Do you believe what you claim to believe?

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... I am not aware of a formal definition of the term "material" within physics. In my experience the attempt is either arbitrary (material = everything. Why? Because that's how it's defined.) or circular (material = matter = substance = ... umm, material). There have been various philosophical discourses, but not a formal definition in physics that I am aware of. If I'm wrong, I'd be curious to hear a formal definition that doesn't fall prey to one of the two issues I listed above.

Fair enough; I take it then, that - as they don't fit your definition of material, and you define spiritual as 'not material' - you're happy to accept massless particles as spiritual?

 

[Resha Caner]

Fair enough; I take it then, that - as they don't fit your definition of material, and you define spiritual as 'not material' - you're happy to accept massless particles as spiritual?

I don't think of massless wavicles as material. They are, however, as best I know, inanimate. In order to apply the term "spirit" you would need to be speaking of a person.

As I've been trying to explain, I don't really care what spirits are made of. It's just that I have the impression spirit is separate from a material body (due to John 6:63 and other reasons). And, unbelievers constantly make statements that Christians can't explain what spirit is. It's a fair challenge, but no one ever accepts my honest answer. There is always this (what I consider to be silly) demand for lab tests. When was the last time you met a person and then demanded to test them in a lab?

Anyway, since it seems to be an issue unbelievers can't get past, I did my best - an honest, sincere effort - to propose a hypothesis. Now, if someone really has the inclination, and they can find a volunteer, they can put someone in a lab and test the hypothesis.

Until that time, maybe people would be willing to follow the other branch of the discussion.

 

[Resha Caner]

Let me know if it still didn't answer your question.

It's the best post you've made in this entire thread. I've got some hope now.

There is no evidence that human consciousness can exist apart from the brain, and there's plentiful evidence that brain produces conscious experience and personality as a function of brain.

There is testimonial evidence that life does occur apart from the body. You just don't accept it. When you say "evidence" you're disqualifying testimonial evidence. So, I proposed a test. As I said to Frumious, until someone decides to actually do it, maybe you can humor me and move in a different direction.

With that said, of course most of our being is material. What we haven't discussed is whether "spirit" and "soul" are two different things. I would say they are, and that the soul is material. I consider soul roughly equivalent to what most people mean when they speak of the mind. And the mind is an emergent quality of the material brain.

BUT, eventually it all boils down to labeling some "transcendent quality" or meaning to one's existence or understanding.

It usually does. And that's what I'm trying to dig into more.

In case of a cheerleader, that would mean "solidarity" or "morale" more than anything like what you or I would be talking about.

The problem with this concept is that the semantic meaning today has expanded quite a bit, and it would be difficult to understand the meaning without the context of what one is speaking about.

Your explanation of the cheerleader's meaning is a reasonable one. And the meaning of words can change over time. I intentionally chose this tangential meaning of "spirit" to give us some common ground so we can guide the conversation back toward that transcendental issue you mentioned. In addition to the solidarity you mention, I would add that the cheerleader is asking for more than a state of mind. She's asking for feelings to be expressed in action. She's asking you to particpate in celebrating when the team wins and to encourage the team when they lose. That is an important concept that we need to hold onto: in a person, the abstract can motivate action.

As such, there is an implicit connection in meaning between the "team spirit" usage and a second usage. Suppose the cheerleader asks you to do all this "in the spirit of friendship". What does she mean?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I don't think of massless wavicles as material. They are, however, as best I know, inanimate. In order to apply the term "spirit" you would need to be speaking of a person.

OK. I was just questioning the usefulness of your definition of 'material' in this context. Seems like the definition of spirit or spiritual should mention the restriction to a person.

As I've been trying to explain, I don't really care what spirits are made of. It's just that I have the impression spirit is separate from a material body (due to John 6:63 and other reasons). And, unbelievers constantly make statements that Christians can't explain what spirit is. It's a fair challenge, but no one ever accepts my honest answer. There is always this (what I consider to be silly) demand for lab tests.

Nobody demanded anything; you proffered a definition of spirit/spiritual that needs further clarification to be comprehensible.

You said that the 'fundamental' exhibits at least one constant or continuous property, and that we can perceive it (the fundamental). Presumably it's the constant or continuous property that we perceive - can you describe that property or its perception ? e.g. what is it? what's it like?

When was the last time you met a person and then demanded to test them in a lab?

