Implications of the brain as a quantum computer?

[alternative3]

First off, please bear in mind that I'm simply a sci fi writer trying to wrap my head around all of this. I probably have a very limited and fictional view of what quantum mechanics really means. I've tried to wrap my head around David Bohm but it's just not happening.

 

I'm trying to design a fictional way for the brain to act as an active quantum computer - rather than a passive one. Passive, for me, meaning that the brain functions as a quantum computer simply to process and store information. Versus an active computer, meaning the brain can interface, encode and manipulate the quantum universe. If an active quantum computing brain can manipulate the quantum universe, what are the implications?

 

Feel free to poke a billion holes in this and/or my rudimentary understanding of what a quantum mind really would be. That would be very helpful actually. But remember I will probably glaze over if you get ludicrously esoteric.

 

Thanks!

 

(be nice! :hihi: )

[Buffy]

Okay, well I've got a piece of paper that says I'm a Computer Scientist, but I'm still trying to grok what distinction you see between an "active computer" and a "passive computer" (let's leave "quantum" out of it for now).

 

You use the word "process" as part of what a "passive computer" does, but that's all that's required in order to "interface, encode and manipulate."

 

Its probably not so much the "quantum" part that is the problem here, but its in figuring out what you actually want the concept of "computer" to do to move your storyline along.

 

Support the Writer's Guild of America! :hihi:

Buffy

[Eclogite]

I think (in a quantum sort of a way;)) that alternative3 is making a distinction between internal processing (passive) and external control (active). (S)he wishes to have the brain manipulate the external enviroment without any intervening agencies - looking for a rational explanation for telekinesis, for example. That's my take on it.

 

Sorry, alt3 I can't offer anything that might help.:hihi:

[alternative3]

In my own rudimentary thought process, I distinguish active and passive as having the ability to control the quantum mind to interface, encode, and manipulate our environment versus ... whatever we do now, if quantum mechanics apply to brain function.

 

It's a comic book. Basically I want to come up with a scenario that allows my characters to be able to actively manipulate a localized pocket of space-time. By manipulate, I specifically mean that characters will be able to speed up that pocket of space-time, which includes themselves, so that they will be faster than anyone else outside that pocket. That may present a ton of time paradox scenarios which I haven't even considered yet. I just want to see if there's any kind of theoretical way for a quantum brain to be able to interface with the universe first of all.

 

I can go the way of ad hoc (after all, I mean, nobody has much of a problem with superman ...) but that's no fun :hihi:. I work for a company that contracts to DARPA and I know they are in love with Spintronics. I just can't wrap my head around their equation heavy material.

[alternative3]

Its probably not so much the "quantum" part that is the problem here, but its in figuring out what you actually want the concept of "computer" to do to move your storyline along.

 

Support the Writer's Guild of America! :xx:

Buffy

 

I'm pretty sure I've got what I want the computer to be able to do. I just sent off a pitch to Shadowline Comics' Superheroine Contest with a huge outline of the story.

 

Everything right now is pretty ad hoc. I made up a drug called PneuSpeed that somehow allows its users to speed up a localized pocket of spacetime around them. And then I started wondering how the heck something like that could possibly work outside of some unexplainable pseudo science blech (there, I rhymed for you). I came across this idea by David Bohm that the brain is actually a quantum computer. However, skeptics have calculated that the brain is not an ideal environment for the brain to function as a quantum computer ... blah blah.

 

I still don't even know what all of it means, really. I'm trying to read up on a ton of literature out there but I'm not sure if what I'm interpreting/deciphering from these Quantum Mind theories is going to gel with my story or not.

 

So I came here. I've been here in the past and you all rock.

[Buffy]

... I distinguish active and passive as having the ability to control the quantum mind to interface, encode, and manipulate our environment versus ... whatever we do now, if quantum mechanics apply to brain function.

Although you'll get into massive painful debates with the Determinists, quantum effects do bubble up in all matter including the brain, the main interesting implication of that being that it introduces randomness into the functions describing complex models.

 

I think you can make use of this, and it applies to "passive" brains.

 

But this concept is about "randomness" which is somewhat of an antonym of "control."

... I want to come up with a scenario that allows my characters to be able to actively manipulate a localized pocket of space-time. ... I just want to see if there's any kind of theoretical way for a quantum brain to be able to interface with the universe first of all.

