However, Penrose and others made a shocking suggestion: perhaps you already have a quantum computer - in your head! They suggest that our brains (or at least parts of them) are quantum computers, and that this is a key to understanding consciousness.
Since decoherence spoils quantum effects, I decided to use the decoherence formulas that I'd been scooped on to check whether Penrose's idea really worked. I first did the maths for neurons...
...
When I plugged in the numbers, the answer I got was "not very long at all", or to be more specific, about 10^-20 (then billionths of a trillionth) of a second...
...
I also did the maths for another model that Penrose had proposed, where the quantum computation was done not by neurons but by microtubules, parts of the scaffolding in cells, and ... (查看原文)
I've switched from collecting stamps to collecting cool questions whose answer is 42. Here are my favourites so far:
1. At what latitude was the book written?
2. What's the radius of the rainbow, in degrees?
3. At most how many percent of the gas around it can a black hole gobble up?
Feeding a black hole turns out to be a lot like feeding a baby: most of the material comes flying back at great speeds... Black holes can eat at most 1-1/√3 ≈ 42% of the gas around them. (查看原文)
凯闻
6小时3分44秒
lavida77
宁朵朵
Rigel
3 有用 Moon 2017-09-02 08:36:57
天才的讲述者，将如此深奥的问题以普通读者能大致看懂的方式娓娓道来，一本书的篇幅从最小到最大尺度，从实体到意识，令人叹服，大呼过瘾。四层平行宇宙，将物理学、宇宙学、数学、认知科学、哲学贯穿其中，太多值得思考之处，回味无穷。特别有趣的是书中那些图解，将你一步步引向“万物之理”。
8 有用 Sunday 2020-07-28 20:54:10
超级牛书。也是近年来读过的信息密度最大的书，精读每一章花费的时长和收益都超过任意一本大学教材。其中关于宇宙、物质、意识、未来等终极问题的思考和探索，不仅覆盖面广(这不是那种一本书反复讲一个观点的科普著作，而是每一章阐述多个宏大问题，且环环相扣)且逻辑推演相对缜密，文笔可读性强，作者扎实的科学基础和广阔的视野都令人叹为观止，而其中最引人共鸣的还是那始终如孩子般的好奇心和想象力，换句话说，大师的视角反... 超级牛书。也是近年来读过的信息密度最大的书，精读每一章花费的时长和收益都超过任意一本大学教材。其中关于宇宙、物质、意识、未来等终极问题的思考和探索，不仅覆盖面广(这不是那种一本书反复讲一个观点的科普著作，而是每一章阐述多个宏大问题，且环环相扣)且逻辑推演相对缜密，文笔可读性强，作者扎实的科学基础和广阔的视野都令人叹为观止，而其中最引人共鸣的还是那始终如孩子般的好奇心和想象力，换句话说，大师的视角反而比相关垂直学科的普通学者或博士生更谦卑和充满激情——这一本读罢，互联网非专业学术社区内的绝大部分相关讨论都没有看的必要了，你的认知已在他们之上(比如第三层平行宇宙、多宇宙诠释，知乎上绝大部分答主自己都不明白)。换句话说，这属于那种在相关问题的认知上，看一本就能至少超越几亿没看过的非专业人士的作品。 (展开)
1 有用 如火如茶 2018-03-23 00:01:07
最后一章没耐心看了
1 有用 陈楸帆 2022-06-01 14:07:54
第五章之后渐入佳境，我相信这至少是部分的真相，即现实，宇宙以及意识自身，都是巨大而微妙的数学结构，以语言无法描绘的方式相互映射关联。
3 有用 优游卒岁 2019-06-15 14:05:13
作者脑洞极其大，很让人开眼界，要想完全接受，恐怕还得细细思索。但该书与其说是科学的论证，毋宁说是哲学的沉思。很多的看法与结论，感觉已经超出了科学的范畴，特别是最后几章，基本上已经进入形而上的领域了。