I would never demand to test anyone, but I have politely asked people to participate in a lab test (about 40 years ago).

 

[Resha Caner]

Seems like the definition of spirit or spiritual should mention the restriction to a person.

It did, didn't it? When asked to define spiritual, my reply was that it is the immaterial part of a person.

You said that the 'fundamental' exhibits at least one constant or continuous property, and that we can perceive it (the fundamental). Presumably it's the constant or continuous property that we perceive - can you describe that property or its perception ? e.g. what is it? what's it like?

In the case of a photon, its velocity is constant.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

In the case of a photon, its velocity is constant.

OK; so the spiritual is "The fundamental part of a person.", and is something we can perceive because it has a constant or continuous property. In the case of photons this property is velocity. Assuming you don't mean the fundamental part of a person is their photons, perhaps you could answer my question with regards to the perceptible property of the fundamental part of a person, i.e. can you describe that property or its perception ? e.g. what is it? what's it like?

 

[Resha Caner]

OK; so the spiritual is "The fundamental part of a person.", and is something we can perceive because it has a constant or continuous property. In the case of photons this property is velocity. Assuming you don't mean the fundamental part of a person is their photons, perhaps you could answer my question with regards to the perceptible property of the fundamental part of a person, i.e. can you describe that property or its perception ? e.g. what is it? what's it like?

I can't. It's just a hypothesis. How many elementary particles does physics currently claim? Whatever the number, whatever "quantum foam" supposedly permeates the universe, one would have to devise an experiment to determine if the brain affects that quantum foam within the space in and around the brain.

 

[devolved]

There is testimonial evidence that life does occur apart from the body. You just don't accept it. When you say "evidence" you're disqualifying testimonial evidence.

I'm not saying that testimony is unacceptable as evidence, but I merely point out that it's a MUCH less reliable form of evidence for various reasons, especially when it comes to extraordinary claims.

I'm not really sure as to how you wouldn't see that or fundamentally disagree that we can't just take people's word for it when it comes to validating some extraordinary claim.

Would you agree that it's a lot less reliable than some form of demonstrable reality behind the claim? In such context, testimony is merely repetition of the claim by other person.

So, I proposed a test. As I said to Frumious, until someone decides to actually do it, maybe you can humor me and move in a different direction.

I can't really find the test you've proposed, perhaps you can reiterate?

With that said, of course most of our being is material. What we haven't discussed is whether "spirit" and "soul" are two different things. I would say they are, and that the soul is material. I consider soul roughly equivalent to what most people mean when they speak of the mind. And the mind is an emergent quality of the material brain.

I wouldn't call a mind to be "quality". A mind is a process of the brain. A quality is a generalized consistency that we observe and give labels in order to communicate such consistency. But, I don't think you are that far off here.

Again, it seems to me that you are merely equivocating "spirit" and "mind". What would be the difference?

In addition to the solidarity you mention, I would add that the cheerleader is asking for more than a state of mind. She's asking for feelings to be expressed in action.

Feelings IS a state of mind in combination with edocrine (hormonal) system that signals organs in the body to move a certain way. So, I'm not quite sure why would you make that distinction. In reality we have a rather reflexive progression of events... Input-analysis-reaction . Your sensory organs receive input, your brain analyzes it, and it signals certain reaction that follows the analysis.

Where does the spirit falls in such setting of how our brain works? It seems like an explanation driven by misunderstanding of our physiology, especially the neuro-physiology.

She's asking you to particpate in celebrating when the team wins and to encourage the team when they lose. That is an important concept that we need to hold onto: in a person, the abstract can motivate action.

Sure, but abstraction is merely a conceptual shortcut of what's going on in reality. It's not reality itself. When she says something, the tiny compressions of air vibrate our auditory nervous mechanisms, which translates into electro-chemical process that follows a certain path of established neural pathways, which in turn directs certain reaction from our motor system.

When you abstract all of these events, of course it would seem mystical that a word can motivate action . There's a rather complex mechanical process that's going on behind the scenes that links abstract communication of the concept with various way to react to such communication.

Again, where do you fit "spirit" into that process, or are you merely equivocating the process itself with the spirit? That process is what we call "mind".

As such, there is an implicit connection in meaning between the "team spirit" usage and a second usage. Suppose the cheerleader asks you to do all this "in the spirit of friendship". What does she mean?

