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Abstract:
Traditional models of brain function, which attempt to provide
a dynamical account of the specifically conscious aspects of
memory invoke global criteria that cannot be admitted to a causal
picture in a classical context. But without such global criteria,
features of consciousness like the serial character of conscious
recall and the apparent lack of neurophysiological modularity in
certain kinds of memory cannot be adequately explained. These
features find natural explanation in an account of memory that
allows classical mechanisms to be supplemented with one operating
on quantum theoretical principles. Such models critically depend
on the stability of the quantum mechanism and the nature and
efficacy of the interface with classical mechanisms. Such an
interface is possible in a theory of macroscopic quantum ordered
states in which 1) quantum signals are provided with the means to
influence meso-scale neural function and 2) the discriminated
information inherent in networks of neurons can be usefully
translated into a quantum encoding. Stability in a vacuum
encoding can be generically ensured and the conditions for its
establishment can be met under the stresses of a biological
environment. The vacuum parameter coding memory in the quantum
system can be determined in terms of physical parameters, forming
the basis of a common language for the quantum and classical
systems of memory and allowing information flow from one system
to the other.
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