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I’m not going to try to argue that consciousness arises from some mysterious quantum activity within the atoms that make up the brain’s neurons. As a scientist, I know better. As a cognitive scientist, I know that, although it is not fully understood how consciousness arises from neural activity, consciousness does indeed arise from that neural activity. No neural activity, no consciousness—simple as that. Also, from what little I know of physics, quantum phenomena are limited to subatomic particles (though atoms can sometimes act like quantum particles), so there’s no way that neurons, which are composed of cells, which are composed of molecules, which are composed of atoms, could behave quantumly. No. Neurons must obey the laws of classical mechanics, not quantum mechanics.

Also, as Matthew Francis, with warrant and good reason, exhorts in this post, it is often a grievous error to apply quantum models to other mysterious phenomena, noting that, when this is done, the person has either misunderstood quantum mechanics or the other phenomenon of interest. However, his exhortation is against those who argue that quantum mechanics is what underlies these other mysterious phenomena. It was never my intention to argue such a case for consciousness. As I said above, cognitive science tells us that’s not how consciousness works. So rather than argue that quantum processes give rise to consciousness, I will argue that quantum mechanics makes for an effective and compelling analogy for explaining how consciousness works. That is, perhaps thought functions not unlike a quantum particle and consciousness arises from brain function as a not wholly predictable process, similar to how quantum phenomena arise rather unpredictably from quantum particles.

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