Another aspect of "quantum" is what Einstein derisively referred to as "spooky action at a distance" due to the quantum entanglement of particles that are moved away from each other. This if one were able to control the quantum state of parts of your brain, it could be used to affect a "localized pocket of space-time." Right now, causing the initial entanglement has to be done with the particles initially in close proximity, but you may be able to find a way around it! ;)

 

This is definitely fertile ground, and on one of the pages linked above, there's an interesting article from IBM Research on "Quantum Teleportation"...

 

Sounds like you're having fun! :)

 

Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it, :xx:

Buffy

[HydrogenBond]

One has to separate the conscious part of the brain from the unconscious part of the brain. The conscious part of the brain only has to think command lines and the body gets up and walks. The real data crunching to make this all possible occurs via the unconscious brain. So if these active or quantum things are occurring, the data crunching would likely occur in the main CPU of the unconscious part of the brain.

 

The question becomes can the conscious terminal think a command line and expect the core CPU to create the logistics for this to occur? In other words, like walking, manipulating space-time would need unconscious support to do all the data crunching to make this complex affect possible. A good analogy is one needing to run a complex program on their PC, but the PC lacks the computer power to make it possible at a reasonable rate. So one needs to reserve computer time on the mainframe, which is already running many other things. One may be able to run the program periodically, but not always. Other programs would demand their own time making it sporadic. If you look at Superman, if really tones down his unconscious support as mild mannered Clark Kent. When the other programs catch up with there needed core time, he is ready for another round of unconscious support.

[snoopy]

I came across this idea by David Bohm that the brain is actually a quantum computer. However, skeptics have calculated that the brain is not an ideal environment for the brain to function as a quantum computer ... blah blah.

 

I still don't even know what all of it means, really. I'm trying to read up on a ton of literature out there but I'm not sure if what I'm interpreting/deciphering from these Quantum Mind theories is going to gel with my story or not.

 

So I came here. I've been here in the past and you all rock.

 

A quantum computer in theory works simulataneously with other quantum computers in parallel universes.

 

This is supposed to work via quantum interference whereby all the quantum computers share the workload of the program and pass qubits of information to each other, The result is then shared out simultaneously to all the other quantum computers.

 

This results in as you can imagine a very fast super computer.

 

Even a small QC running with only a few qubits of processing power would be able to do computations that standard supercomputers can only dream about doing.

 

David Bohms idea about the brain being a quantum computer along with Roger Penrose and many others is interesting and allows for the processing power needed to create conscious thought.

 

No one knows where concious thought comes from and is somewhat of a mystery, the brain has been electronically mapped for some time now and we are no nearer to understanding how it produces concious thought.

 

Arguments against the brain as a quantum computer run as follows

 

How does the brain produce quantum interference ?

Which area of the brain is responsible for producing quantum interference.

 

The above is a pretty simplistic synopsis on quantum computers its actually a lot more complicated but none of this really ties into your story on pneuspeed

 

Hope this helps.

 

Peace

:)

[freeztar]

I think Buffy hit the mark with quantum entanglement.

 

Instead of the hero bending space around him/her to move fast, why not just have quantum entanglement transport the hero. To outside observers, the hero would teleport.

 

The problem with all this is it's a sub-atomic phenomenon rather than a macro-sized one. But hey...this is sci-fi afterall. :)

[CraigD]

For some non-fictional speculation about peculiar quantum mechanical effects in brain tissue, I recommend a quick, index-guided read of parts of Roger Penrose’s 1989 “The Emperor’s New Mind”, after which You’ll likely find it hard to resist a slow cover-to-cover read. Regardless of one’s agreement of disagreement with sir Roger’s speculations, I think you’ll have to conclude that he’s an interesting, articulate, very bright fellow.

 

Though even Penrose and folk interested in his quantum brain ideas tend to confess having only a vague idea of the implications of their speculations, they’ve done some pretty detailed and interesting neuroanotomical studies.

I'm trying to design a fictional way for the brain to act as an active quantum computer - rather than a passive one. Passive, for me, meaning that the brain functions as a quantum computer simply to process and store information. Versus an active computer, meaning the brain can interface, encode and manipulate the quantum universe. If an active quantum computing brain can manipulate the quantum universe, what are the implications?

I’d believe what you’re calling an “passive quantum computer” is what theorists call a “quantum computer”, and what you’re calling an “active quantum computer” is what conventional theorists call “not a quantum computer”, or “ordinary matter and energy”.

