting at. Many of the amazing things the brain does have been well explained by what @DuoDex mentioned in the first reply. However, many processes of the brain are not well understood, but when described, sound so much to me like quantum phenomena.

Please explain such processes that are not well understood.

[Gaarst]

16 minutes ago, DuoDex said:

I'd love to see that article, this is a field of particular interest to me

No particular article, but a whole field of research called Quantum Cognition (forgive me for the Wikipedia link, but I don't feel like learning quantum mechanics and neurosciences at 2am to find an article ).

[Glaran K'erman]

4 minutes ago, DuoDex said:

Please explain such processes that are not well understood.

Ummm how about a lot? Pretty common knowledge we know only so much of how the brain truly functions. How do the trillions of intriciate connections all interplay and work together to help us be....well human. Much of what we know about how we process our senses, memory, and language (to name some common things) are well understood and documented. But the bigger picture of how the brain has developed and how things work together are not. Are there any specific areas of the brain that work together seamlessly and in-sync? At the most base level I see evidence for at least the coincidental existence of quantum entanglement in these processes.  

[PB666]

The action potential works by depolarization, once the threshold voltage is surpased, the ptoential is carried down the axon/myliean sheath to the next set of recptors, once the trigeer is released we are not taling about quantum effects, but the laws of mass action acting in mass. 

There is always a threshold point were one more atom can cause an effect, but most responses require a plurality of neurons, so those effects are modulated. 

When we talk about any process or pathway there is also the evolutionary aspect, the mutation process itself is a quantum activity, particularly when we talk about radiation driven mutations. Meiotic cell division and recombination are quantum like. A male for instance adds either his male or female parent chromosome (marked by centromer) but the ends have undergone random recombination with the alternative parents chromosome. The semen contains essentially all possible combinations of the two parents alleles the son(the male) , but only one, the one that fertilizes the egg, matters.  IOW the male parents contribution can only be known when they intgrate into   the ncleus of the fertlized egg, until that point the contribution could be any of billions of possible contribution.

The difference from any generic quantum system and Heisenberg derived quantum mechanics is QM systems that derive unpredictable behaviors from very small particles is that the wavelenghts are large enough that we can see an intrinsic variation that is pecisely predictable. IOW we can precisely predict the variation, but we cannot predict the outcome of single particles. If during the process of generating photons from a higly predictable energy source you make positions less predictable and make the frequency highly predictable and vice versa, you can't do this with macropic systems. 

 

 

 

[Yourself]

On 12/15/2015, 8:34:41, Glaran K'erman said:

Pretty common knowledge we know only so much of how the brain truly functions. How do the trillions of intriciate connections all interplay and work together to help us be....well human.

"Common knowledge" is not really the first place I'd look if I wanted to find out the current state of the art in neuroscience.  Actually, "common knowledge" is about the last place I'd look for any kind of scientific information.  

And, as far as I understand it, the low-level physics of individual neurons or small groups of a handful of neurons is pretty well understood and doesn't invoke any sort of quantum weirdness in its explanation.  The stuff we don't understand is how exactly the individual neuron behaviors add up into actual behaviors.  And all of that mystery seems to be well above the scale where quantum effects would be at all important for its operation.

I'm always drawn to the comparison of an actual computer.  You may use quantum effects to explain the operation of individual transistors or other semiconductors within the computer, but the quantum effects in the end don't have any impact on the actual operation of the machine.  They're just a means to an end to make a really tiny switch.

 

On 12/15/2015, 8:34:41, Glaran K'erman said:

At the most base level I see evidence for at least the coincidental existence of quantum entanglement in these processes.  

What would entanglement explain in the human brain?

[YNM]

No, AFAICT I don't see any link between QM and brain (and if there's any, that'd be the overall output). The human brain is very resilient at jobs requiring predictions and classification ; computer "brain" is highly resilient at jobs requiring a huge amount of computation. So while you certainly won't know what's the square root of pi quickly to the 14th decimal, you'll be able to say that it'll be below 2, not that far from 1.5 . Or, if you saw a hole in the ground, burnt grass around the rim, and some weird smell, you could infer that some explosion have struck the ground - a task fairly hard for any computer, even if we "taught" them (write a rudimentary application) they won't have a conclusion that fast.

[lajoswinkler]

There is zero evidence to support those quantum things you're talking about. Of course, everything in its basis works using quantum processes because every basic matter we encounter is corporeal due to its electron clouds.

But on the higher level, no. Neural networks work using ionic currents. Those are not digital processes. There are no ones and zeros in the brain. Stuff works analogue and has lots of interconnected feedback loops, some of which use faster transmissions, and some use slow, molecular signals such as secreting hormones.

Basic brain functioning is very well known. We also know (somewhat worse) the blackbox model of the human behaviour. It's the whole picture, the synthesis, with its bridges between the levels, that we understand poorly.

[Glaran K'erman]

Honestly appreciate the answers, I did some more reading and based on what you guys said and you are completely right. The more you know!

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

There is zero evidence to support those quantum things you're talking about. Of course, everything in its basis works using quantum processes because every basic matter we encounter is corporeal due to its electron clouds.

But on the higher level, no. Neural networks work using ionic currents. Those are not digital processes. There are no ones and zeros in the brain. Stuff works analogue and has lots of interconnected feedback loops, some of which use faster transmissions, and some use slow, molecular signals such as secreting hormones.

Basic brain functioning is very well known. We also know (somewhat worse) the blackbox model of the human behaviour. It's the whole picture, the synthesis, with its bridges between the levels, that we understand poorly.

Yes, note that analogue "computers" are far faster than digital ones for many tasks. They was common for many tasks but has mostly been replaced by digital ones as they are more accurate and easier to configure.