Again, you are committing a reification fallacy here. Please see below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)

"Team Spirit" or "Spirit of friendship" is a figurative speak that translates into certain models of reality presets that it refers to.

Perhaps you can explain as to where you are going with this. I hope I'm reading you wrong, but it looks like you are merely reifying abstraction, and you forget that abstraction figuratively refers to some processes and entities in reality that can be very easily demonstrable.

For example, when someone talks about "freedom" or "love" we are talking about a model, and not some ominous substance out of which things are made.

 

[devolved]

I can't. It's just a hypothesis. How many elementary particles does physics currently claim? Whatever the number, whatever "quantum foam" supposedly permeates the universe, one would have to devise an experiment to determine if the brain affects that quantum foam within the space in and around the brain.

Again, you seem to misunderstand the purpose of scientific models in the scope of entirety of scientific philosophy and method.

A hypothesis is relevant when a proper causation chain could be established that could both explain certain mechanics of reality, and provide some testable way to validate such causation chain. As to the real nature behind the chain... we may never actually know. It's only useful in our scope of using that knowledge to explain and make the best use of the environment that we occupy.

When scientists give some properties to particles, these properties are mathematical in nature (as labels X Y) and not ontological in terms of their description. Things like "spin" of the electron doesn't mean that electron actually spins. It's a mathematical property that gives some functional distinction when it comes to predicting collective state of function. It's only relevant in scope of the model.

When it comes to quantum models, the things get even more fuzzy, because we don't have a single valid explanation of certain phenomena. We have quite a bit of them, and there's no across-the-board agreement as to what the experiments really support. BUT, it doesn't stop certain people hijacking these potential explanations, misunderstanding the language that's only relevant in the scope of the model, and then making up unsupported ideas... for example "the law of attraction" type of things that postulate that our mind creates reality out there merely by thinking things.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I can't. It's just a hypothesis. How many elementary particles does physics currently claim? Whatever the number, whatever "quantum foam" supposedly permeates the universe, one would have to devise an experiment to determine if the brain affects that quantum foam within the space in and around the brain.

Effectively, that's been done. We know the make-up of matter in our bodies that's relevant at biological scales - electrons, protons, & neutrons in various arrangements; there are other known particles, and probably some unknown ones, but if they interacted significantly with protons, neutrons, & electrons at biological scales, we'd have seen (e.g. made) them in experiments like the LHC, which have thoroughly explored energies and scales regimes well above & below those relevant at human scales. Quantum foam and all the other particles & forces at those scales are present, but we know from empirical experience (and theory) that their effects aren't directly relevant at human scales - they actually give rise to the higher-level consistencies (Ken Wilson got the Nobel Prize for elucidating scale dependency).

We also know the fundamental forces relevant at biological scales: electromagnetism, gravity... that's it; the strong & weak nuclear forces are too short range. There may be other forces, but they are either too weak or too short range to have significant effect at biological scales (otherwise they'd have been detected years ago).

The point is, if you accept that quantum field theory is a model that works at everyday human scales - and it's passed every test at regimes well beyond that, then you accept that we know that only electromagnetic interactions are directly relevant to brain function, and we know the behaviour of the electromagnetic force well enough to know that it can't support the claims made for life after death, psychic phenomena, etc.

Sean Carroll explains this better than I can - see The Higgs Boson and the Fundamental Nature of Reality, (the relevant part starts 33mins in - although it's all worth watching):

 

[Resha Caner]

Again, you seem to misunderstand the purpose of scientific models in the scope of entirety of scientific philosophy and method.

I don't think so. I've been building models, designing & executing tests, and analyzing both for almost 30 years. If you want to start sharing credentials & war stories, we can argue about who understands science better.

Further, as I already told you, my scientific philosophy leans toward instrumentalism. What we study in science are models, and models are not reality. We seem to agree on that, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make other than to start quibbling over minor semantic details again. However, rather than continuing to burden the language by saying something like, "the phenomena commonly ascribed to the current physics model called the electron", it's just easier to say "electron" - short & sweet.

With that said, I don't specialize in QM. I'm sure my descriptions are inexact. But unless you're saying there is not one single physical phenomena which QM studies, or that it has been proven the presence of the material construct of a live brain has no impact on those phenomena, I'm betting a competent physicist could imagine a test to study if the material construct of a live brain might impact QM phenomena.

