Stop. Worshipping. Consciousness!

Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch OR)

Quantum Consciousness is best exemplified by the core and arguably originating variant (due to Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff), "Orchestrated objective reduction (Orch OR)", whose pitch is that: "consciousness is based on non-computable quantum processing performed by qubits formed collectively on cellular microtubules".

This is glaring bullshit, as anyone with any knowledge of those individual terms, or even a functioning cerebrum, should be able to discern. The most striking thing about it is name-dropping jargon^[9] apparently for its own sake. The phrase barely means anything, and so it has no explanatory power even if it were true—which, as it unsurprisingly turns out, it isn't.

Orch OR is motivated by the claim, to simplify slightly^[10], that Gödel's (second) Incompleteness Theorem implies that Turing machines (read: computers) can't understand math, while humans can. This claim is flatly incorrect. Computers regularly do math that humans cannot—and not just number crunching, but also automatic theorem proving at both greater difficulty and scale than humans. Meanwhile, humans cannot prove undecidable Gödel sentences any more than a computer can (this being rather the point of a Gödel sentence)^[11]. That Penrose, mathematician and physicist, would screw up the application of Gödel's theorems so incredibly badly is mystifying and inexcusable.

—Not that provability was ever even the issue. As Minsky observed, the claim is about understanding math (or even belief or even mistaken belief in understanding math). The nature of what 'understanding' means is slipperier than 'provability', but Gödel has nothing to say about it. At any rate, in recent times, the mathematical ability of the likes of ChatGPT demonstrates that robots can understand math (at least at, say, a low-undergraduate level). You can't draw a line between computers and AI anymore that cleanly separates them into understanding math or not, and in point of fact anything that excludes all the machines is also going to exclude the overwhelming majority of humans, too.

Nevertheless, Orch OR rolled with the faulty premise, looking for a quantum mechanism. They found it in wavefunction collapse, saying that it is "non-computable", "embedded in the Planck scale of spacetime geometry. Penrose claimed that such information is Platonic, representing pure mathematical truths, which relates to Penrose's ideas concerning the three worlds: the physical, the mental, and the Platonic mathematical world."

Briefly noting in passing that Plato's metaphysical-planes-of-truth scheme is inherently non-Materialistic, and therefore against the entire philosophical goal that Quantum Consciousness was invented to achieve, the concept is flatly unworkable. (Non-)computable functions are not the same as non-provable statements, which as above were neither the issue anyway! At any rate, wavefunction collapse actually turns out to be both very computable and provable (the distribution can be calculated exactly).

At the same time, samples of this distribution appear completely random^[12], and random fuzz in your brain doesn't seem helpful to the goal of thinking clearly. Quantum mechanics can be helpful for computation / cogitation (e.g. in a quantum computer), but it requires (1) carefully engineered quantum superpositions (2) operating over exponential search spaces, (3) which seems only possible at very low temperatures. A synapse meets none of these requirements. Thus, perhaps the biggest problem with Quantum Consciousness is that it actively works against explaining thought.

Forging ahead regardless, Orch OR now looked for a biological basis. Hameroff suggested certain electrons in microtubules might be a Bose–Einstein condensate, or at least quantum-entangled. The fact that biological temperatures make those ideas obviously impossible was no deterrent. As Patricia Churchland infamously quipped in her nice 1997 paper^[14] Brainshy: Non Neural Theories of Conscious Experience (pg. 14):

Pixie dust in the synapses is about as explanatorily powerful as quantum coherence in the microtubules.

The experimental evidence, as it rolls in, unsurprisingly continues to refute Orch OR, which really highlights why we should not be exploring it anymore.

The evidence from the Neuroscience community is particularly scathing, pointing out that Orch OR got tubulin count off by 11 orders of magnitude, neurotransmitters don't work the way they say, and the gap junctions between neurons and glial cells Orch OR postulates flat out don't exist. But with each refutation, the goalposts shift. Now the Orch OR folks are on about "microtubule quantum vibration theory", which is of course more nonsensical abused jargon.

