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Comment by InSteady | Hacker News Reader

Reading a brief quote given to a journalist and assuming you fully understand the scientific reasoning that went into that snippet intended for lay audiences is also a remarkable assumption. There is an incredible amount of context missing from the article, the quote, and of course discussion in this thread. But my main issue is that you jump from phrasing in the quote, 'supports the model,' to 'must be' which is an underhanded way to make the researcher seem ridiculous.

"We can't come up with anything better, and have ruled out everything we reasonably can at this point in our inquiry, so therefore the findings support the only remaining plausible mechanism" is literally how science works a lot of the time. It's why the researcher specifically said 'supports the model' not 'must be quantum consciousness,' because this researcher knows and is implicitly acknolwedging there is a whole lot more work to be done.

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> We can't come up with anything better, and have ruled out everything we reasonably can at this point in our inquiry, so therefore the findings support the only remaining plausible mechanism.

No, quite the opposite. As the top-level comment pointed out, this is god-of-the-gaps reasoning. If you fail to find discrete evidence of consciousness anywhere in the brain, the natural conclusion is not "it must be an inscrutable quantum phenomenon that we have been unable to investigate thus far." The natural conclusion is that consciousness is simply not a discrete phenomenon.

We have zero scientific evidence that a mechanism for consciousness is hiding in some part of the brain, waiting to be found. Rather, there exists a popular intuitive dualism that suggests our own consciousness must be more than an emergent neurological phenomenon—that it must be a discrete thing caused by an exotic mechanism with non-computable properties. Ideas like quantum microtubule consciousness (or "orchestrated objective reduction") are the product of motivated reasoning: They exist only to keep dualism on life support, in the face of adverse evidence.

I don't have a methodological problem with this study in particular. If we take quantum microtubule consciousness seriously, it's a perfectly good study. But we shouldn't take it seriously—it's a ridiculous ad-hoc hypothesis that mashes together various cutting-edge fields of science with a hefty dose of quantum mysticism in order inject doubt and escape the potentially upsetting conclusion that consciousness is not a "real" phenomenon in the way that we perceive it to be.

I do have methodological issues with the study, but that's not the issue at hand, I guess. It is that the study does nothing to support a microtubule/quantum theory of consciousness, because there is no reason why boring cell biology stuff (vesicle transport on tubules, electrical conductivity, etc.) couldn't explain anything here. The paper doesn't present any mechanism or theory. So it's irresponsible to say that it "supports" anything other than a possible effect of a drug known to stabilize microtubules interfering with gas anesthesia.

Methodologically, it is curious that the 2 rats that got 2 doses of epoB during the study had no effect and the 6 rats that had 1 dose had effects varying from not much to a lot, but not every time. No control rats per se, it was self-controlled, by testing them for a period of time before the first or only dose.

Often I think about the subtext when I read a paper. Where is the benchtop research before going to animal model? Why this choice of rat and not inbred mice, for example? Why have 4 pairs F, G, H, and I but only 1 pair (I1 and I2) have any difference mentioned in the methods section and then they don't talk about the surprising result for I1 and I2 in their results section? Why do they have a chart that shows each individual test but they don't connect the dots to show you which rat is which? It's really not a great paper.

> Rather, there exists a popular intuitive dualism that suggests our own consciousness must be more than an emergent neurological phenomenon

I don't get a challenge of consciousness as something else than an emergent neurological phenomenon. The problem is by what mechanism does it emerge. Animals without language show sign of consciousness (even if more limited form), and conversely high level computation does not especially in the light of the capabilities of LLMs (computers are crushing numbers identically no matter if the matrix multiplications are for rendering a scene or LLM inference, otherwise it would mean that some arbitrary sequences of numbers lead to consciousness like magic formulas). That leaves only something physical/biological to explain the emerging phenomenon, which is what the research is trying to do.

Why does high level computation not show signs of consciousness? I'm not sure what crushing numbers identically has to do with anything.

Once again, you've converted "this supports [alternate theory]" into "it must be [alternate theory]." At least address the argument being made instead of a strawman.

Suppose I wrote a paper about how the low oxygen content on Mars means that Martian leprechauns, should they exist, must have extra-large lungs in order to thrive on the surface. Is this a sensible scientific publication? It's not wrong. It doesn't assume Martian leprechaun theory is true—it merely seeks to establish its parameters more clearly. I would not call it serious science, though. It's farcical. Any discussion of the paper should primarily regard the fact that leprechauns almost certainly do not live on Mars and so the question of their lung size is entirely moot. In fact, discussing Martian leprechauns as if they're at all a serious subject is itself a form of deceptive rhetoric.

Agree. It's incredibly frustrating seeing takes on science by engineers on HN. It's as bad as, if not worse than, the takes I see about politics around here.

For context, this is what the paper itself says:

> In order to experimentally assess the contribution of MTs as functionally relevant targets of volatile anesthetics, we measured latencies to loss of righting reflex (LORR) under 4% isoflurane in male rats injected subcutaneously with vehicle or 0.75 mg/kg of the brain- penetrant MT–stabilizing drug epothilone B (epoB). EpoB-treated rats took an average of 69 s longer to become unconscious as measured by latency to LORR. This was a statistically significant difference corresponding to a standardized mean difference (Cohen’s d) of 1.9, indicating a “large” normalized effect size. The effect could not be accounted for by tolerance from repeated exposure to isoflurane. Our results suggest that binding of the anesthetic gas isoflurane to MTs causes unconsciousness and loss of purpose-ful behavior in rats (and presumably humans and other animals). This finding is predicted by models that posit consciousness as a property of a quantum physical state of neural MTs.

