Universal Common Designer theory [UPDATED and REVISED]

I’ll put it back in a few days. Enjoy! :slight_smile:

I am going to provide a clear and concise version of my central argument so I can understand fully what I am missing or not explaining right here. I updated some of my citations to try to be more accurate at supporting my claims.

According to all the evidence that has accumulated in support of the Orch-OR theory of consciousness…

(A) Human Consciousness is a quantum mechanical process.

The finer scale of consciousness: quantum theory (nih.gov)

(B) The wave-function is objectively real

Measurements on the reality of the wavefunction | Nature Physics

(C) If (A) is true, consciousness is required to collapse the wave-function

Experimental test of local observer independence (science.org)

Phys. Rev. A 100, 012114 (2019) - Compatibility of causal hidden-variable theories with a delayed-choice experiment (aps.org)

If no one can understand the sources enough to accept these premises or are just not convinced those sources support the premises, then that is fine. I am going need everyone to accept these premises for the sake of further discussion. However, this is not expected or necessary for the premises and sources below.

As I suggested before, Jesus is the best explanation for DNA or origins of life because he is the only human that is transcended or could have existed to perform the act in question. However, this is not an assumption but an inference based on the previous observations and experiments.

This involves the three supported premises I mentioned above plus the digital code found in DNA that resembles human information… All of this suggests that a transcended conscious agent was the cause, which matches the description of Jesus. The following supported premises below are what confirm this explanation:

The Appearance of Design

Survey of Engineering Models for Systems Biology (hindawi.com)

Failure to Explain the Evidence through Unguided Natural Processes

The Origins of Life: The Managed-Metabolism Hypothesis | SpringerLink

Reproduction of the Design Patterns

Total synthesis of Escherichia coli with a recoded genome | Nature

Furthermore, the long list of design flaws that have been found to be optimal provide additional evidence that this cause is divine. It also provides evidence that this cause is a common designer because a perfect being cannot change or violate his nature and it gives us insight into the motives of the designer. This means that it is a perfectly testable theory going forward.

I hope this concise version of my theory’s central argument clears up where I was going with some of these premises and sources. Now, I want to know from everyone what exactly I am missing still or not explaining right.

This is what you keep asking for, but it is evident that you want something else. So what do you really want?

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Perhaps, perhaps not. Your source indicates this is merely a popular view. Either you haven’t read it, or you’re misrepresenting it.

Probable, but your source doesn’t say that. It says that if there is an objective reality, the wave function corresponds to it. I don’t think you have read your source.

False. This simply does not follow from your premises.

Claptrap.

A lie. That is not based on the previous observations and experiments, none of which mention Jesus, but on your religious beliefs.

You’re still missing honesty about your actual sources and their actual contents.

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My argument that chickens are really bears is as follows:

(1) According to the COcka-DOodle-Do theory, chickens are a collapsing wave function;
(2) It takes three licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop (or three to get to the centre, in the UK);
(3) Well, strangers have lived on longer trains before.

Ergo, chickens are bears, QED.

Now, I’d like to know EXACTLY what I am missing here. And I’d like everyone to spend a great deal of time explaining it to me, following which I will not listen and will reiterate the above.

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There isn’t any such evidence. None. Zilch. Zero. Nada.

Orch-OR is a speculative hypothesis. The people who support it give reasons. But reasons are not the same thing as evidence.

Repeating the same false assertions about evidence does not help your case.

Nobody doubts that quantum mechanics is involved. But quantum mechanics is involved with everything, so that’s not saying much.

The paper that you cite starts with “Consciousness is a multidisciplinary problem that has puzzled all human beings since the origin of human life.” That is surely a gross exaggeration.

Then you might as well abandon your project right now.

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What you are “missing” is the fact that you have reached the stage where it would seem that nobody here accepts that you have any understanding of the underlying scientific fields or of the sources you cite, or any appreciable capacity to learn from interaction with us.

I’m sorry if this seems harsh, but given your repeated insistence on resurrecting debunked claims, I see no choice but to be blunt. You do not deal with the undead by offering them tea and comfort, you do so by putting a stake through their heart.

The problem is rather that I understand the sources sufficiently to know that you have no appreciable understanding of them.

I neither accept your premises, nor the value of further discussion. The number of Likes that this comment received would appear to indicate that I’m not alone in this.

I don’t think there’s anybody here who thinks you have adequately dealt with the issues they have raised. You can either (i) accept our opinions and abandon your “theory”, or (ii) reject our opinions and take your “theory” to a more sympathetic audience. It makes no sense to try and keep selling your “theory” to a group that has so pervasively and emphatically rejected it. You are flogging a dead horse.

