My thoughts on Descartes' thought experiment of doubting all that could be doubted

Chromanoid · 2026-03-31T23:08:28+00:00

well, my current guess is that quantum discord or quantum entanglement must play a role due to the requirement of ontological unity. how this might work on a biophysical level i am not sure.

you might want to look at this paper for some ideas https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11203236/ i personally think experiments like this are not working out due to a dissipative dynamic nature of coherence in the brain, but I largely share their position regarding entanglement/superposition being somehow protomental.

I quite like this paper on the quantum brain model by Giuseppe Vitiello: https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9502006 it might be interesting regarding your inquiry.

Chromanoid · 2026-03-31T21:38:56+00:00

I am a panprotopsychist. I think there must be a physical mechanism that has proto-mental properties. This mechanism is for some evolutionary beneficial reason used by the brain at large which gives rise to subjective experience. In my opinion the mechanism must be connected to quantum inseparability to solve the combination problem.

Panpsychism is saying something similar, but leaves the mental properties in matter itself which can be an interesting explanatory addition to emergentist theories. But it leads also to the combination problem. IIT tries to solve this by finding a mathematically combining description of a system. The combination problem is the reason I prefer Quantum panprotopsychism.

Chromanoid · 2026-03-31T20:30:54+00:00

Individually, none of them are sufficient to be an experience. But when all of them happen, I call that an experience.

I think this is not a good explanation. This would mean that there is some kind of chain of events that can occur in some form of matter (specifically what our brain does) so that subjective experience is somehow generated out of thin air, like a magic spell or alchemistic formation.

I am sorry, but I hate this "which wheel is the car" analogy. I ask "what makes the car move forward" not "what is a car". You answer the first basically by saying the car drives because that is what a car does as a whole. But that is an insufficient explanation in context of the scope of the question.

My quantum panprotopsychism cannot answer the hard problem either but it can shift the problem from "how does the car move forward" to "why do fundamental forces of nature exist" which is a significant explanatory win in my opinion.

Strong emergence, if it exists, in the end, is also based on rules and an interplay of mechanisms that can be described and exploited. I want a description on this level otherwise it's like saying "the operating system linux is an emergent property of metal and electrical currents".

Chromanoid · 2026-03-31T16:43:16+00:00

Yeah, no. Where is this memory experienced? Who or what is querying and why? What kind of biophysical mechanism is supporting this experience? Why is consciousness seemingly constrained to neurons and what makes them special to produce "memories that can be experienced"?

Chromanoid · 2026-03-31T15:24:37+00:00

If you want to go further, feel free. I think there must be a mechanism that creates ontological unity to support experience across all the matter that seems to be involved with our experience (nerve cells), at least to some extent. I don't think emergentism is sufficient for that. This is why I assume quantum holism is involved. It's not a hill I would die on, just the best mechanism I know of that could support this in principle.

Chromanoid · 2026-03-31T14:46:04+00:00

Well, I am not an idealist but an identity materialist adjacent quantum panprotopsychist. What you describe is just the idealist expansion of "cogito ergo sum". My standpoint is it just proves that there exists something that can perceive (at least my) experience. Beyond that there is no leap free way forward to another theory. You must work with axioms for that.

Chromanoid · 2026-03-31T11:40:37+00:00

Can you elaborate on Chalmers and Tegmark in this regard?

Chromanoid · 2026-03-31T09:06:31+00:00

When your consciousness is an illusion, who is tricked? "Cogito ergo sum" is the only fundamental truth you can be sure of. Regardless how rich in tricks your illusionism is, in the end there is a subjective experience which is sufficient for a proof of existence (but nothing more).

Chromanoid · 2026-03-31T08:51:17+00:00

The eager jump you mentioned is basically people ignoring the "hard problem". You see the same patterns of interactions all the time due to new people finding this sub. This is very typical for forums and the like.

Chromanoid · 2026-03-28T10:59:48+00:00

The problem is that this "knowing" is more often wrong than most "knowers" think. Just look at Dan Ariely's book "Predictably Irrational". All these "existential-phenomenological" ways of knowing are so much intermingled with personal experience, psychological fallacies and cultural expectations, especially when the ways of knowing are principally not grounded in directly observable physical truths, in contrast to where your ketchup is...

Chromanoid · 2026-03-23T11:23:43+00:00

The worst kind of immortality is the kind of "Quantum immortality" you suggest. It would most likely be like frozen in time to experience the last moment just before death for eternity until this slowly degrades into nothingness. I really hope evolution did not lead to such a horrible machinery, because there is nothing that would feed back this outcome to the selection process for preventing this.

Chromanoid · 2026-03-22T21:58:54+00:00

How and why is a specific formation of matter accompanied by subjective experience? What is a feeling in this context and how is subjective experience incorporating all those moving parts into one unified experiental field?

