Oct 26, 7:08am

Both conjectures start from the same diagnosis — phenomenal binding of distributed neuronal feature-processors is classically inexplicable, and neither discrete decohered neurons nor mere synchronous firing can generate unitary experiential objects or a unitary phenomenal self (Pearce, "Schrödinger's Neurons"). Both also assume, per your premise, that the superposition principle never breaks down: no collapse, no objective reduction. But they locate the binding resource differently.

(1) Superposition of neuronal feature-processors ("Schrödinger's neurons")

  • Neurons are not effectively classical, discrete, decohered units. Distributed feature-processors enter quantum-coherent superpositions — individual neuronal "Schrödinger's cat states" — at sub-femtosecond timescales (physicalism.com).
  • A moment of phenomenally bound experience just is one such coherent macroscopic neuronal superposition: a fleeting cat state is a phenomenal simple, not an aggregate or classical ensemble of anything more primitive ( hedweb.com/physicalism).
  • The components of the superposition are the feature-processors themselves (edge, colour, motion processors, etc.); the single global state-vector with its non-zero phase relations and interference structure is the bound percept. Selection pressure harnesses sequences of these coherent states to run a fitness-tracking world-simulation at roughly 10¹⁵ coherent "frames" per second (physicalism.com).
  • Decoherence does positive explanatory work: thermally induced dephasing is progressive phenomenal unbinding — it explains why the mind "becomes unstuck" so fast, why binding is evanescent, and why neurons appear quasi-classical to neuroscientists in the first place ( hedweb.com/physicalism).

(2) Entanglement-focused conjectures

  • The proposed binding resource is nonseparability between subsystems: entangled states (e.g. across microtubules, ions, or spins in different neurons/regions) are invoked as the physical "glue" that links otherwise distinct micro-experiential units into one mind ( The Unfinishable Map).
  • The emphasis is on entanglement as a relation: two or more systems share a joint state whose statistics cannot be factorized, and this nonlocal correlation is supposed to constitute or underwrite phenomenal unity.

How they differ

Kind of unity
Literally one state — a phenomenal simple with the features as internal structure
Many subsystems plus a nonclassical relation between them
What the terms are
Components of the superposition = the features within one experience
Relata are micro-units that remain distinct; entanglement is external to them
Composition problem
Avoided — the unified state is already at the neuronal/population scale
Typically reintroduced: myriad micro-entanglements must compose into macro-unity
Indiscriminateness
Binding tied to specific, selection-harnessed cat-states tracking fitness-relevant patterns
Under unitary-only QM, entanglement with the environment is ubiquitous and generic — no account of why only some entanglement binds
Relation to collapse
Requires none; motivated precisely by the superposition principle never breaking down
Historically often paired with objective reduction (Orch OR), which the unitary-only premise excludes; a no-collapse entanglement view must instead say the joint state itself is the experience
Experimental signature
Molecular matter-wave interferometry on neuronal networks — detection of interference from neuronal cat states
Bell-type/correlation searches between brain regions — which, even if positive, demonstrate only correlations, not cat states

The core philosophical difference: entanglement is a measure of correlation between distinct systems, whereas superposition makes possible one object with many internal features. If what needs explaining is how the redness, roundness, and visual location of a tomato are features of a single experience — not three correlated micro-experiences — then correlation-type resources arguably can't deliver union. Two entangled particles remain two; a superposition of feature-processors is one state. Notably, an entangled state is itself just a superposition of product states, so on reflection the unifying work in any quantum-binding story must be done by the coherence of a single global state anyway — which is exactly what conjecture (1) takes the bound mind to be, while entanglement conjectures risk treating a statistical/structural property of states (nonseparability) as if it were phenomenal glue (Pearce, "Schrödinger's Neurons",  hedweb.com/physicalism).

Both faces of the family share vulnerabilities — chiefly Tegmark-style decoherence timescale objections in a warm, wet brain — but conjecture (1) additionally predicts something entanglement conjectures do not: that interferometry on living neuronal tissue should reveal coherent, functionally harnessed cat states, making it directly falsifiable rather than merely suggestive of quantum correlations (physicalism.com).

Oct 26, 7:08am

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