🚀 go-pugleaf

Richard S. Norman wrote in message ...
|On 7 Jan 2003 15:58:32 -0800, ukcomplaint@lycos.com (UKComplaint)
|wrote:
|
|>Physicist Henry Margenau (quoted by Sir John Eccles) states that
the
|>components of the brain 'are small enough to be governed by
|>probabilistic quantum laws' and are 'always poised for a multitude
of
|>possible changes, each with a definite probability'.
|>
|>Is Margenau's view (that actions in the brain might be subject to
|>quantum effects) generally accepted withnin science?
|>
|>N.B. The blurb for the forthcoming Quantum Mind 2003 Conference on
|>Consciousness, Quantum Physics and the Brain to be hosted by the
|>University of Arizona states "recent experimental evidence suggests
|>quantum nonlocality occurring in conscious and subconscious brain
|>function, and functional quantum processes in molecular biology are
|>becoming more and more apparent."
|
|Physicists do like to theorize quantum events as being responsible
for
|mysterious neural events.  Certainly quantum theory is necessary to
|understand chemical bonding, electron excitation, etc.  However,
|membrane proteins are rather massive objects and the energy of
binding
|of ligand to receptor or to the movement of a single ion across the
|membrane are rather large compared with quantal fluctuations.
|
|Planck's constant is 7 x 10 ^^-34 J s.  That corresponds to
|about 10^^-13 kcal sec/mol (compare with reactions measured
|in kcal/mol) or to 4 x 10^^-15 eV s (compare with one ion moving
|across the membrane at 0.1 eV).  Of course you have to account for
|event duration or frequency to make the units comparable, but still
|most neural activity really does occur at the macroscopic, classical
|level.
|
|There is no need to search for quantal activity to understand what
we
|really do observe in the brain.  Yes, there are still a lot of
things
|we don't understand about brain activity, but most neurobiologists
|seem to think that this does not seem to be a fruitful direction to
|look, Penrose and microtubules notwithstanding.

I agree with you Dr. Norman.

While developing Tapered Harmony, I realized 'qm' is so in such a
tortuously-twisted interpretation of experimental results - that I,
came to view what underpins its existence as a deliberate effort to
obfuscate physical reality - 'qm' 'had to be' established as an
effort to 'prevent' the proliferation of so-called 'nuclear' weapons.
'qm' makes no sense in any other way, and I've come to view efforts
to apply 'qm' to Neuroscience in the same way. It's so far from Truth
that it can only become 'rationalized' as an effort to prevent folks
from comprehending nervous system function [on the parts of folks
who're 'afraid' of folks in general comprehending nervous system
function.

It's hard for me to attribute intelligence to 'qm' in any other way,
and I'm thoroughly-determined to not allow applications of 'qm' in
Neuroscience to gain any credibility - Humanity is 'finished' if
so-called 'uncertainty' and the rest of 'quantum weirdness' ever gain
a toehold in Neuroscience.

I've asked to be allowed to address folks in AZ, but have never heard
back.

But I've [last fall] finally closed all doors to 'qm', and have begun
taking it to the community Physicists.

[If anyone 'wonders', it's why I'm so 'pissed-off' these days. Just
when I thought my travails because of NDT were winding down - that
I'd endured all of the hard stuff there was to endure - I realized I
had to hurry-up and go through the same stuff on behalf of Tapered
Harmony - and I've not yet been able to find any 'gracefulness'
within myself with respect to such - I =HATE= having to do it, yet
again, especially since I'd dared to think that there might be some
small hope of giving myself over to Love. [Please forgive this [and
all my other 'asides'] if I don't let the aching out I won't be able
to do what I have to do.]

ken [k. p. collins]