31. Stuart Hameroff Hammered By Questions (2 of 2) - Beyond Belief 2006

[neilmcintosh5150]

I just love it at 4:30 into the video when Roger Bingham says 'Ok this is getting a little bit too sophisticated for me' He's dead on though, at this point theres probably nobody else in the room that knows what hameroff and the stupidly fast talking girl is talking about. I mean come on; gap junctions that knocks out connection connects at forty three!!...I love it, even though I havn't the faintist idea what there on about, and neither have 99.9% of the people at this conference.

[stratocaster1986able]

The second woman talks stupidly fast

"hsdkjchbacxbajkcxbchajchhbchj­asjabcaghcaehcuhadkuhcahbhjhac­hja consciousness"

[tim3746]

Freak's and geek's. 

[Murkyyy]

The problem with a lot of people, not just scientists is not being able to think out of the box, and if you try to show that things might not be as they learned them in books you become a heretic and instantly try to smack you down with that professor like attitude..... Hameroff has gigantic balls. Respect.

[ReligiousZombie]

"Platonic values exist... in the structure of the universe"--a perfect example of how one can sound convincing if he speaks fast and self-confidently, even if what he is saying is total horseshit.

[a3th3r]

@ReligiousZombie finally someone who isn't riding Hameroff's nuts for being "brave" and "thinking outside the box." The guy was clearly talking nonsense. He's saying that ethics are physically coded into the material that structures everything in the universe. It's a ridiculous statement with absolutely no evidence to back it up.

[Titus420ful]

"did consciousness CAUSE the cambrian explosion?..."

wow. just wow........

[SubwayRatt]

@MewCat100 can you explain why hameroff's theories are "nonsense"?

[WinterLights7]

hammer rox!

[SweetLishLove]

its almost like awareness is experiencing itself through the aid of consciousness and all complex matter,energy,time and space are arrangement of this simple consciousness.

[NeosimianSapiens]

I do not agree with Hameroff's theory, but I do agree that he showed greater restraint than some of his opponents.

I understood 99% of what Hameroff was saying, except for the bit about Gamma Synchrony. Is he saying that neurons throughout the brain are PERFECTLY synchronized?

It occurs to me that atomic clocks in Europe and Asia are perfectly synchronized with those in North America. It doesn't mean they are all connected in some way, though one COULD infer they all have the same job.

[amjan]

If Hameroff had the persona of Hitchens, dead bodies would be dropping on the floor.

[CACBCCCU]

My theory is that if a particle is attractive enough and communicates fast enough it can apply for an exchange of quanta for no other purpose than to let one fly past them without any acknowledgement, and it's perfectly fine for them to do that a lot.

[CACBCCCU]

If positrons and quarks, inside my brain and outside my brain, are instrumental in my thoughts about the merits of having positrons and quarks be self-conscious, then at least a gang of those particles might be self-conscious. The next questions would be whether positrons are acting like they can think backwards, and is that a good way to think, or should all backward-looking-thinking be preapproved by a select committee of electrons.

[CACBCCCU]

Any electrons controlling what happens in my conscious thoughts are preferably conscious of a number of things. Electrons may come and go, but rules are rules, especially when thinking about electrons.

[drchen054]

I find the comments here very interesting and wish there were even more people commenting here!

[0xCABE]

I don't know anything about physics but I do know what narcissism looks like.

[rlustemberg]

@GermanOperaSinger: Also just like in all professions, the majority of scientists have made a career out of following the crowd. Subscribing to current dogmas is beneficial to their jobs. Still is remarkable how unaware are people about how little we know about the Universe. It seems to bee recurrent, from Ptolomeus, Copernicus, Galilei, Newton,Darwin, Einstein, etc. We just discover new paradigms which always shatter our previous views. Why should that not happen again? Do we know it all?

[rlustemberg]

@GermanOperaSinger: The first woman on this second part be illustrates it very well. She doesn't know much about what Dr. Hameroff is talking about, neither she can understand it, but nevertheless she is a priori convinced that there is something wrong about his theories, because they seem to defy some core belief of hers. True scientist constantly challenge their assumptions, while still probing the Universe with their intuition..

[rlustemberg]

Hameroff's challengers most popular debating method is to smile, look to their inside crowd of followers, and then blurt some vague uninformed statement which actually equates to : 'ha, ha, this is so ridiculous, ha ha, this cannot be, we all know, it's not in the books...'. They pretend to be skeptics, and they are just firm believers in some other inmutable truths. They make science look ugly...

[GermanOperaSinger]

@rlustemberg It's disappointing to see so many scientists display the same form of dogmatism they (rightfully) disdain in religious fundamentalists. Orch-OR is a legitimate theory of consciousness and not some New Age hokum. I'm don't agree with Hameroff associating the theory with spirituality though; it's probably the main reason he was met with such harsh criticism.

[drchen054]

@GermanOperaSinger There is such a high correlation between historical spiritual claims about time/space and modern physics that it is hard to ignore. Nonlocality, holographic universe theories, unified field theories, nonexistence of time, and the discovery of the quantum field have all had startling resemblances to spiritual observations. Still, I agree with you that perhaps he should merely note it as a curiosity and downplay its relevance at least initially to certain demographics.

[MewCat100]

@rlustemberg Hameroff isn't conducting science.

[GermanOperaSinger]

@MewCat100 Why not? What is 'science' then, in your opinion? This theory is empirically testable. Are you one of those people who accuses everyone who disagrees with you for being 'unscientific' (as if science was a belief system/worldview rather than a method of inquiry)?

To make myself clear, I am not a proponent of Orch-OR, just annoyed at the self proclaimed 'defenders of science' who can't seem to grasp the fact that they are behaving dogmatically.

