Can Biotechnology Abolish Suffering? by Pearce David

Author:Pearce, David [Pearce, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Neuroethics Foundation
Published: 2017-09-12T16:00:00+00:00

Part IV: Consciousness

NON-MATERIALIST PHYSICALISM

An experimentally testable conjecture

"You're nothing but a pack of neurons."

(Francis Crick)

ABSTRACT

Mankind's most successful story of the world, natural science, leaves the existence of consciousness wholly unexplained. The phenomenal binding problem deepens the mystery. Neither classical nor quantum physics seem to allow the binding of distributively processed neuronal micro-experiences into unitary experiential objects apprehended by a unitary phenomenal self. This paper argues that if physicalism and the ontological unity of science are to be saved, then we will need to revise our notions of both 1) the intrinsic nature of the physical and 2) the quasi-classicality of neurons. In conjunction, these two hypotheses yield a novel, bizarre but experimentally testable prediction of quantum superpositions ("Schrödinger's cat states") of neuronal feature-processors in the CNS at sub-femtosecond timescales. An experimental protocol using in vitro neuronal networks is described to confirm or empirically falsify this conjecture via molecular matter-wave interferometry.

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