If you didn't know that there is a human being that interacts with a computer and you only see the computer, you think the computer is conscious because... Yeah, you think it, but it's not. But it's not.
Right, I understand that. I'm trying to get to see where it can be.
Yeah, no, a quantum, only a quantum field, because you need, in order to be a real conscious being, an entity, a society, you must be a field. You must have identity, and you must have consciousness and a free will agency.
Federico, what are the implications of your theory of quantum-based information panpsychism for the current question about AI consciousness? I think most techno-optimists, as I call them, believe that AI consciousness, although not here yet, is on the immediate horizon, and whether it's 5 years or 10 years, with an almost certainty that AI will become conscious in some sense as we are. How does your theory speak to that idea?
Yeah, my theory says that classical computers cannot be conscious. Cannot be conscious. Consciousness can only be explained by quantum fields that are conscious and have free will. The properties of consciousness and free will, which, you know, intertwine, require the quantum properties of fields, and by starting there you explain why quantum fields have those properties. So, you know, you cannot have a classical computer. A classical computer is deterministic. Determinism means no free will. And if you don't have free will, even if you were conscious, that consciousness cannot do anything, because it's the operation of the computer that determines what happens, not consciousness. Consciousness is causeless; it has no causal power.
So, what about quantum computers?
So, quantum computers are also deterministic. The quantum states evolve deterministically. They cannot do anything more than classical computers can do, but they can do it much faster. So they are very useful because of that, compared to classical computers. So what happens then for a quantum computer associated with the operation, when the quantum computer operates as a quantum computer, meaning it's evolving the quantum states eventually to the answer that you get in space and time, that evolution does not happen in space and time; nowhere it happens. Physicists cannot explain how it works, but we know that it does. So associated with that evolution, there is a consciousness, a temporary consciousness, which is an epiphenomenon of that evolution. So the epiphenomenon is a consciousness that exists only for a short time, but is not connected in any way with the computer, that cannot do anything about it. So the computer is not conscious. In any event, it cannot have free will, cannot go beyond the algorithm, the quantum state that is evolving based on the construction of the machine.
Is it not possible that a quantum computer can also have an associated quantum consciousness field?
Well, you know, what you can do, in fact, you can even think of a computer, a classical computer, that if the classical computer asks in its input some information, and you could have a conscious being giving the computer information, you can say the computer is conscious, but only because there is a conscious being that gives it the information and understands what it's doing. And but that's exactly how we use the computers. We are conscious beings with the computer, for the computer to do the algorithmic stuff that we... We're conscious beings because we have, or we have associated with us, or we are a conscious field to begin with.
Okay. So is it not possible that a non-biological entity can also have a consciousness field? If you allow a quantum computer to ask for new inputs, right, while it's processing, which I...
Those are not the kind of computers that we have right now. The computers that we have right now, you set them up and then they go, and then you got the answer. So that is not that type. The classical computer, you can have the input instructions or interrupts, you know, so they can actually be controlled from the outside. You can also inject into a computer a new program when you interrupt, if there is an interrupt facility. So you can do something where a conscious being can interact with the computer. And then if you didn't know that there is a human being that interacts with the computer, and you only see the computer, you think the computer is conscious because... Yeah, you think it, but it's not. But it's not.
Right, I understand that. I'm trying to get to see where it can be.
Yeah, a quantum, only a quantum field, because you need, in order to be a real conscious being, an entity, a society, you must be a field. You must have identity, and you must have consciousness and a free will agency. And the computer, quantum computer, does not have free will agency, and is not a field. It's just a structure that we are building in space and time.
And we are that consciousness field, but what is it about that association that cannot be associated with a computer? I mean, is there something special about life itself, or the human life? What is it?
Yeah, the cells. I mean, my conscious field communicates with the cells of my body, with the atoms and molecules inside the cells of my body. It doesn't communicate with the electrical signals in the brain. The electrical signals in the brain are classical information. You cannot go from quantum to classical in that way. You have to go through what I call light information, you know, through the quantum vacuum, the fluctuation of the quantum vacuum, and through the manipulation of quantum states inside the cells, then you can communicate with the body. So our consciousness communicates with the body in ways that we have to find out. Perhaps they are the microtubules of, you know, Penrose's theory. But that's a way in which consciousness could communicate with the body, you know, directly, quantum to quantum, quantum to what I call light information, which is structures, physical structures, quantum physical structures in space and time.
And why can't that same thing happen in a non-biological system that processes information?
