Episode 92

The ninth and final episode in a series wherein Mark Taylor talks with me about the mind-body problem and the so-called "hard problem" of consciousness. We wrap up with a discussion of the Penrose-Hameroff "microtubule-based" theory that consciousness arises as a quantum mechanical phenomenon in the nervous system. I'm reminded of a strange story involving "theatrical physicist" Jack Sarfatti who has been pushing for the manufacture of "conscious computer chips" via nano-constructed synthetic microtubules (this involves a telephone call backwards through time from a computer intelligence in the future!).

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• Stuart Hameroff
• microtubules
• quantum mechanics
• quantum (de)coherence
• quantum computers
• Roger Penrose
• Jack Sarfatti
• David Bohm's "back-action" approach to consciousness (from Jack Sarfatti's blog)
• Back to the Future
• Robert Zemeckis
• retrocausality
• Sarfatti's robot phonecall-from-the-future story
• pineal gland
• Daniel Dennett
• reductionism
• compatibilism
• free will
• idealism
• Lord Howe Island stick insect (Dryococelus australis)