If such a test were to show no impact, then my hypothesis is wrong and we move on.

Would you agree that it's a lot less reliable than some form of demonstrable reality behind the claim?

I would not agree. Reporting scientific results is testimonial evidence. Peer reviewers at a journal don't confirm each experiment first hand. If testimonial evidence is unreliable, we're in a real pickle. Rather, what builds confidence in scientific results is repeatability. If a different person can repeat the same experiment and get the same results, confidence increases. So, I would claim it's the inability to repeat someone else's personal experience that makes it feel unreliable to you. However, if you build a relationship with that person, and eventually decide they are trustworthy (they repeatedly prove themselves worthy of trust), you might give more consideration to their claims.

Where does the spirit falls in such setting of how our brain works? It seems like an explanation driven by misunderstanding of our physiology, especially the neuro-physiology.

Scientists have certainly learned a lot about the material processes in the brain. I'm not trying to deny that knowledge or attibute any other cause to what they have learned. But to say we completely understand the brain would be wrong. There is still much unexplained behavior in people. Or are you claiming everything about human behavior is settled?

Sure, but abstraction is merely a conceptual shortcut of what's going on in reality.

There's no fallacy here. Let me rephrase for you. Whatever abstraction we may think about, there must be a physical way to represent it. Would you agree?

Perhaps you can explain as to where you are going with this.

I was headed to exactly the place indicated above. You basically got it. When the cheerleader speaks of doing something "in the spirit of friendship" she is appealing to an abstraction. She is not claiming a material connection between herself and other people. She is claiming a connection through an abstract idea ... however ... we do represent these abstract ideas in physical ways.

There is some abstraction in her mind that is represented by some physical construction. But she doesn't peel open her brain and show you its structure. She converts that abstraction to words. Those words can be conveyed multiple ways - through hearing, through reading, through touching Braille. Here is a second important idea: abstract ideas are not confined to a specific physical construct, but allow for multiple physical constructs.

When we communicate "in the spirit" of an idea ... when we communicate in abstract ... we communicate specific things that don't require specific forms. What we do need, however, is a transmitter and a receiver.

 

[bhsmte]

Round and round we go............

 

[Resha Caner]

The point is, if you accept that quantum field theory is a model that works at everyday human scales - and it's passed every test at regimes well beyond that, then you accept that we know that only electromagnetic interactions are directly relevant to brain function, and we know the behaviour of the electromagnetic force well enough to know that it can't support the claims made for life after death, psychic phenomena, etc.

Are you saying it has been proven there is no butterfly effect in the brain?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Are you saying it has been proven there is no butterfly effect in the brain?

I'm aware of the butterfly effect as sensitive dependence on initial conditions, but I don't know what you mean by 'butterfly effect' in this context. What do you mean, and why do you think it might be relevant?

 

[Resha Caner]

I'm aware of the butterfly effect as sensitive dependence on initial conditions, but I don't know what you mean by 'butterfly effect' in this context. What do you mean, and why do you think it might be relevant?

Yes, that is what I was referring to. Nonlinear systems often exhibit obvious patterns, yet slight changes in the initial conditions can produce significant divergences in the result. In colloquial terms, small changes can have a large impact.

With respect to artificial neural nets, the activation functions are nonlinear and have been observed to yield chaotic behavior. Though they are only loosely modeled on biological neural nets, I understand biological nets to also be nonlinear. As such, they would have the same potential to exhibit chaotic behavior - significantly different responses with only small changes in initial conditions.

Given the electromagnetic behavior in the brain, has it been shown they are impervious to the change of a few electrons here and there? And is it impossible to effect an electron with the change of a few photons here and there? etc.

I was asking if that was the point of your post #150?

 

[devolved]

I don't think so. I've been building models, designing & executing tests, and analyzing both for almost 30 years. If you want to start sharing credentials & war stories, we can argue about who understands science better.

Credentials have nothing to to with understanding scientific philosophy. I've known plenty of people who work in some fields of applied science and have fundamental misunderstanding of scientific philosophy.

Further, as I already told you, my scientific philosophy leans toward instrumentalism. What we study in science are models, and models are not reality. We seem to agree on that, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make other than to start quibbling over minor semantic details again.

Whether you are instrumentalist, realist, or communist is irrelevant to this discussion. Again, what matters to me as to why you hold certain concepts to be valid description of reality.