The evidence in favor of Orch OR appears, to date, to be the discovery that a certain protein is phosphorescent. It is stated that this irrefutably proves consciousness somehow.

The founders of Orch OR run a conference, which they boldly (and I hope you'll now agree hypocritically) call The Science of Consciousness. Reportedly, it got too pseudoscientific even for Chalmers, who dissociated from it.

Orch OR is pure nonsense that is trivially pointless by virtue of the objective falsehood of its own starting assumptions. I am annoyed that in spite of that, this so-called theory is taken seriously by some academics, who really should know better. I am angered at the sheer waste—that the promotion and analysis of this theory comes at the expense of real research, and generally, more intelligent discussion.

'Observers' in Quantum Mechanics

One particularly irksome conceit is the idea that 'observers' in Quantum Mechanics are either necessary or harmful to Quantum Consciousness. This is basically a gross misunderstanding of the modern concept.

There are many different interpretations of Quantum Mechanics; the most popular by far is the Copenhagen interpretation; a layperson summary^[15] is that a quantum particle (e.g. an electron) is a wavefunction, and when two particles (two wavefunctions) love each other very muchinteract, the shapes of those wavefunctions change, which is called 'wavefunction collapse'. This is a misleading term, because again, the shapes merely change; they don't magically become point objects or something (they couldn't ever be points anyway). We say that one particle 'observed' the other. It means 'interacted'.

The only^[16] interpretation where an animate observer takes a role in wavefunction collapse per-se was the Von Neumann–Wigner interpretation, which is by now discredited: Wigner himself abandoned the theory, and only 6% of quantum mechanics experts subscribe to any variation of it^[17]. Even Chalmers isn't a fan.

And why? Because in Materialism, any consciousness would be part of the human brain, which is made out of physical matter. The matter in our heads isn't privileged to magically interact with experiments, because this is a cold, uncaring universe, with no magic in it.

Nevertheless, it crops up constantly in discussions of the infamous Schrödinger's cat thought experiment and similar by Wigner. Modern tests (e.g. here) by experts get misinterpreted by the public and pop scientists alike. Saying "it's impossible to put a human into a superposition" (see aside 2) is meant as "it's infeasible to cool a human to near absolute zero and have them remain alive to do science", but gets interpreted as "humans are conscious and so cause superpositions to collapse", which is just wrong.

Spinoff Pop Physics Pseudoscience

I felt the need to talk about quantum stuff at length because it is taken so seriously in some circles. If half the consciousness philosophers are Dualists in denial, probably the other half are Quantum Consciousness witch-doctors. It's also probably the most popular theory among armchair philosophers, including science-fiction authors trying to think about uploading or resolve the perennial inane questions about teleporters.

Many other quack theories of mind fall under the aegis of Quantum Consciousness. For example, Michio Kaku has a theory based on 'levels' that is quantum mechanical in nature, vague in principle, and Dualist in execution. Such off-the-wall 'theories' of mind contain so little actual substance that refuting them is somewhere between trivial and quixotic.

Despite not being productive contributions to the field, these ad-hoc Quantum Consciousness 'theories' seem weirdly abundant among pop physicists in particular, and the fame those physicists have from their prior work (or branding) gives this claptrap outsize influence on popular discussion. Given that physics itself refutes the premises of their theories, this publicity ought to be embarassing. But for some reason physicists in particular seem particularly inclined to spew it.

The Chinese Room Argument

The Chinese Room Argument (ref., ref.) is a poor attempt to refute the possibility of Strong AI (i.e., that artificial intelligence can be created with a mind fundamentally equal to a human's). The gist is that a non-Chinese-speaking human is put into a room with an algorithm to communicate in Chinese. By following the algorithm, he can communicate in Chinese, despite not understanding it. Voilà, Searle says, algorithms cannot 'understand' things nor be conscious^[18].

