I know the quote, but it’s probably wrong and certainly both unproven and unhelpful. Except with a smiley.
Anyone invoking quantum theory to explain something they just don’t understand is at least as bad.
Seriously, the reasons for why we don’t (and can’t) understand a lot of how life does its thing is to be found in complexity theory. It’s not magic and it’s not quantum, it’s just complex (aka chaotic).
Any sufficiently complex dynamic system is equivalent to magic. It just does its thing and nobody can tell you why or how.
The universe is a complex dynamic system and (apparently) follows the rules of QED. That means that its behaviour is (a) statistically predictable over short time scales and (b) completely unpredictable over long time scales.
Given the initial starting state of the Universe it was impossible to predict it would finish up like it has, except by running the model for billions of years to find out.
Magic means having or being governed by supernatural powers, which means not predictable by natural rules. There are similarities…
But once you throw ‘consciousness’ into the argument, it’s just words for the sake of words. Meaningless.
Sorry, I kind of realised that but pressed send anyway. My bad.
“The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.” Why does it make sense at all? Why do some things make sense but others remain a mystery? Why not magic?
Numenta has opened a tiny window into a part of the brain that makes a kind of crazy sense. We should be grateful for small mercies.
My bad.