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A Microsoft researcher built a goat-powered LLM in Age of Empires II to prove it's not sentient
(www.xda-developers.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2026
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There may not be proof that LLMs aren't sentient, but there is some evidence and reason to believe that consciousness is an emergent property of quantum effects, whereas turing machines are relegated to classical mechanics. The same evidence would indicate it is unlikely that a turing machine could replicate the human brain since it uses fundamentally different layers of reality to calculate/think.
Is there evidence or more like philosophical musings that consciousness is an ill-defined weird magical thing and quantum physics is similarly a weird magical thing and thus it's a kind of fitting assertion that they are related?
At least to the extent I've seen the point presented, it seems to feel more like musings than scientific effort.
There is some limited empirical evidence to support the hypothesis, yes.
For example:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374724769_Quantum_Consciousness_Empirical_Evidence_for_Quantum_Mechanisms_in_Human_Cognition_and_Consciousness
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2025.1676585/full
There is no evidence as of now. There are scientific hypothesis regarding this exact thing that sound plausible as a standalone thing but there hasn't been any observational evidence regarding it.
They are pretty much equivalent to our hypothesis regarding dark matter. We knowthere must be something we can't see and them work backwards from there to fill the gaps.
What evidence
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374724769_Quantum_Consciousness_Empirical_Evidence_for_Quantum_Mechanisms_in_Human_Cognition_and_Consciousness
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12871-025-02956-9
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-85673-w
These don't appear to be peer-reviewed, but thanks.
I always forget that computers use those special non-quantum electrons. Thanks!
Quantum effects are literally one of the things that computers are designed specifically to avoid. We're bumping up against the point where we can make conventional computer chips more dense the same ways we have previously since quantum tunneling causes some noticeable errors in computing when things get too much closer together.
Of course! This has been true for almost 30 years!
But if your argument amounts to, "the soul exists because the brain has got quantum hootnannies in it"; well... :gestures broadly:
I said nothing about souls. If I'm talking about souls (without direct prompting), I'm deep in a psychotic episode.
I don't really get what you mean by the gestures broadly thing? I'm very open to an expansion on that thought, but have no current sense of what that means.
It's not just the vague idea of quantum hootnannies, it is the fact that intentionally inducing extra quantum hootnannies in the brain structure of animals has a noticeable impact on the effects of various anesthesia, i.e. the "anti-conciousness drugs".
I'm not claiming there is definitive proof, I'm simply stating there is some real, empirical evidence that supports the notion that consciousness is an emergent property reliant upon a maybe narrow range of emergent effects from quantum mechanics that are inherently absent from Turing machine computational models.
I spent a couple days on and off reading about this theory, I read a few papers in the field and some of Penrose's work (I didn't go grab his books). So, thanks. It was interesting. I have had some physicists mention to me in passing that quantum consciousness was a junk field, but I hadn't looked into it.
I agree, this is definitely bullshit.
Penrose himself attempts to dodge this in the first paragraph, but why are we groping for a special theory of consciousness at all?
Quantum mechanics is in everything, without it, fundamental processes (like light passing through your window) can not adequately be explained. Just because something has 'got a quantum' or whatever doesn't instantly make it special from a physical perspective (you don't see scientists tossing out conversation of energy or causality because stuff's 'got a quantum' or whatever).
You might be interested in some of the recent work demonstrating that anesthetics work on plants. Not a microtubule in sight.