Re: The central evolution problem
Materialists can no longer say the idea of quantum consciousness is pseudoscientific woo. It is more scientific than materialism, because there is evidence for it.
Whether or not quantum effects influence thought is a valid topic for scientific investigation, but simply stating "quantum effects cause consciousness" explains nothing unless scientists can come up with some suggestion about how quantum effects could possibly cause consciousness. The argument goes:
I don't understand consciousness.
I don't understand quantum physics.
Therefore, consciousness must be a function of quantum physics!
It's god of the gaps with "quantum" as the all-purpose gap filler.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quantum_consciousness
A new myth is burrowing its way into modern thinking. The notion is spreading that the principles embodied in quantum mechanics imply a central role for the human mind in determining the very nature of the universe. Not surprisingly, this idea can be found in New Age periodicals and in many books on the metaphysical shelves of book stores. But it also can appear where you least expect it, even on the pages of that bastion of rational thinking, The Humanist.
The myth of quantum consciousness sits well with many whose egos have made it impossible for them to accept the insignificant place science perceives for humanity, as modern instruments probe the farthest reaches of space and time. It was bad enough when Copernicus said that we were not at the center of the universe. It was worse when Darwin announced that we were not angels. But it became intolerable when astronomers declared that the earth is but one of a hundred billion trillion other planets, and when geologists demonstrated that recorded history is but a blink of time -- a microsecond of the second of earth's existence.
In a land where self-gratification has reached heights never dreamed of in ancient Rome, where self-esteem is more important than being able to read, and where self-help requires no more effort than putting on a cassette, the myth of quantum consciousness is just what the shrink ordered.
https://www.metabunk.org/the-myth-of-quantum-consciousness.t2937/
This sort of "quantum physics explains consciousness" stuff has a long history, and most of it is gibberish. In particular, there tends to be a good deal of circularity in most arguments invoking von Neumann. The "testable predictions" line is new, though, so I decided to download the paper and take a look.
https://scienceblogs.com/principles/2007/10/26/quantum-consciousness-and-the
even with the conservative value of a time uncertainty of 10 milliseconds, Heisenberg’s equation gives an energy uncertainty of approximately 5.2 x 10^-30 J, which is about 200,000 times too small to disrupt even a single Van der Waals interaction, the weakest kind of chemical bond.
In other words, even if the soul were only aiming to influence a calcium channel for 10 milliseconds, the bare minimum it would need to, it wouldn’t have nearly enough quantum ‘wiggle room’ to make a difference (the longer the time, the less room.)
Some have argued that even tiny quantum nudges could nonetheless control brain activity, because of the butterfly effect: a small change might lead, indirectly, to a big one, in the complex system of the brain.
However, Clarke squashes this idea too. He says that the brain is actually very good at not being influenced by tiny changes. It has to be, because thermal noise – the random movement of atoms, due to temperature – is constantly throwing up tiny changes, and this noise would drown out any plausible Heisenberg-based effects:
Quantum Theory Won't Save The Soul - Neuroskeptic
