These articles present ideas about consciousness being derived from microtubules in neurons which act as sites of quantum processing, but I am hesitant to believe these theories even if other phenomenon, like bird navigation and photosynthesis, have been connected to other quantum explanations. Supposedly, the quantum information can return to the universe at a person’s death, but also return to the body once it has been resuscitated explaining NDEs. The idea is that this quantum information can exist outside of the body, perhaps indefinitely, as a soul which I think is an odd way of conceptualizing the soul. I think this demonstrates some of the same concerns we have discussed in class involving how to define something like the soul and consciousness.
I am not really familiar with quantum physics and so that does keep me from completely understanding the theories presented. There are some things that occur at the quantum level which do not follow the same rules of understanding we have for our everyday world, and a soul is something that is not readily observed. I think to some extent it is just trying to equate two things that are hard to understand and explain in terms of what we normally observe in everyday life.
I don’t understand why things like the soul cannot be discussed and accepted as something separate and outside of science. There is a certain preoccupation with justifying beliefs using accepted venues and vocabulary where science is seen as the greatest authority and justification. However, I think sometimes that by trying to prove something through science it can alter the meaning or essence of a concept especially for something like the soul.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/can-science-explain-the-s_b_675107.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/28/soul-after-death-hameroff-penrose_n_2034711.html
If certain views are incompatible with the current taxonomical model that most people take as a given, then I agree with the idea that you touched upon at the end of your response: “by trying to prove something through science it can alter the meaning or essence of a concept especially for something like the soul”. We see this in other historical instances as well; when anthropology’s goal was to differentiate between the “civilized” and the “savage”, “objective” scientific measures were taken to distinguish and construct racial categories, effectively using scientific racism as a reliable explanation for why some societies were more advanced, intelligent, and capable than others. I’d like to disclose this next statement by saying that the effects of using categories such as “culture” do not have nearly the same magnitude/amount of perceivable negative effect as what was bred of scientific racist claims, but it seems that the idea of “culture” is perhaps the updated and more nuanced explanation for societal norm illiteracy (in that we attribute certain faux pas or “lacking” values to differences in culture). In this sense, I think that this postulation of consciousness and the soul as a quantum process falls right in line with the reinventing of concepts’ essences that humanity has often participated in. We are always trying to get at some “pure” essence using the method that has been thought to be most fruitful in uncovering truths, even when no such truths may really exist.
I found the comparison of this mechanistic theory to the vitalistic ideas of ancient Vedic traditions fascinating. Clearly, these ideas of life and consciousness being explained by quantum physics are not new ones. The fact that such scientifically based findings came to much of the same conclusion that seers in India had centuries ago made me question how else philosophers and religious groups may have sought to understand this phenomenon through vitalistic explanations. Although I know almost nothing about quantum physics, the idea of infinitesimally small particles of essence and consciousness that disperse into the universe during sickness and death has striking similarities to the Traditional Chinese Medicine theory of Qi. Could the ancient Chinese philosophers have been discussing the same “life energy” that scientists are now calling “quantum information?” Although the TCM explanation of Qi lacks the mention of the pool consciousness that is present in both the quantum soul theory and Vedic beliefs, the idea that these energies or particles come together to create life and consciousness in humans is the same.
Although I find this theory fascinating, I feel that if anything, this explanation is more describing consciousness as a whole rather than individual souls. Like Linh, I find the question of what draws these unique bits of quantum consciousness together to form a specific soul troubling. To me, it seems that explaining this requires some crossover from the strictly mechanistic frame of quantum physics to something more vitalistic in nature.
This possible mechanistic explanation for the traditionally vitalistic concept of a soul is fascinating, and personally makes me wonder what the difference between the “mind” and the “soul” is, if there is one. Professor’s Brochstein’s example of people’s minds not being present in the current time and place makes it easier to conceptualize the idea of an out of body experience and easier to comprehend a higher, more encompassing plane of consciousness.
Following the quantum explanations provided by Jamie’s articles, I believe that these quantum mechanics, once refined, could serve as an official explanation for near-death and out-of-body experiences; by leaving the body, the mind in the form of these quantum particles can extend its reaches beyond the proximity of the body.
But as far as explaining the existence of a soul, I am more doubtful. The idea of a soul usually implies a unique, independent entity. But, for the sake of argument, when these quantum bits of information leave and never return to the body, where do they go? Out into the universe, with the quantum bits of all those who have gone on before us, to be diluted like a grain of salt in an ocean? Where is the uniqueness in that? If these quantum bits do define the soul, what force draws them together and make them differentiate into each individual person, as opposed to any other living thing?
I believe these quantum particles serve better as a mechanistic process to leave the body than an explanation for the existence of a soul.