bitcrafter

You can tell that this image did not actually come from God because it is not 640x480x16.

Smugglers would disagree.

Not really; being as derisive of the authors as that comment was contributed absolutely nothing positive to the conversation.

That entire comment is specifically being derisive of the article authors, so it is calling them "intellectual supremacists", rather than agreeing with them.

I am fine with someone arguing that maybe the traits we consider to be a sign of intelligence are defined too narrowly--though in this case it is a really weird take because the article authors would clearly completely agree with this sentiment! I am not so fine with them calling the people they disagree with things like "intellectual supremacists".

That is a really dumb response to an article whose whole point was to argue that we have been thinking too narrowly about intelligence.

Yeah, that guy's arm must have gotten really tired holding that pose long enough for the artist to finish!

The article does not use the term.

I'll be honest and say that I did not read the article that closely because it was kind of dumb.

I'll need a source for that.

Quantum coherence is a real thing; "quantum activity" is not, except insofar as it is a very sloppy sort of shorthand for referring to quantum coherence existing at a macroscopic scale. (Put another way: my explanation of what was meant by this term was being incredibly charitable by presuming this was a good term to be using at all.)

If you look closely enough, everything is "quantum". Something being "quantum" is simply a matter of not being able to get away with using a simplification. I don't really see why that would matter.

Because macroscopic systems where you cannot get away with making this simplification exhibit really cool behaviors that can be exploited; superconductors are one such example, and quantum computers are (potentially) another.

That this question has nothing to do with consciousness is obvious.

I agree completely that it is not likely to be either necessary or sufficient for the brain to be a quantum computer to explain consciousness.

I agree that the article exhibits unmerited grandiosity, but, having said that, "quantum activity" is a real thing insofar as it is a shorthand for quantum coherence extending to a (relatively) macroscopic scale. However, it is really difficult for quantum coherence to exist at such a scale, especially at room temperature, so there is a high burden of evidence that I do not see as having been met to be considered "confirmed".

Additionally, although there are efficiencies that life may be able to take advantage of if it can exploit quantum effects, I am not convinced at all that these efficiencies need to be used for life or consciousness to be able to exist. This actually goes along with your underlying point, which is that it is not clear that we need fancy mechanisms as a sort of magic touch to explain all of these things.

No, XML is already a punishment.

Argue with the authors of the study. That’s what they found.

Assuming we are specifically talking about the paper on tryptophan, there is absolutely nothing about what they found that could be characterized in that way. To the contrary, they are using pretty standard physical models in their analysis.

Physics can’t explain quite a lot of things in our physical universe.

But there are a lot of things that it explains extremely well, and the things discussed in the linked article are among them.

Given that we are talking about physical processes, saying that something is happening more efficient than anything that could be done "through physics alone" is nonsensical.