[MewCat100]

@GermanOperaSinger Way to make wild accusations about a person you don't know. Thanks for defending science to me, but I am pretty sure my background in molecular biology and medicine makes me fully capable of understanding the principles of scientific inquiry. Hameroff isn't conducting science because he isn't making falsifiable claims about the universe. His theory isn't coherent enough to be self-consistent or testable. Read it and you will see that it is just religion dressed up in big words

[GermanOperaSinger]

@MewCat100 In his 1998 paper 'Quantum computation in brain microtubules? The Penrose-Hameroff "Orch OR" model of consciousness', Hameroff includes 20 proposed experiments that could falsify his microtubule hypothesis. *He* claims that 4 of these have been experimentally verified. Penrose's objective reduction is currently being tested at UC Santa Barbara, though conformation of the latter does not necessarily validate Hameroff. I'm not sure why you are comparing this with religion (?)

[MewCat100]

@GermanOperaSinger Too bad at least one of his 20 proposals has already been refuted. You should read more. How is it like religion? Glad you asked. It is blind adherence to a theory because of how it makes the believers feel and not because of the scientific integrity of the results or the actual truth that it conveys.

[GermanOperaSinger]

@MewCat100 Yes I knew that before, claim that neuron microtubules are 'preferably' A-lattice. It's on Wikipedia after all. Not exactly where I'd go to for in depth critique of anything, but each to his own. No theory is expected to be perfect, and disproving one of his claims doesn't toss the entire idea into the waste bin. Regardless, I'm not promoting his theory. If it is wrong, which it may very well be, my response was simply to your claim that Hameroff's hypothesis was not experimentally...

[GermanOperaSinger]

...testable. In fact Orch-OR is probably the most developed theory of consciousness to date. Obviously that doesn't mean it's correct; in fact I personally don't think we know enough about consciousness to postulate any theories yet. Based on our current knowledge, we should be focusing on looking for neural correlates. Lastly, Hameroff's kooky ideas about metaphysics could be rightfully compared with religion, but his microtubule hypothesis (despite it's many flaws) is still a workable theory.

[Titus420ful]

@rlustemberg

Yeah those ugly rules and parameters....why should anything be peer-reviewed and challenged? What a waste of time, just believe every piece of nonsense you hear

Hey you, pathetic poetic...If you think having standards is ugly than I guess science is just going to be ugly to you...

And apparently, based on your ad hominem comment, you didn't hear the questions raised in this video, especially by the neuro-physiologist (anything but 'vague and uniformed')....ahem

You're an asshat

[goathead2000]

Nobody can phase Hameroff, step-to Hameroff and he is going to smack you down hard, just as he did here to every single question. This clip should have been titled "Hameroff Shuts Everyone Down"

[homerj7g]

@goathead2000

Well that's just like your opinion man.

[drchen054]

Wait! So an electron can have a conscious moment every 10 million years!?? Wahhh!??

[drchen054]

@drchen054 And Worms are relatively conscious possibly?!! IEvery hundred milliseconds... What does that mean? Like does the worm have foggy/reduced consciousness or more gaps between conscious moments?

[MewCat100]

@goathead2000 It should have been titled "Hameroff spouts BS that makes no sense to people far smarter than he is."

[biggmoneyme]

@MewCat100

very consistent bs

[MewCat100]

@biggmoneyme Yes, it is consistent BS. He says the same BS over and over again, making it highly consistent.

[biggmoneyme]

@MewCat100 we shouldnt just automatically dismiss things bc they're slightly outside of the norm. Brilliant minds have accused other brilliant minds of being wackos bc of their theories . nikola hattin on albert over alberts claim that space bends comes to mind

[MewCat100]

@biggmoneyme If you understood what Hameroff was saying you would know that his theories are utter nonsense and have already be disproved in a number of cases. QM isn't magic, it has rules and parameters just like any other scientific phenomenon. What Hameroff is proposing has no basis is crurent evidence and no support. I'm not saying he should no pursue it and try to prove everyone wrong, only that the criticism is valid.

[HecticRat]

@biggmoneyme No, we shouldn't "just automatically dismiss things bc they're slightly outside of the norm," we should dismiss ideas/hypotheses/theories because they don't agree with empirical evidence or stand up to the rigorous scientific process - which Hammeroff's theories don't.

[biggmoneyme]

@HecticRat i don't see how his theory can even be tested. But please I'm not very informed on his theory. Can you please point a few things out if u dont mind?

[biggmoneyme]

@HecticRat well after reading a little bit the only things i really see that prevent his theory from being plausible is: the the brain is warm, from my understanding that wouldnt make a stable environment for superposition. and also i read the wave function collapses would be in the femtoseconds , too fast for neural process i believe

[ThisOneIsTaken]

@biggmoneyme

Hameroff answered to that too I think: youtube[dot]com/watch?v=LXFFbx­oHp3s

Right or wrong, the dude has done his homeworks.

[ThisOneIsTaken]

@goathead2000

I agree. Personally, I won't believe Orch-or until a testable prediction is made and verified, but I must admit H is being attacked by many without a reason... and worst, without any research done on the matter. I mean, Patricia Churchland for example wrote a stern attack to the Penrose-Hameroff model... before it was even published.

Makes me sweat vinegard to think that many of these guys consider themselves the knights of rationality.

[GodTheHypothesis]

@goathead2000

Science isn't about debating skills, it's about doing the work to convince your peers. This model that he promotes has convinced a very small minority of scientists so far, and that's what determines where the future work is done.

[hitchinslives]

@goathead2000 I completely agree. Hameroff is a powerful debater and is way too intelligent for this crowd of people. He even shuts Krauss down, who is one of my favorite scientists! Although I can't explain it, I do think theres some truth when Stuart talks about there being platonic information embeded in the planc scale..