To the best of my memory, you have presented no experimental “evidence” in support of Orch-OR, merely opinions in support of it – and most of those were Penrose and Hameroff’s own not in the least bit unbiased opinions.

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Yes. Aside from incoherence, Meerkat’s Universal Common Designer Theory appears to have no valid connection to QM.

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But remember, you have to accept my premises!

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As I remarked earlier, I have heard it said that if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics. But I had never previously seen this statement so convincingly demonstrated.

On the subject of premises, I am reminded of the story about Bertrand Russell (I think that’s right, though I may be misattributing here…) at a cocktail party. He said that any false conclusion could be shown to follow from any false premise. Someone responded, “Oh, come on, now! You can’t say that because one plus one is three, you are the Pope.” Russell responded that if one plus one is three, two is three; subtract one from each side and it’s clear that one is two. The pope and I are two, ergo, the Pope and I are one, ergo, I am the Pope.

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The short answer is that I am looking for any other issues that you guys might find from my latest construction of my argument beside the ones you mentioned. Going about it this way has helped me sort out the logic behind the argument. So far, the issues seemed to primarily involve the inaccuracy of my citations being supportive to my premises. I am also still waiting for confirmation from you on whether you still think my theory is testable after providing an empirical basis for a perfect being and common behavioral patterns.

Keep in mind, I am not relying on Penrose’s “unproven” additional postulation that a universal mind governs the entire universe from the Orch-OR theory to be correct or proven correct for my proof of God to work (if this is what you are referring to here). Instead, I am relying on the Orch-OR theory’s support of human consciousness that is primarily pioneered by his co-partner Hammeroff to support my theory because it is a very well established and is used by other scientists for their work as I showed you before. Basically, I combine the Orch-OR theory’s findings with the findings coming from the observer effect results to argue that Jesus was the transcendent conscious agent that created and governed life on earth.

That is correct. I should have said, Human Consciousness is non-computable or non-local as they suggested in numerous articles. The one I provided here was just to show all the evidence that has accumulated for the theory over the past two decades.

No, I was talking about the first three premises ONLY because they dealt with quantum physics. I have noticed less engagement with my theory from everyone when this is the focus of our discussion versus fields in biology and biochemistry.

I find this very remarkable but perplexing, The number of times where I have changed my theories contents and sources would be too exhausting and long to list.

I am still not following you here. I thought debunking claims is what science is all about. Since most people here are scientists, then this is just business as usual for everyone except you who is admiittedly not a scientist .

If that is going to be your response, then I am just going to throw it right back at you. I even provided an example of this that you have yet to address.

I agree. If I was trying to convince everyone here that this scientific theory was true or useful, then it would be more wise to go to a more sympathetic audience. However, this was never my intention going into this. Instead, I came to present my case here for it to be critiqued by experts so I can improve on it as much as I possibly can. So far, It has been a success and my understanding of this theory and my arguments has improved greatly. I am confident we are almost done completing it.

However, my idea of completion is fleshing out all the issues with the theory that cannot be resolved either within this forum or at this present time and making sure it is cohesive or comprehensible

Go to page 576 to find out which predictions were tested and confirmed:

b2237_Ch-14.indd (arizona.edu)

Then, read these sources to find more evidence that support other aspects of the theory:

Nuclear Spin Attenuates the Anesthetic Potency of Xenon Isotopes in Mice: Implications for the Mechanisms of Anesthesia and Consciousness - PubMed (nih.gov)

Inhalational Anesthetic-binding Proteins in Rat Neuronal Membranes* - Journal of Biological Chemistry (jbc.org)

Halothane binding proteome in human brain cortex - PubMed (nih.gov)

Anesthetic Alterations of Collective Terahertz Oscillations in Tubulin Correlate with Clinical Potency: Implications for Anesthetic Action and Post-Operative Cognitive Dysfunction (nih.gov)

Direct modulation of microtubule stability contributes to anthracene general anesthesia - PubMed (nih.gov)

Computational Predictions of Volatile Anesthetic Interactions with the Microtubule Cytoskeleton: Implications for Side Effects of General Anesthesia (nih.gov)

Again, this is what you keep saying, but in repeated trials this has not satisfied you. So what do you want?

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That’s all that I was assuming.

No, it is not well established. Most of the people working in consciousness research do not agree with Orch-OR.

That word “argue” should instead be “assert”. You have not provided any credible argument to support this.

There is less engagement, because just about everybody here has given up on you as incapable of presenting a credible argument.