 

The essence of a quantum computer is that it performs some calculation “coherently”, AKA in a “superposition of states”. A widely discussed (and written about in SF – Robert Sawyer’s 2003 Hugo winning “Hominids” and sequels have some of the clearest examples) example is the problem of finding a large prime factor P of a large composite number C, such as the kind used in RSA encryption. A quantum computer would use some truly random process to simply “guess” every possible integer P (it wouldn’t even have to assure P is prime), divide C by P, and, if the remainder is zero, “break out” of its coherent state by interacting with the external universe. To the outside observer, it would appear that the quantum computer was astronomically lucky, always guessing right in one processing cycle, because none of the huge number of incorrect guesses made in the same huge number of parallel universe ever signal success.

 

The important point is that a quantum computer, if it works (and there’s growing suspicion that they can’t be made to, at least not for useful tasks like factoring large numbers), works because it doesn’t manipulate the quantum universe outside of the absolutely isolated confines of it own physical extent. So the “active quantum computer” you describe is, by definition, the description of a failed quantum computer.

 

Though not a quantum computer in the conventional sense, quantum mechanically non-local devices such as Buffy describes have such a long history in science fiction that, although impossible by all current theory, they have a conventional name: the ansible, a name credited to Ursula K Le Guin in 1966, but best known for the plot-central they play in Orson Scot Card’s 1977 ”Ender's Game and sequils.

[Little Bang]

I think what he is look for is a way that the brain can take an active role in an event without physical contact with the event. The fact that the brain emits electromagnetic radiation (EMR) in the process of thinking could be used as the mechanism. Every event involves the absorption or emission of EMR so in theory the brain could alter an event just by thinking about it in exactly the right way.

[alternative3]

ye gods you all are too smart for me.

 

Is there any kind of literature or a Dummies Guide to quantum mechanics that you all would probably completely scoff at that would be perfect for me?

[sanctus]

For this parallel universe computations things try to search for feynman interpretation of quantum field theory. Wikipedia usually has at the beginning the intuitive parts of a theory. The basic idea is, how I understand it, that if a electron wants to go from A to B then it tries all the possible ways to do so, I really mean all! This can be proven experimentally with photons (and has been), if you have a system where you make pass photons to a semipermeable mirror (=50% go straight 50% turn by 90°) and then use normal mirrors so that they come out at the same place (imagine a square in the top corner there is the semi-permeable mirror, in the up right corner and down left there are normal mirrors and you measure int he bottom right corner). Where they come out they interfere and it is calculable what should come out. The strange thing is that if you change someting in ONE path (for example top line of of the square) all the photons coming out know of this change, that means also the 50% not passing where the change was!

[Little Bang]

Alter, the parallel universe theory fits very nicely into quantum mechanics. Lets say you are writing a SF story where the hero wants someone to have an accident and the hero sets his brain to emit the correct EMR to make the event happen. The event might not happen in his universe but it does happen in some universe.

[CraigD]

Is there any kind of literature or a Dummies Guide to quantum mechanics that you all would probably completely scoff at that would be perfect for me?

I’ve not know many SF writers who weren’t also pretty high-volume SF readers, so the “quantum mechanics for Dummies” I recommend are hard SF stories.

 

For quantum computers, Sawyer’s “Hominids” is a pretty good bit of reasonable (though likely very over-optimistic) speculation. There are so many good hard SF writers on the general subject of quantum mechanics, It’s hard to suggest a starting point, but I’ll go ahead and say nearly anything by Stephen Baxter, and for a really wild ride, Greg Egan’s 2002 “Schild's Ladder”.

 

Though I like Orson Scott Card and Ursula K Le Guin, and mentioned them previously, their SF is super-soft, more high space opera than science, so I wouldn’t recommend reading it for physics educational purposes.

[alternative3]

I’ve not know many SF writers who weren’t also pretty high-volume SF readers, so the “quantum mechanics for Dummies” I recommend are hard SF stories.

 

For quantum computers, Sawyer’s “Hominids” is a pretty good bit of reasonable (though likely very over-optimistic) speculation. There are so many good hard SF writers on the general subject of quantum mechanics, It’s hard to suggest a starting point, but I’ll go ahead and say nearly anything by Stephen Baxter, and for a really wild ride, Greg Egan’s 2002 “Schild's Ladder”.

 

Though I like Orson Scott Card and Ursula K Le Guin, and mentioned them previously, their SF is super-soft, more high space opera than science, so I wouldn’t recommend reading it for physics educational purposes.

 

Baxter and Card are two authors I love and consume rabidly. I'll go check out the other stuff too. Thanks.

 

I forgot all about the ansible in the Ender's saga. I need to reread that thing someday.