The argument is pretty lame, in that it is basically a semantic issue (a point we'll attack in force shortly), hinging on essentially equivocating two different senses of 'understand' in two different situations. After all, who cares if the human 'understands' Chinese; the question was whether the algorithm does. Moreover, if nothing understands Chinese in this situation, then pray tell how is coherent Chinese being generated?

However, semantics aren't even necessary because the argument falls apart instantly under our Materialist assumption. The argument posits a system that speaks Chinese, using an algorithm implemented by books and executed by a worker. This is the same as the real human mind, which uses an algorithm implemented by neural structure and executed by the laws of physics. Saying that these things are different is like saying that adding 123 + 321 in your head is real math, while doing it with a pencil and paper is fake math (nevermind that you obtain the same answer, and the only way that could happen is if real math is involved).

Even under Dualism, the argument is untenable. Under Materialism, it's just obviously wrong. Please stop bringing it up.

Hello From A P-Zombie

The philosophical zombie (P-zombie) concept mentioned above posits a creature that is "physically identical to a normal human being but does not have conscious experience" (thus implying a belief in some missing metaphysical attribute).

For some reason, P-zombies will almost inevitably be presented in any layperson argument about consciousness, as if it were some irrefutable argument that proves something or other about consciousness^[19]. The trouble is this completely misunderstands the point of P-zombies. P-zombies are a (dubious) attack on Materialism itself.

The gist of the argument is (as phrased by Amy Kind^[20]):

[P-zombies] are conceivable. If zombies are conceivable then they are possible. Therefore, zombies are possible. If zombies are possible, then consciousness is non-physical. Therefore, consciousness is non-physical.

There are many problems with this argument, which have been picked apart in the academic literature. Probably the easiest is the refutation-by-sanity-check that you could use it to prove the reality of anything^[21]. For example, I can think of pink dragons. Does that really mean they're possible, therefore conceptually different from humans, therefore a real fact about the world?

Of course, professional philosophers have attacked the illogic of individual steps of the argument, and even the premise itself. It turns out there are too many problems for most actual philosophers to take the argument seriously. So, apart from Chalmers and a few in his orbit, the academic discourse now concerns itself with resolving moot technical points.

It must also be said, unfortunately, that the broader context of Dualism vs. Materialism is often lost in those academic debates, and this probably explains how the concept of P-zombies has been able to intrude into the popular discourse, especially now that the real philosophers have largely moved on and are less available to chaperone.

So, just to be clear: P-zombies are an argument for Dualism. If you are a Materialist invoking P-zombies, you are doing it wrong.

The phrase "physically identical" implies that, under Materialism, a normal human and a P-zombie are the same. There's simply no way around this with Materialism: if a human and a P-zombie are physically the same, and physical matter is the only thing that exists to compare, then a human and a P-zombie must be the same thing. Indeed, Daniel Dennett is a P-zombie, and you and I are too.

The argument could only make sense if you're a Dualist (like Chalmers, who indeed popularized^[8] P-zombies), but you simply cannot claim to be Materialist and believe in P-zombies. The fact that such arguments continue to be made by Materialists regardless, despite falling apart on basic premises if you think about them, like, at all, characterizes my deep frustration with the state of discourse on consciousness.

Free Will

The Question of Free Will is one of those philosophical debates that got quietly resolved for Materialists^[22] when an entire branch of Philosophy, Natural Philosophy, was subsumedpromoted into modern Science and Math.

The laws of physics apply to matter, and Materialists know that humans are matter. Thus, we can predict their future (broadly, and in principle). It is true that quantum mechanics does add some caveats: the state of particles isn't exactly knowable, and their interactions seem indistinguishable from chance (as discussed above). Over the long term, these small effects will ripple out, so it is also true that we cannot be sure of long-term or large-scale predictions. However, we can still predict the short-term and small-scale. Moreover, certain behaviors (e.g. that a human dropped off a building will fall basically straight down) are simply predictable at any time.