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What is “perplexing” is why you think changing your theories in some way demonstrates any of these things, particularly when your ‘changes’ frequently repeat the errors that have been pointed out to you.

You would appear to have ignored my use of the words “repeated” and “resurrecting”. My point was that you keep bringing up claims after they have been debunked. (Hence @Puck_Mendelssohn’s satirical comment “… following which I will not listen and will reiterate the above.”) This has nothing to do with science as it is practiced.

And whilst I am not a scientist, I do have a reasonably extensive Tertiary background in Philosophy and Formal Logic. Enough of a background to know complete illogic when I see it.

And the pervasive expert opinion would appear to be that you have failed to improve it. To the extent that I have expertise in logic, I agree with this opinion – the illogic demonstrated by your earlier attempts has not been in any appreciable way improved upon.

Can you point to anyone on this thread, other than yourself who is of the opinion that any of these is true:

  1. It has been a success.

  2. Your understanding has improved greatly.

  3. Your arguments have improved greatly.

  4. That we are almost done completing it.

I would suggest not.

Then let me provide you with an example of how my understanding was “sufficient” to know you don’t understand your sources:

Not only does your source make no mention of “consciousness”, a “conscious observer” or similar, but it makes very clear that the observer they are defining need not be conscious:

Before we describe our experiment in which we test and indeed violate inequality (2), let us first clarify our notion of an observer. Formally, an observation is the act of extracting and storing information about an observed system. Accordingly, we define an observer as any physical system that can extract information from another system by means of some interaction and store that information in a physical memory.

From this my understanding of the source is “sufficient” that I can determine that you must have no understanding of the source at all in order to think that it supports your position.

I have no idea what “example” you are talking about. But then given the shear volume of posts that you have made, and the exceedingly low signal-to-noise ratio (figuratively speaking) of them, it is hardly an indictment if I missed some of your claims.

Given that this is a book chapter, not a peer-reviewed article, it simply amounts to Penrose & Hameroff’s claim that Hameroff’s predictions have been confirmed. It provides no evidence that these claims have been accepted by the wider scientific community.

Another problem is that it provides no indication whether more orthodox theories of consciousness predict these outcomes as well (or alternatively whether they have successfully predicted other outcomes that Orch-OR has not).

This is the problem of basing your understanding of a hypothesis’ scientific standing exclusively on the claims of its proponents.

No @Meerkat_SK5. Given that you have repeatedly proven yourself incapable of determining if a source supports your position I will not waste my time reading still more of them.

Addendum:

@nwrickert: “keep in mind” that this “additional postulation” of Penrose’s is not merely “unproven”, it appears to exist nowhere except in @Meerkat_SK5’s fevered imagination. Yet they seem unable to stop themselves from referring to it repeatedly, when it is pointed out to them that Orch-OR itself is merely a hypothesis, not a scientific theory.

@Meerkat_SK5 appears to be incapable of even entertaining the idea that Orch-OR is not widely supported in the scientific community.

This is perhaps an example of motivated reasoning, as an argument based on a hypothesis as controversial and poorly-accepted as Orch OR would surely fail against a concept as widely accepted and well-evidenced as Common Descent. (Yet another reason why I think their argument is fatally flawed.)

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I have already liked this post. So I cannot give another like for that addendum. I guess I’ll have to make it a reply.

You call it “motivated reasoning”. I’m more inclined to call it “wishful thinking”. @Meerkat_SK5 seems incapable of distinguishing between theology and science.

I am going to craft a syllogism to provide a much more coherent framework of the fundamental premise of my overall argument. It should show everyone that I was not trying to assume God’s existence when I inferred that Jesus was the cause for life’s origins and evolution. BTW, I borrowed the structure of this syllogism from this paper since I suck at syllogisms and the authors are better experts at providing accurate citations:
Quantum Idealism - biocomplexitys Website!

A preliminary deductive argument for quantum idealism could be formulated as follows:

  • Premise 1: There is a wave function of the universe.
  • Premise 2: The wave function of quantum mechanics is real, but not of a spatiotemporal-physical nature, but of a mathematical nature. [1]
  • Premise 3: Mathematical objects are abstract concepts that presuppose a conscious mind as a carrier.
  • Conclusion: There is a universal consciousness in which the wave function of the universe “lives”.

The above indications in favor of quantum idealism can also be summarized in the following deductive “proof of God”, which is my central argument:

  • Premise 1 : Life emerges from entangled information. [2] [3]

  • Premise 2 : Quantum entanglement of information is synonymous with integration of information and thus synonymous with consciousness.

(Theory of Integrated Information experimentally confirmed by quantum biological effects of gamma synchronicity under anesthesia) [4][5]
.

