Is consciousness to be found in quantum processes in microtubules?

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James R said:
Suppose I connect a simple light bulb to a battery and it lights up because electrical current flows through the bulb. Would you say that the light bulb has the "ability to process electrical data"? I wouldn't.
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Now transport the electricity through a variable potentiometer (light dimmer). Would you say that the potentiometer is processing electrical data? Such as the light flashes produced by cuttlefish.
2017-09-02-05-25-402.jpg

Tubular slider rheostats are of the types found in physics labs and science laboratories in schools and colleges. These linear or slide types use resistive wire wound around an insulating tubular former or cylinder. The sliding contact (pin 2) mounted above, is manually adjusted left or right to increase or decrease the rheostats effective resistance as shown.
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As with rotary potentiometers, multi-gang type slider rheostats are also available. In some types, fixed electrical connections are made to the resistive wire to give a fixed value of resistance between any two terminals. Such intermediate connections are generally known as “tappings”, the same name as those used on transformers.
https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/resistor/potentiometer.html
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Instead of sliders, microtubules use growth and shortening, also known as "dynamic instability", to regulate their data-transport abilities. That function did not evolve by accident. It has a practical purpose.
 
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Write4U said:
Now transport the electricity through a variable potentiometer (light dimmer). Would you say that the potentiometer is processing electrical data?
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Maybe.

There's an input and an output, and the output depends on the state of the potentiometer, so in some crude sense you could call that data processing, I suppose. The "smarts" of it are outside the system, though. The person sliding the slider determines the output. The potentiometer itself doesn't make any decisions.
 
Write4U said:
Electro-chemical action potentials, just like the brain does.
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Okay.

I'm not that interested in getting bogged down in what it means to make a decision.

At one level, you could talk about any system that is capable of responding differently in response to variation in some input condition as "making a decision?" In that low-level sense, a thermostat makes a "decision" to turn on the heater when it senses that the temperature is lower than a set value.

Are you going to argue, then, that a thermostat is "conscious"?

The "decision making" of an individual neuron is on a similar level, I think. The neuron receives (or doesn't receive) electrical signals from elsewhere. If those signals add up to more than certain threshold, the neuron fires; otherwise it doesn't. Is this consciousness, then? I don't think so.

The "electro-chemical action potentials" you describe are exactly this: a neuron fires or it doesn't, in response to a stimulus. Is this consciousness, then?

The light in my bedroom goes on when I flick the light switch. Did the light switch make a decision to turn the light on? Did the light decide to turn itself on? Is the switch, or the light, conscious?
 
Write4U said:
Electro-chemical action potentials, just like the brain does.
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Given the age of people in here, I hope the last month and a half of not posting anything about microtubules means a dearth of news about the subject. Or maybe there's a thread churning away about it on some other forum, that you're embroiled in.
 
Write4U said:
Now transport the electricity through a variable potentiometer (light dimmer).
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Light dimmers do not use potentiometers for obvious reasons. They use phase control.
That function did not evolve by accident. It has a practical purpose.
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All functions evolve by accident. Whether they are retained is based on their practicality.
 
C C said:
I hope the last month and a half of not posting anything about microtubules means a dearth of news about the subject.
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I wonder why this should be a "hoped for" condition?

I am sorry to disappoint you, but there is a plethora of new information and pertinent discoveries in the field of research on microtubules and related filaments.

For a moment there I hoped for an actual interest in the subject, but alas, even as I am not on line there seem to be a need for spreading ad hominem behind my back. So sad.

p.s. My absence was for an entirely different motive. (strike 2)
 
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Write4U said: ↑ Now transport the electricity through a variable potentiometer (light dimmer).
billvon said: Light dimmers do not use potentiometers for obvious reasons. They use phase control.
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Really?
Everything You Need to Know About Variable Resistor Function
The light dimmer is another application of variable resistors being put to work. Light dimmers are commonly found in houses. The function of a light dimmer is to change the brightness of the bulbs connected to the circuit.
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https://www.linquip.com/blog/variable-resistor-function/#

and variable resistors are potentiometers;

POTENTIOMETER: A VARIABLE RESISTOR
A variable resistor is a resistor that can change value based on user input. These devices are also called potentiometers or "pots" for short. Variable resistors have a rotary knob or slider that changes their internal …
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https://42electronics.com/blogs/learn-more/potentiometer-a-variable-resistor

and all that functions on the basis of mathematical "differential equations".

Artificial variable resistors must be manipulated by persons. Natural variable resistors, such as dynamic microtubules, change their differential potentials by rapid growth or reduction, based on chemical messages. In microtubules it is called "dynamic instability"
What is microtubule dynamic instability? Microtubules have special dynamic properties. In a population of microtubules, at any point in time, a subset of microtubules are rapidly growing while others are quickly shrinking (although sometimes some microtubules also sit still in a ‘paused’ state). This intriguing property is explained by the observation that individual microtubules switch randomly between growing and shrinking states, sometimes changing back and forth several times in the course of their lifetime. This combination of growth, shrinkage and rapid transitions between the two is known as dynamic instability
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more...https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(06)01771-4.pdf
W4U said: That function did not evolve by accident. It has a practical purpose.
billvon said: All functions evolve by accident. Whether they are retained is based on their practicality.
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True, it was sloppy wording on my part. I should have written; That function did not evolve by accident, it is extant due to natural selection of a functional advantage. The second part of that sentence was correct, no?
James R said: Are you going to argue, then, that a thermostat is "conscious"?
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No, it is "sensitive" to the existing variable "differential equations", a quasi-intelligent function.