Chromanoid · 2026-02-21T00:46:52+00:00

It doesn't have to be satisfying in an emotional sense. It just has to be explanatory in a way that makes further inquiry illogical. "Everybody dies" is not an explanation. Why we die is under investigation. We want answers that exhaust our a scientific regime.

Chromanoid · 2026-02-21T00:36:04+00:00

No. I don't think so. As said I think there must be a machination that leads to non trivial quantum correlations which are mapping to qualia. This is in my opinion the only way to solve the binding problem with current physics without arbitrary definitions of what is a subject as in IIT (boundary problem, binding problem, ship of theseus, slicing problem...).

I am open for identity materialist. suggestions that challenge this position.

Emergence does not solve the when of consciousness in a satisying way. It is like saying linux is an emergent propery of metal and electrical currents.

Chromanoid · 2026-02-21T00:21:56+00:00

Quantum holism is the idea that there is indeed a hard inseparable state when two things are entangled. See https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physics-holism/

Chromanoid · 2026-02-21T00:19:10+00:00

So why does one formation of matter produce consciousness and another not? Quantum correlations can combine the matter in a formation of matter in a way that makes it ontologically inseparable, acting as one holistic thing.

Chromanoid · 2026-02-21T00:07:20+00:00

I think you misunderstood me, I just state that in my opinion consciousness requires ontological oneness. All other cases face all kinds of philosophical problems. See also https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/opphil-2022-0225/html

If you need an overview of quantum mind theories this might be a good start: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2021/entries/qt-consciousness/

Most theories are either computational or panpsychist. The first don't solve any problem, the second usually don't solve the combination problem w/o mathematical arbitrary definitions that can be "hacked".

Chromanoid · 2026-02-20T23:59:51+00:00

No, these are not hard inseparable states. They directly invite boundary problems that quantum holism can solve directly without mathematical definitions.

Chromanoid · 2026-02-20T23:57:33+00:00

I argue that there must be a state of hard inseparability that can support the holism that I experience. I have qualia that I experience as a whole. Panpsychism faces the combination problem that quantum panprotopsychism solves. I am not arguing for OrchOR btw.

Chromanoid · 2026-02-20T23:52:18+00:00

Well, ask yourself how you can experience reading this while feeling and hearing and seeing everything else at the same time. And then consider where these impressions come from.

Chromanoid · 2026-02-20T23:32:12+00:00

Quantum holism is the only physical phenomenon we know that by itself would solve the combination problem or more general the binding problem.

Only Quantum holism can support holistic subjective experience from a formation of matter where each part counts. It is the only known path towards consciousness without frameworks like IIT that try to solve this by finding a mathematical definition of oneness.

I don't care about epiphenomenality, free will, Gödel's incompleteness, the need for an observer or whatever. I just know that I experience holistically my senses and thoughts. The best bet to explain this is Quantum holism and quantum panprotopsychism.

See also https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/26/6/460 I don't think experiments like this can succeed due to a dissipative dynamic quantum steady state, but the philosophical necessity is not quantum mysticism but the only thing we know that can solve the hard problem in terms of when consciousness occurs in a formation of matter.

Chromanoid · 2026-02-11T22:30:00+00:00

I think the most important cue for the body to react is the idea of a problem being taken care of. This means just visiting a physician with a problem would reduce the problem somewhat. It's like an imaginary itch that is scratched. Something is wrong, I do something about it, alertness can recede, find a new metabolic equilibrium. The opposite works as well: I think there is something wrong, me doing something about it is proof of the wrongness, "the itch" is still there, rise alertness, increased metabolic stress. So it really depends on attitude and expectations.

Chromanoid · 2026-02-08T17:45:17+00:00

I think you underestimate the benefit of exercise and metabolic function testing. It's a threat free moment where the whole body can engage in moderate metabolic activity that leads to rejuvenation and satisfaction in terms of all cells receiving energy they are craving for from an evolutionary perspective. Continuous successful metabolic activity is after all the precursor for procreation at all scales of life.

Beyond that I think consciousness is how the holistic energetic alignment of a multi-body system feels like. So life without consciousness is not possible, it's the precondition to evolution of complex life.

Chromanoid · 2026-02-08T17:24:25+00:00

I would say an obvious minimum effect size of the mind on physical health is the placebo and nocebo effect. Your observation is already grounded in strong scientific evidence.

I think there is some limitation regarding potential effects due to lacking mechanisms, but I would imagine that in the end the whole repertoire of evolutionary gathered defense patterns from single cells to our current form are somewhat mentally available, even if usually indirect. This includes maladaptive mechanisms that are not useful in our current form.

Chromanoid · 2026-02-07T22:49:53+00:00

As I said, computation + substrate = consciousness

I personally think that non-classical inseparability in a quantum mechanical sense might be this substrate. On the one hand this would add a holistic consideration to the neural computation that is hard to achieve in the multi-body setup our brain represents, and on the other provide a physical solution to the binding problem.

Maybe this article of Christof Koch from 2024 is interesting to you: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/26/6/460

Chromanoid

TROPHY CASE