Differentials in intelligence disprove brain as quantum computer

(Andrew W., PoliSci@Madison, Our place in the universe: Alexander Wendt and

quantum mechanics International Theory (2022), 14 (1), 130–145 doi:10.1017/S1752971921000063)

Given the overlap with chapters 5 and 6, some of my objections to those chapters apply here as well. But I will focus on a different question, that of plant life. Plants are certainly alive, and I would be willing to say that they have a rudimentary level of consciousness, in that they can respond, however slowly, to their environment. They leaf and bloom when the conditions are right, respond in various adaptive ways to drought and rain, heat and cold, lost branches, and threats in the environment. However, there’s no getting around the fact that plants are slower and dumber than animals. If we posit, as Wendt must, that they have microtubules or some other structures that sustain quantum coherence, this becomes a puzzle. If quantum computing is so vastly superior to classical computing, and animals and plants alike, by virtue of their participation in the vital essence, engage in quantum computing, why are plants dumber than animals? To normal biologists, the problem is an easy one, animals have neurons and plants do not. Nervous systems allow much greater and faster computation than the crude chemical pathways that plants rely on. The more neurons, the smarter the animal. But, from the quantum vitalist perspective, the problem is puzzling. If quantum processes simply help neurons ‘work better’ than they otherwise would, then are plants, bereft of neurons, not alive?