What does this mean for whether we have Free Will? Basically, it means that we don't, but also that Free Will is too simplistic a concept to meaningfully apply. Our brains can be predicted in all aspects by physics (and classical physics at that; as above, quantum mechanics is not important to consciousness), but also, the self is nothing but the brain, working. Your thought process is essentially predictable because your brain is made out of physical matter, but because 'you' are your brain, 'you' are still free to make your own decisions in every meaningful sense. What could 'Free Will' outside of the brain's machinations possibly mean? That you could make decisions without it? That would be Dualism, by definition.

For some reason, people bring up Free Will to make some point or other about consciousness^[23], but again, there is no connection, especially for a Materialist.

What Even Are We Talking About

Finally, we come to what is perhaps the most fundamental problem with consciousness discussion today: equivocation. Equivocation informally means being vague. Formally, however, it means referring to two different things by the same name. The problem is that equivocation makes people say things that are potentially true about one meaning, and confuse themselves into thinking that they are true about the other meaning as well.

Consciousness philosophers such as David Chalmers have made entire careers arguing about how important 'consciousness' supposedly is, yet not one of them can coherently define what 'conscious' or 'consciousness' even is! Without rigorous definitions, argumentation becomes nonsensical.

"Consciousness is a fascinating but elusive phenomenon: it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written on it."
- Stuart Sutherland, The International Dictionary of Psychology^[24]

In fact, as pointed out in one scathing paper^[25], the ancient philosophers, of which contemporary analysis is so enamored, had no proper word for 'consciousness' in any sense. The first definitions for 'consciousness' arose centuries later, and these in reference to the mundane (e.g. bearing witness). The philosophical definitions arose later, and were internally inconsistent from the start.

Tracing the "sad and sorry history" of the term reveals it harbors mutually incompatible definitions. Primary philosophical senses include:

• An ineffable sense of having an internal observer, or a private 'inner' experience ("He consciously tracked the aircraft's descent")
• Being able to subjectively 'experience' / perceive qualia ("an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is [...] subjective character of experience."^[26])
• A theistic soul or philosophical (dualist) metaphysical entity ("the immortal consciousness")
• The abstract mind or the physical mind, considered as a whole ("A profoundly intelligent consciousness")
• An ineffable state of internal understanding ("I am conscious of the risks")
• Sapience, or human-like wisdom or intelligence ("the consciousness of man")
• Sentience, or perceptive or emotional feeling ("All conscious beings deserve rights!"; note subjective experience is 'qualia', above)

Alongside this zoo, we can add a bunch of other definitions, separated for being more mundane or historical, but that still show up conflated in the discourse:

• Being awake ("She regained consciousness")
• A stream of thought ("Her consciousness flooded with objections")^[27]
• Sharing knowledge ("He was conscious to his sister, and they struck as one"), also the word's meaning (com- (con-, 'with'/'thoroughly')) + scire ('to know') → conscire ('be mutually aware') → conscius ('knowing'/'aware')
• Being honest with oneself or attuned to one's own knowledge ("being so conscious unto myself of my great weakness"^[28])
• Awareness of an external situation ("He was conscious of the bird, perched beside")
• Bearing witness or moral knowledge (especially used in Latin cognates)
• Deliberate, intentional ("a conscious effort")
• Caution ("money-conscious")

Every one of these senses is individually a valid concept, but the catch-all nature of the word 'conscious' / 'consciousness' is a curse from the perspective of equivocation. How can one claim consciousness is important, when the speaker could be claiming almost anything by invoking the term? How could we have a debate about the merits of that argument?

At the very least, just to get anywhere, one must specify the sense one means, and stick to that. In practice, however, and certainly at the layperson^[29] level, multiple senses are equivocated.