> Our study establishes that action on intracellular microtubules (MTs) is the mechanism, or one of the mechanisms, by which the inhalational anesthetic gas isoflurane induces unconsciousness in rats. This finding has potential clinical implications for understanding how taxane chemotherapy interferes with anesthesia in humans and more broadly for avoiding anesthesia failures during surgery. Our results are also theoretically important because they provide support for MT-based theories of anesthetic action and consciousness.

Let me emphasize:

> This finding is predicted by models that posit consciousness as a property of a quantum physical state of neural MTs.

If people here want to criticize the paper, I want to see some citations of passages from the fucking paper, and not some hur-dur quote from a popular science article meant to convey the paper to a lay audience. But you know, 99% of the paper would be indecipherable to most people here, so all we get is these surface level takes that wastes everybody's time.

The intellectual laziness in these comments is galling.

I'm all for a rant on how computer science isn't, but this attack on only the comments seems a bit over the top. Why not attack the posting of the pop-sci article with quotes so bad in the first place?

My issue with the ScienceDaily and even the original eNeuro article isn't with individual quotes, but with the apparent motivated reasoning of the papers. I'm generally aware of the field quantum-consciousness, Orch OR, and with Penrose's theories. I'm also aware of the funding/publishing methods in science and this looks a bit weak. The evidence is, we didn't find another mechanism. That there had to be corrections on supporting research, which included the names of additional funders (Templeton Foundation) is also not a wonderful sign (if you know you know).

The actual article research covers the effect of epoB on tolerance and latency of anesthesia in rats, which support the action of isoflurane on microtubules (MT) as at least one mechanism. There is a bunch of other stuff about quantum consciousness that reads like a review paper. Quantum is mentioned 58 times and plays no role in their actual measurement or results.

https://www.eneuro.org/content/11/8/ENEURO.0291-24.2024

I actually didn't find the paper that hard to read, it's mostly basic science and huge review of Orch OR. I don't consider it a big prestigious journal, and I don't recognize names on it, but the actual results (limited as they are) don't seem outrageous or unsupported. I'm also not sure they're that interesting unless you already have a fringe theory to support.

I'll bite.

This paper doesn't show anything beyond an anesthetic's possible effect on microtubules, assuming it's reproducible. I see nothing about ruling out other pathways that may also affect consciousness. That big leap from MT to consciousness is still there, for which there are plenty of solid criticisms [0] by other respected scientists.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reducti...

> I see nothing about ruling out other pathways that may also affect consciousness.

Especially given how many things are simply not understood about the neuron and other cells in the brain.

The discovered complexity continues to expand every year and each new discovery (e.g. dynamic tunneling nanotubes in vivo) takes a lot of effort to try to figure out the impact on computation.

OP's criticism was useful, because there is indeed a gap that needed to be filled and you did just that, thanks.

Conversely it would have been bad to take what the article says at face value - that's how you end up believing in astrology. Even Nobel prize winners can go terribly wrong, after all [1]. But as you said, not everyone has the knowledge or time to dig the connection between the two statements out of the paper.

I can only suggest to ask questions when one does not understand something; sarcasm in particular can backfire hard when you're wrong.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease

>> It's incredibly frustrating seeing takes on science by engineers on HN.

That’s crazy talk. I personally find the various takes on topics here on HN valuable and insightful and sometimes it’s the out of the box thinking that you get when an engineer talks about science - especially when it’s broken down to levels I can start to understand.

Your appeal is staunch but your own quotes from the paper fail to give a convincing argument for the jump to quantum physics.

The abstract itself didn't assert such a thing. Just that it 'lends support' for that explanation.

How does it "support" or "lend support", wouldn't it be more correct to say "it doesn't rule out" and which likely seems a bit pointless statement so why bring it in, in the first place?

Support seems like an active statement kind of like if we realize that 2 + 2 != 5 it lends support to 2 + 2 = 6.

You're doing an awful amount of nitpicking. I didn't find the abstract that hard to read. There's a big discussion in the scientific community about whether consciousness involves quantum effects or not, and this nudges that debate more into quantum territory. Unless you are part of that community, you're going to be reliant on others to characterize these kinds of results. That characterization was helpfully provided in the abstract, which is a good thing because otherwise we'd need to rely on profit-motivated journals to do it for us.

> You're doing an awful amount of nitpicking.

I'm absolutely not. I have a problem with science wording such as "suggests", "linked to", and "supports", since many times these findings could be just a complete coincidence or chance, but the way the titles are worded is implied it's actually somehow making a case for that. It's not explicitly falsifying the idea of A, but it doesn't mean it's supporting it either. Maybe it also supports the idea that God is behind all of that and is just trolling us.

The microtubule "quantum consciousness" hooey has been around since the 90's. It was paid lip service in my biochemistry and molecular biology classes almost as a joke when covering dynamic instability and transport.

While it wouldn't be strictly impossible to test, it's very much cut in the same cloth as string theory.

Roger Penrose pushing hooey?

he wouldn't be the first (won't be the last) celebrated hard science guy to have very bad takes on human biology (and consciousness).

at least they have some kind of falsifiable model: https://physicsworld.com/a/quantum-theory-of-consciousness-p...

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