But unless you're saying there is not one single physical phenomena which QM studies, or that it has been proven the presence of the material construct of a live brain has no impact on those phenomena, I'm betting a competent physicist could imagine a test to study if the material construct of a live brain might impact QM phenomena.

I'm not quite sure what you are talking about, and it doesn't seem like you do either

1) No, the isn't a single quantum phenomenon. There are several, and there are likewise several interpretations of these phenomena.

2) No, live brain doesn't impact QM phenomenon... not that we know it. Some people mangle physics in order to promote obscene ideas:

http://www.skepticblog.org/2009/11/16/deepak-chopra-mangles-quantum-mechanics-again/

I would not agree. Reporting scientific results is testimonial evidence. Peer reviewers at a journal don't confirm each experiment first hand. If testimonial evidence is unreliable, we're in a real pickle. Rather, what builds confidence in scientific results is repeatability. If a different person can repeat the same experiment and get the same results, confidence increases. So, I would claim it's the inability to repeat someone else's personal experience that makes it feel unreliable to you. However, if you build a relationship with that person, and eventually decide they are trustworthy (they repeatedly prove themselves worthy of trust), you might give more consideration to their claims.

Not in a scientific framework it wouldn't. There are no scientific lines of reasoning that go by way of "hey... I know it sounds strange, but I've been a friend with a guy for a really long time, so he's cool. Just take his word and publish this thing as de-facto truth". Come on, man. Can't you see that you keep attempting to smuggle in these concepts that have no place in scientific research? Where do you get that stuff?

Your relationship with a person is irrelevant when it comes to validity of experimental results. Whether someone is trustworthy or not doesn't inherently protect them from making fallacious assumptions. That's why the report is not a mere testimony, but a full disclosure of the method for potential scrutiny and preproducibility, along with line of evidence that builds on previous research that has been scrutinized and validated.

Whatever abstraction we may think about, there must be a physical way to represent it. Would you agree?

I'd say that's 99% correct with a few exceptions which reside in purely conceptual realm and don't have any real equivalents that we can point to.

Scientists have certainly learned a lot about the material processes in the brain. I'm not trying to deny that knowledge or attibute any other cause to what they have learned. But to say we completely understand the brain would be wrong. There is still much unexplained behavior in people. Or are you claiming everything about human behavior is settled?

No everything isn't settled, but what's your point here? Are you hoping that the spirit/soul is hiding somewhere in the gaps of our knowledge. Again, there's very little room for such semantics in a scope of what we know is going on and how nervous system seems to work.

When we communicate "in the spirit" of an idea ... when we communicate in abstract ... we communicate specific things that don't require specific forms. What we do need, however, is a transmitter and a receiver.

Yes, but I keep asking you as to where you spirit/soul hypothesis fits in? If our nervous system breaks down concepts into reactions and signals via various organs... where does the "spirit/soul" fits into this framework. From what I gather, you seem to be agreeing with my definition of "spiritual" being a perceived function of our mind.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Given the electromagnetic behavior in the brain, has it been shown they are impervious to the change of a few electrons here and there? And is it impossible to effect an electron with the change of a few photons here and there? etc.

I don't think it's possible to show that chaotic behaviour doesn't occur in the brain - and, last I heard, there's good reason to believe significant areas of the brain operate on the edge of chaotic behaviour - which may partially explain some seizures. There is also speculation that specific neural circuits at smaller scales use chaotic attractors to generate a particular range of responses pseudo-randomly.

I was asking if that was the point of your post #150?

No, the point of that was to show that physics doesn't support any significant interactions directly between the brain and the external environment, beyond very weak electromagnetic effects that just can't support the paranormal or supernatural claims that are often made. I thought that was what you were speculating about when you mentioned possible interaction between brain and quantum foam, in response to my question about the spirit. With respect to brains and quantum foam specifically, the scales involved are so disparate that the idea of direct interaction is meaningless (quantum foam is posited to exist at scales around ten billionths of the diameter of a hydrogen nucleus).

 

[Resha Caner]

I thought that was what you were speculating about when you mentioned possible interaction between brain and quantum foam, in response to my question about the spirit. With respect to brains and quantum foam specifically, the scales involved are so disparate that the idea of direct interaction is meaningless (quantum foam is posited to exist at scales around ten billionths of the diameter of a hydrogen nucleus).