In biological systems, cells have the ability to communicate with each other (inter-cellular communication), which can produce "quorum sensing" and a coordinated response via the simultaneous distribution of action-potentials troughout the system.

Quorum sensing is a proto-conscious electro-chemical inter-cellular data processing function and allows "heliotropism" for photosynthesis in flowers, coordinated "virulence" in bacteria, waggle dance for "locating" food in bees.
Quorum sensing itself does not need a neural network. It is the direct communication between cells that triggers a sensory response that can also be transmitted transmitted to the brain via the neural network and experienced by the brain as a physical action.

IMO, this is the stage of proto-consciousness that evolved into pure experiential brain function as processed by the billions of microtubules and the trillions of synaptic response actions and data comparing against stored memories.

It is a clear evolutionary process of increased sophistication in sensory response processes, starting with purely chemical interactions, to intermediate stage from purely electro-chemical response of individual objects to communal cellular response in biological organisms, to self-aware experiential response processes in the brain.

This process started perhaps 600,000 years after the formation of earth, and was later facilitated by the self-assembly of microtubules and the ability for variable date transmission potentials in Eukaryotic organisms, but took several billion of years to evolve into most extant organisms and most likely in human ability for abstract thought processes by way of a major genetic mutation such as the fusion of 2 ancestral chromosomes, yielding an increased growth and complex folding of the brain and a resulting ability to process complex relational data values.

The demarcation point of the human split being the fusion of 2 ancestral chromosomes into a single larger chromosome in humans, causing only humans to carry 23 pr chromosomes whereas all other apes have 24 pr chromosomes
 
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OK, back to the science of microtubules.

The role of microtubules in mitochondrial dynamics
Here we present data suggesting that microtubules are the predominant cytoskeletal element for moving and distributing D. discoideum mitochondria. We show an almost complete loss of motility in cells treated with nocodazole as well as the relaxed and more distributed clusters found in cluA− cells with disrupted microtubules. Additionally we and others have observed a small population of mitochondria that associate with the microtubules (Vlahou et al., 2011). Finally work by Vlahou et al demonstrates that mitochondrial distribution is dependent upon intact microtubules (Vlahou et al., 2011).
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We also demonstrate that microtubules are essential for mitochondrial fission and fusion. It has not yet been teased out whether disruption of fission and fusion in these cells prevents motility or if motility must be functional for fission and fusion to take place. It has been suggested that blocks of fission and fusion will inhibit motility and distribution. Incomplete fission can result in a tangle of interconnected mitochondria and incomplete fusion can result in mitochondrial aggregates, thus motility's effect on the processes seems clear (Chen and Chan, 2009). On the other hand, it has been shown that loss of Miro, which inhibits motility, subsequently inhibits fusion (Cagalinec et al., 2013). It is logical to assume that motility facilitates fission and fusion as at least one mitochondrion must move toward another for fusion to take place and once divided the organelles must move apart to remain separate. Either way it is apparent that mitochondrial dynamics are intimately linked to motility and in D. discoideum, as suggested by our data, regulated by microtubules.
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4801864/#

I guess I must qualify my focus on microtubules as including related filaments and mitochondria. Obviously, it is a systemic network that acts as the substrate which generates the EM fields that the brain experiences as thoughts

much more to come!
 
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origin said:
Oh crap, he came back. Oh well, his absence was nice while it lasted...
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Thinking must be really hard work for you, origin. You are completely ignorant of a whole new scientific field of inquiry and refuse to even look. What does that tell us of your mindset? It ain't scientific, that's for sure.

With your superior mind, what are you even doing, dwelling in the lowly pseudo-science
section?
A curious juxtaposition. I'll have to give that some thought.
OK, strike 4! You're out!!!!
OIP.NvgdikGg_is-GFPGoT3C1QAAAA
 
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Write4U said:
Given the age of people in here, I hope the last month and a half of not posting anything about microtubules means a dearth of news about the subject. Or maybe there's a thread churning away about it on some other forum, that you're embroiled in.
Click to expand...

I wonder why this should be a "hoped for" condition?

I am sorry to disappoint you, but there is a plethora of new information and pertinent discoveries in the field of research on microtubules and related filaments.

For a moment there I hoped for an actual interest in the subject, but alas, even as I am not on line there seem to be a need for spreading ad hominem behind my back. So sad.

p.s. My absence was for an entirely different motive. (strike 2)
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Glad you're in good heath then, which is still more important than microtubule news (even if shortage of such wasn't the cause of absence). Have no idea what else could be construed meaning-wise with respect to an opener like: "Given the age of people in here..."
_
 
C C said:
Glad you're in good heath then, which is still more important than microtubule news (even if shortage of such wasn't the cause of absence). Have no idea what else could be construed meaning-wise with respect to an opener like: "Given the age of people in here..."
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Very sympathetic of you.
origin said:
As long as it isn't here, I'm OK with it... I do have a bit of sympathy for the other forum though.
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And you gave this a "like"??? (strike 5) Your team is losing badly!
 
I am seriously beginning to regret wasting hundreds of hours of my time researching and posting new developments in an exciting new field of research on the emergence of cellular communication and the eventual evolution of sensory consciousness.

What is the expression? "Cast your pearls before the swine" ?
cast (or throw) pearls before swine give or offer valuable things to people who do not appreciate them. This expression is a quotation from Matthew 7:6: ‘Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you’.
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Cast your pearls before swine - Idioms by The Free Dictionary
 
Write4U said:
I am seriously beginning to regret wasting hundreds of hours of my time researching and posting new developments in an exciting new field of research on the emergence of cellular communication and the eventual evolution of sensory consciousness.
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We all regret your efforts...
 
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