Talk:Quantum mind

Some responses to earlier critiques:

I recently found these observations that Quantum Mind theorists have made that may perhaps be put into the article: http://listserv.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0701&L=quantum-mind&P=59

In addition one quantum mind theorist responded to a criticism by Shermer which also highlights that this theory has gone into the testing phase: http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/hackery.htm (just scroll down to the second article)

David Pearce

Why is the David Pearce material included here. As far as I can tell it qualifies as WP:FRINGE. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:10, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

May I just briefly defend my sanity? Anyone who understands decoherence (which you do!) will recognise why a quantum-theoretic explanation of phenomenal binding is far-fetched. The CNS is too hot! But the problem is science has no idea how phenomenal binding could be _classically_ explicable either - which doesn't leave us with many (physicalist) options: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem

Given textbook neuroscience, why aren't we just (at most) what philosopher Phil Goff christened "micro-experiential zombies" - mere patterns of Jamesian "mind dust"? Only someone who groks the neuroscientific mystery of binding will be willing to explore highly implausible quantum-theoretic solutions to an otherwise intractable problem. Note that what makes a "Schrödinger's neurons" proposal fringe isn't new physics - assuming the unitary Schrödinger dynamics, such superpositions of neuronal feature-processors _must_ exist - but rather, the idea such fleeting sub-femtosecond superpositions could have any conceivable relevance to our phenomenally-bound minds. And maybe common sense is correct! But one man's reductio ad absurdum is another man's experimentally falsifiable prediction. I'm simply curious what tomorrow's interferometry will tell us. Davidcpearce (talk) 07:33, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. To be clear, I don't think the decoherence-related material I deleted was incorrect. (I personally believe the idea of naive quantum interference playing any role in neurobiology is silly.) However, the content was only backed by primary references with few citations, and thus not material suitable for Wikipedia. Johnjbarton (talk) 00:59, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

More lunacy, you'll feel, but IMO the eminence of some of the authors means that a "no-collapse" sub-section of quantum mind theories is warranted:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38920469/

("Here, we present a novel proposal: Conscious experience arises whenever a quantum mechanical superposition forms.") Davidcpearce (talk) 13:57, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Dubious citations.

This primary ref has 20 citations, 6 by the authors themselves. This puts it in WP:FRINGE in my opinion:

• Basil J. Hiley, Paavo Pylkkänen: Naturalizing the mind in a quantum framework. In Paavo Pylkkänen and Tere Vadén (eds.): Dimensions of conscious experience, Advances in Consciousness Research, Volume 37, John Benjamins B.V., 2001, Template:ISBN, pages 119–144

This ref seems to be an unreviewed blog post that summarizes Bohm book

Bohm's book itself is according to the publisher "inspired by mysticism" Johnjbarton (talk) 01:47, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Unverified claim about falsified gap junctions.

Our content:

• The proposed existence of gap junctions between neurons and glial cells was also falsified.

Cites:

But the abstract of that source ends with:

• Template:Tq

This contradicts the claim rather than verifies it. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:35, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

Phantom publication?

The article cites

• van den Noort, Maurits; Lim, Sabina; Bosch, Peggy (2016-10-28). "Towards a theory of everything: The observer's unconscious brain". Nature. 538 (7623): 36–37. Bibcode:2016Natur.538...36D. doi:10.1038/538036a.

However the DOI link points to a different article. Google Scholar only has a "Citation" for the article. The Nature site fails to return an article with that title. A search on the Nature site for the authors names also fail.

The author's own article https://www.oaepublish.com/articles/2347-8659.2016.55 cites a publication in Nature with the given title with a link http://www.nature.com/nature/report/index.html?comment=8881&doi=10.1038/53803a. I believe it is an online comment on a book review:

• Dawid, R. Theoretical physics: The emperor's new physics. Nature 538, 36–37 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/538036a

Consequently I will delete the content and the ref as self-publish by a non-expert in the topic. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:53, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

Proposal: Add Simion (2025) EEG-based consciousness model

I’d like to propose adding a recently published theoretical framework that introduces a measurable, brainwave-based quantum consciousness operator to the list of experimental or mathematical models under the “Quantum mind” article. Simion, N. (2025). The Unified Quantum Consciousness Framework: A Revised Model Integrating Quantum Mechanics, Consciousness, and Holographic Gravity. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15660117 This model proposes a consciousness operator Ĉₙ(t), grounded in EEG and MEG signals and formulated via the Lindblad equation for decoherence, connecting quantum information, entropy, and brain dynamics. It is mathematically formalized and openly accessible. It may be relevant under the "Experimental and theoretical models" section, alongside Orch-OR and related proposals. Thank you for considering this addition. Nicu Simion (talk) 15:52, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia is generally written based on secondary sources from major publishers. There isn't really anything we can do with a self published preprint off of Zenodo. Can you provide some secondary sources with authors independent of yourself? MrOllie (talk) 16:01, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

I just want to second the nicely framed comment by MrOllie. More details on Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:30, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Yup. Wikipedia isn't a provider of free publicity for random papers uploaded to open repositories. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:34, 14 June 2025 (UTC)