Yes, I was speculating about interaction betwen the brain and quantum foam, and further speculating that though the interaction may be small, it may change the initial conditions of a chaotic system enough to produce a measurable result. Maybe my terminology was incorrect, and I know there are issues with the idea, but I didn't think it had been completely discarded.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-consciousness/

 

[Resha Caner]

Not in a scientific framework it wouldn't. There are no scientific lines of reasoning that go by way of "hey... I know it sounds strange, but I've been a friend with a guy for a really long time, so he's cool. Just take his word and publish this thing as de-facto truth". Come on, man. Can't you see that you keep attempting to smuggle in these concepts that have no place in scientific research? Where do you get that stuff?

From my experiences. How much have you been involved with publishing scientific work? Selecting judges to review that work? Making proposals to an organization like the NSF? Attending conferences?

If the science is bad it won't be published ... or at least it's likely to eventually be found out. The work has to stand on its merits. But bringing attention to new ideas is extremely difficult (as, in a way, it should be), and reputation / who you know plays a role. Further, as I said, judges for journals don't personally witness every test that is published. They depend on trust and integrity. Again, I don't have the article at hand, but I'll look it up later and post a link by a scientist who followed all the rules, was successful at publishing, and then had some discomforting results.

Yes, but I keep asking you as to where you spirit/soul hypothesis fits in?

I'm actually telling you that, but I get the impression you're waiting for me to invoke a magical spell at some point. As I said early on, my personal experiences often get rejected as nonsense, and your tone indicates you would do the same. So, we're taking a different approach.

If our nervous system breaks down concepts into reactions and signals via various organs... where does the "spirit/soul" fits into this framework. From what I gather, you seem to be agreeing with my definition of "spiritual" being a perceived function of our mind.

As I indicated above, it's not magically hiding somewhere. The point where we might possibly reach agreement is if we both observe the fundamental and I say, "Yes, that matches my spiritual experiences" and you say, "Yes, that is a physical phenomena". We perceive the spiritual with our material bodies - our brain. The cause of that is necessarily physical, though not necessarily material.

So what are the possible causes? Generally, it could be something completely internal to the structure of the brain, or it could be something external. Yes?

Further, it could be something random, or something ordered. Yes?

It could come from a person or from something inanimate. Yes?

What is interesting is that whatever the source, the abstract idea emerges from the physical construct, i.e. it is not dependent upon the physical properties of that construct because, as we established, it can be represented any number of ways. It's not even dependent on time or distance. Whether you hear an abstract idea directly from the cheerleader, or over the phone, or in an Internet forum, or by reading it in a book 10 years later on a different continent doesn't change that the abstract idea has been transmitted to you. If you don't agree that is some kind of transcendence - maybe only a weak transcendence - but if you don't agree, I've no confidence there is anything that could ever convince you.

But let's walk through the possibilities. We have the reception of a physical construct in the brain that is interepreted by a person as a spiritual experience. Step 1: Is it possible to exclude either an external or internal source for that physical construct for all cases?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Yes, I was speculating about interaction betwen the brain and quantum foam, and further speculating that though the interaction may be small, it may change the initial conditions of a chaotic system enough to produce a measurable result. Maybe my terminology was incorrect, and I know there are issues with the idea, but I didn't think it had been completely discarded.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-consciousness/

It's not really surprising that people who think they've come up with a clever idea to explain mysterious consciousness with mysterious quantum physics, cling to it after others have moved on. But if you look at the details of those proposals, none of them really explain anything - they use a bit of biology and a lot of quantum hand-waving, popularly known as 'quantum woo' or 'QM of the gaps'.

I wouldn't be overly surprised if some high-level quantum effect was found to enhance the efficiency of a particular feature of neural function - perhaps tunnelling in synaptic transmission or some such (after all, we use such features in silicon microchips, and quantum effects have been used elsewhere in biological systems), but last I heard, there's no credible evidence or requirement for this in the brain, and there's no plausible special connection with consciousness.

I'm not clear how any of this relates to the idea of souls or spirits. Bear in mind that quantum field theory, not to mention thermodynamics, tells us nothing like that is feasible, and if you posit something non-physical, you run into the interaction problem. I don't think it flies...

On the other hand, we can elicit experiences described as spiritual, revelatory, mind-expanding, unifying, sense of presence, etc., in a number of ways, and they can also accompany seizures in certain brain areas, e.g. temporal lobe epilepsy.