  • Conclusion 1 : Life emerges from consciousness.

  • Premise 3 : There is a single Universal Wave Function UWF, which implies the entanglement of all matter-energy and thus all information into a single integrated information state. [6]

  • Conclusion 2 : Life emerged from a single universal consciousness.

Since consciousness is real, but not of a spatiotemporal-physical nature, but of a mathematical nature, as argued above, consciousness is required to collapse the wave-function and ,thus, bring any form of life into existence.[7]

[1] Laws of nature and the reality of the wave function | SpringerLink

[2] The algorithmic origins of life | Journal of The Royal Society Interface (royalsocietypublishing.org)

[3] The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life : Davies, Paul: Amazon.de: Books

[4] Frontiers | The Mathematical Structure of Integrated Information Theory | Applied Mathematics and Statistics (frontiersin.org)

[5] The neurophysics of consciousness - ScienceDirect

[6] Quantum-nonlocality at all speeds – ScienceDaily

[7] Von Neumann–Wigner interpretation - Wikipedia

Furthermore, these premises or claims that I supported before, such as…

The Appearance of Design
Failure to Explain the Evidence through Unguided Natural Processes
Reproduction of the Design Patterns

… were just there to show that the universal consciousness was a common designer in the form of Jesus. I , then, proceeded to provide additional evidence from the design flaws that have been found to be optimal designs to further show the designer is Jesus who is perfect and unchanging but fully human. But, to be clear, this part of the argument is just here to show that Intelligent designer is a common designer.

And from this response I can determine that you either did not bother to understand my claim or that you must have no understanding of the quantum physics at all. I specifically said that…

If (A) is true, consciousness is required to collapse the wave-function

This means that consciousness must be considered non-physical in order for those experiments to show how consciousness is required to collapse the wave-function. Here a quote from an article that shows what I mean:

“The rules of quantum mechanics are correct but there is only one system which may be treated with quantum mechanics, namely the entire material world. There exist external observers which cannot be treated within quantum mechanics, namely human (and perhaps animal) minds , which perform measurements on the brain causing wave function collapse.”

Von Neumann–Wigner interpretation - Wikipedia

Then, let’s focus on utilizing your strengths instead shall we. I encourage you @Puck_Mendelssohn and @nwrickert to evaluate my syllogism and point out where I went wrong. Since you guys are experts in formal logic, this would greatly improve our discourse if you guys decide to do this instead.

I have already gave you a review article that provides evidence of this and you rejected it on misinformed and arbitrary grounds, such as relying on an outdated and unreliable source involving the credibility of a publisher (i.e. Beall’s list) .

It is funny you point this out because Mathew Fisher has done something like what you suggested. Here is a quote from an article that features this:

'Penrose is – perhaps predictably – excited by the story so far. “Stuart Hameroff and I have been of the opinion that nuclear spins might be an important ingredient of long-term memory for quite a while,” he says. “Matthew Fisher’s idea could well provide a very positive contribution to this picture.”

Penrose still pins his colours to his microtubule hypothesis, however, seeing the new proposal as a mere add-on that allows for lasting memory. “The phenomenon of consciousness is much more likely to be connected with the quantum actions of interconnected microtubules,” he says.’

Read more: Is quantum physics behind your brain's ability to think? | New Scientist

Here is the actual experiment that has been done to support his claims:

Are we quantum computers, or merely clever robots? (ucsb.edu)

Not true, I have already gave you my analysis in post 25 on why there is not a consensus yet on it. I concluded that the non-acceptance of Orch-OR theory is based on subjective reasons just life the acceptance of String theory is based on subjective reasons as well. If you want to challenge my conclusion, then by all means do so but I have made my case, nonetheless.

Here is the rest of the sources supporting their theory:

Discovery of quantum vibrations in ‘microtubules’ inside brain neurons supports controversial theory of consciousness – ScienceDaily

Anesthetic Alterations of Collective Terahertz Oscillations in Tubulin Correlate with Clinical Potency: Implications for Anesthetic Action and Post-Operative Cognitive Dysfunction | Scientific Reports (nature.com)

Live visualizations of single isolated tubulin protein self-assembly via tunneling current: effect of electromagnetic pumping during spontaneous growth of microtubule | Scientific Reports (nature.com)

Atomic water channel controlling remarkable properties of a single brain microtubule: Correlating single protein to its supramolecular assembly - ScienceDirect

Neural correlates of conscious self-regulation of emotion - PubMed (nih.gov)

“Change the mind and you change the brain”: effects of cognitive-behavioral therapy on the neural correlates of spider phobia - PubMed (nih.gov)

Training-induced cognitive and neural plasticity (nih.gov)

Rejecting citations or sources that are purported to support claims is not the same thing as debunking claims.