For example, a majority of laypeople, if pressed, will describe something that basically amounts to the 'inner observer' definition: some felt sense that there is an internal 'me' perceiving the world through the senses. However, now suppose you ask them about one of those inane teleporter thought experiments where someone gets disintegrated and reintegrated elsewhere. The internal observer(s) would have no experience of this, but suddenly the layperson will start screaming that the consciousness in this example was destroyed (in the sense of the physical mind being deconstructed). This might or might not be a valid philosophical objection, but the point is it's an unrelated philosophical concept to the one they started with. The former cannot address the latter!

Or consider the Hard Problem of Consciousness, which is basically Chalmers's name for the task of explaining qualia (note that even in his own study, about 30% of philosophers disagree that this is even a real problem at all). Chalmers argues that qualia cannot be fully encapsulated in description, and therefore consciousness (in the metaphysical sense) exists. However, while the hypothesis remains to be proven, the conclusion does not follow at all! (See Materialism responses under § "Philosophical responses".)

A particular hobbyhorse is 'sapience' versus 'sentience'. Sapience roughly means 'intelligent in the manner of a human', while 'sentience' means 'capacity to feel'. For some reason, popular culture has latched onto 'sentience' as the term to be used to describe intelligence, with the effect that both words are now used interchangeably for that purpose (and unfortunately 'sentience' the far more frequent)—usage that has even crept back somewhat into the philosophical literature.

This particular equivocation seems due to some misunderstanding that equated the philosophical problem of digital sentience with artificial intelligence in science-fiction. How often have you heard about a hypothetical or fictional AI 'achieving sentience'? When I hear this, I want to scream. It is the incorrect term. Faced with increasingly real human-caliber AIs, getting our basic terms right is critically important!

For me, the most frustrating part of discussing consciousness is that almost literally everyone seems unaware of the multifaceted nature of the topic of consciousness. People launch into lengthy debates of mutual talking-past-each-other that are utterly pointless because they happened to have different starting definitions that they never stated! I'm sick of reading or hearing this in layperson arguments, and I'm sick of scholarly research (Materialist scholarly research, too) failing to state their own background assumptions, as if there were one definition of 'consciousness' that everyone agrees is the one we're talking about.

No one could possibly learn anything from this voluminous claptrap, which probably explains why no result, concrete or otherwise, has been agreed upon by that entire branch of philosophy since it's inception, and also why the attendant public discourse is so aggressively vapid.

You ask me, the word 'consciousness' should be excised from philosophical discourse. There are more precise terms available. The only function 'consciousness' still serves is confusion via equivocation.

Conclusion

The conceptions most people have about consciousness range from not just the scientifically unsupported (Dualist souls-in-all-but-name) to the scientifically delusional (pixie dust and microtubules).

In particular, it is absolutely insane to me that the public discourse (and a good part of the academic discourse, too) is dominated by Orch OR—which even aside from being superficially nonsensical and having no explanatory power, is oblivious to foundational results from Mathematics, Computer Science, Biology, Neuroscience, Information Theory, Quantum Mechanics, and Physics in general, all simultaneously. Besides which, it is contradicted by all observational evidence to date, notwithstanding the frequent and blatant goalpost-shifting. Why do people lend it so much credence? Why do people continue to write papers discussing it? How can we move past this to discuss things that are actually plausible???

Meanwhile, the mind-body problem abounds with thought experiments that no one seems to actually think about. The Chinese Room is trivially refuted on its own assumptions. P-zombies are a logically problematic argument for Dualism, while Free Will is a meaningless concept for Materialists—yet both are invoked frequently by those who profess a Materialist bent! These problems have little place in serious philosophy, and none whatsoever in Materialism.

There are of course legitimate philosophical questions about the mind. If we could only agree on what kind we're talking about, there are interesting questions about consciousness too. Some senses of consciousness are obviously fine, and some are obviously questionable, but the word equivocates them all together into a single concept that people then argue about. A point can scarcely be made for one meaning, before someone will object on the grounds of a different meaning. And so debates fall apart into pointless semantic misunderstandings, and the pointless bickering continues.

If we are ever to move forward in our understanding, we will have to confront these issues.

Notes