Is there a basis for quantum cognition beyond “I want my brain to be different from my cell phone.”?
Whether that "something" is just a collection of randomness, or something more, is unknown and currently there is no scientific basis to think it is something more.
There's no logical difference. If the CPU's have any correlation to its inputs, then it's equivalent to a deterministic function+random input.
You do not need quantumness in the brain to introduce randomness, it is filled to the brim with randomness already.
This kind of definition is the root cause of what saalweachter pointed to: Do you consider a program an input? If not, you are actually willing that it works randomly. If it is, the mind seems to be an empty box that still has opinions.
The free will discussion is a relic of religious thinking. And, while someone produces some new compelling argument, IMHO all the discussion about "qualia" is noise.
For example from my point of view, for a decision to be mine it absolutely has to depend on my own mental state prior to and while making it. If it doesn’t it might be free, but it isn’t mine. The less deterministic my decisions are and the less determined by my mental state (memories, opinions, etc) a decision is, the less it’s mine.
So at that level I’m really not worried by determinism or theoretical predictability, in fact I embrace them, because without them there is no responsibility or agency or self. This seems fundamentally at odds with some other people’s definition of free will which to me seem perplexingly ephemeral and indistinct.
And no, it's not that's tainted by religion, it's that it makes no sense at all without religious thinking.
Dualism is the belief that there is a material body and a inmaterial soul that controls the body. As the knowledge of mind expanded, the soul retreated. That's just how things happened historically, but the logic is to ditch the soul concept altogether, not reducing it to an entelechy. The problem with doing the later is you end up inventing fake problems like "free will".
Will is not free in a vacuum. People are born with things that we like and some other things that we dislike, not the same for every person. Then family, society and circumstances, including sheer luck, shape our wills to a point. There is also the possibility of changing our own likes, acquiring what we consider desirable tastes.
We're not free to completely bootstrap ourselves. But that is not the same at saying we've not free will at all. Determinism is alike to saying that it's impossible that heavier than air machines can fly. You take a general concept that seems obvious, ignore all intermediate steps and reach an unwarranted conclusion. The intermediate steps in this case is the fact that our mind is in a material world, generated by a material brain and that our wills, our memories and everything else is part of the material world also. So saying that material laws prevent us from being free is absurd. We are made of matter, we are not "trapped in matter", that's a relic.
You are implying that I said that somebody here is suggesting a soul, aren't you? If you are, you're wrong. I suggested that historical reasons (people believing in a soul time ago) caused the debate.
Now please explain to me how you think new physics can alter the approach to this debate.
My tone is just assertive: that's what I believe and I make no apologies for it. If you dislike what I say, please be more specifical about what exactly troubles you instead of making a vague criticism in my general direction.
Edit: oh, and one more thing. Your last comment qualifies my argumentation but you don't answer a single point of what I wrote.
That's a lot of declarative statements!
And yet I am left uninformed as to whether you are saying that Free-Will (the 'non-problem') exists? Or not? Or that the question itself is meaningless? (I'm guessing the last?)
We make decisions all the time, you can only say that free will doesn't exist if you define free will in a way that's impossible to exist, ignoring the intuitive, inmediate reality of freedom.
Edit: in other words, what's a definition of free will that's possible to exist? If there's none, we're talking about nothing, aren't we? If there's one, that would be useful. Why bother with the useless ones?
What I'm trying to say is there are a number of discussions that match the same pattern: We know very little about a something but still try to make general rules about it. We don't know in enoug detail how the brain works but there are a number of experts that run to assert that computers will never think because they're different. How do they know? Do they know every kind of computer that's not invented yet?
Have we observed quantum effects or non-deterministic behavior in neurons? People have spent a lot of time poking at neurons in a lot of different organisms.
Which is silly, because there are equally valid deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics, so irreducible non-determinism may not even exist.
Philosophically, is this actually better?
Whether brains exploit quantum effects on a larger scale than just locally within cells is harder to know. It is possible for sure as we have evolved complex macro structures like eye balls as long as there were viable and useful intermediate stages.
Thus to me it is theoretically possible that large scale quantum effects could be possible in the brain.
One cool thing is that if this does in fact exist in the brain, there is likely a lot that we could learn from it. It would be stable at room temperature, robust under moderate vibrations, and made from non-exotic materials.
Large scale quantum effects does not make the brain special in a mystical way, I just view them as an meaningful optimization over non-quantum consciousness. Given that we know that the results of quantum effects can be simulated on non-quantum computers, then quantum consciousness isn't unique to quantum capable devices, it is just more efficient on those devices than others.
And given that biology always seems to surprise with its ingenuity, it seems likely that those brains who use more efficient methods of computation would have evolutionary advantages over those that do not. It would then follow that if quantum consciousness (AKA large scale quantum effects in the brain) existed, it would be widespread, and likely not restricted to just humans.
Regular old transistors use "quantum effects" left and right, but they're ultimately just classical computing devices.
My definition of "magical" would be that neurons use some non-obvious/non-linear quantum effect that is required for mammalian(?) levels of brain function. (Neurotransmitters probably do use some quantum effects because of their nature)
Now I think consciousness happens at a higher abstraction level and is not necessarily dependant on lower-level implementation up to a point.
What does that even mean? Ice "uses" quantum effects when melting, but that does not mean that we cannot accurately explain the behavior of melting ice without taking these quantum effects into account.
Then, if we can't explain its behaviour without the usage of QM then I'd say it is essencial.