My mistake Dan. I forgot that you are not suggesting that DIvine action can’t be tested but you are suggesting that you don’t think it can be disproven or falsified completely like spontaneous generation.

As I told you before, my proposed method for falsification is only supposed to rule out the Judeo-Christian God. So I somewhat already agreed with you before.

What I want to know from you is… Why do you still think that my theory cannot be disproven even if we are only dealing with the Christian God and only living things on earth rather than a generic God or the entire universe?

Well, this all depends on what you and I consider to be “well-established.”. Unlike Tim, I don’t consider consensus to be the final or main arbiter of what is considered established. For instance…

Although only 6 out of 20 predictions have been confirmed for a quantum mind, most of the 14 other predictions survived falsification from testing. According to Karl Popper’s falsifiability principle, a theory is truly tested when it has survived falsification. There are other aspects of the theory that have been confirmed that do not directly correspond to the theories predictions from different researchers

More importantly, materialism in general has been officially disproven and there is a consensus on this as well, which means materialistic assumptions do not have preferred status but violate Occam’s razor. The quantum world is all there is . This is essentially what I mean by well-established and more.

It cannot be disproven for any unknown/undefined (not to mention omnipotent) entity. Claims otherwise can only be supposition, not established fact (though they might be accepted “on faith”).

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Doesn’t follow. It may not be a universal consciousness.

E.g.

  • Premise 1: There is a 3x3 magic square (true - 6, 1, 8; 7, 5, 3; 2, 9, 4)
  • Premise 2: The 3x3 magic square is real, but not of a spatiotemporal-physical nature, but of a mathematical nature. [1]
  • Premise 3: Mathematical objects are abstract concepts that presuppose a conscious mind as a carrier.
  • Conclusion: There is a consciousness in which the 3x3 magic square “lives”. (true - it’s in my consciousness).

But my consciousness is not universal. So the consciousness which holds the purported wave function need not be universal either.

Please try to ensure your theory can last more than thirty seconds.

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I am skeptical of those premises. And I am don’t see how the claimed conclusion follows from the premises.

Alternative conclusion: Solipsism. The entire world is a figment of my imagination. And I am a figment of my own imagination.

I guess that could be seen as consistent with your conclusion, if I say that my own consciousness is the universal consciousness that you are looking at.

Why are you wasting your time and our time on this nonsense. It is widely understood that:

  • The God hypothesis can be neither proved nor disproved;
  • Idealism can be neither proved nor disproved;
  • Solipsism can be neither proved nor disproved;
  • Materialism can be neither proved nor disproved.

What do you expect to accomplish with these arguments?

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A quick glance at your latest “syllogism”, tells me that you are repeating the same mistakes that have been pointed out to you in the past. This tells me that further pointing them out to you is pointless.

This is particularly true, given your “playground” response to my example above.

Balderdash. A single review article is not “evidence that these claims have been accepted by the wider scientific community”. This is particularly true when its published in a journal whose area of expertise is unrelated to Quantum Physics or Neuroscience.

What follows is a quote that has nothing at all to do with “whether more orthodox theories of consciousness predict these outcomes as well”.

This is NOT an “actual experiment” it is in fact explicitly a “talk”.

That “analysis” was nothing more than wishful thinking. An example is this statement:

How do you know that the criticisms “have all been adequately addressed in their 2014 peer-reviewed article”? Because Penrose and Hameroff said so? Balderdash.

Balderdash.

The first is simply a pop-science puff-piece about their 2014 article. The second explicitly states:

Controversial theories have been suggested that relate such microtubule processes directly to neural coherence and consciousness[71],[72],[73], but experimental confirmation is needed for validation of such claims.
[My emphasis]

The middle of those references (#72) to “Controversial theories [for which] experimental confirmation is needed” is to Orch-OR.

At which point I refuse to read through further citations of yours.

Can you find anybody on this thread that doesn’t reject your sources as failing to support your claims? If not, then the problem would appear to be on your end, not mine.

ENOUGH!

I am sick and tired of you constantly casting aspersions about others’ “understanding of the quantum physics”, when you have demonstrated absolutely no understanding of your own.

I therefore have three questions for you:

  1. What is your formal background in physics?

  2. What is your formal background in calculus?

  3. What books/textbooks on quantum physics, written by actual quantum physicists have you read? (As opposed to Youtube videos by apologists.)

Until you answer these questions, I refuse to discuss any matter related to Quantum Physics with you.

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