Quantum Consciousness
a presentation by Stuart Hameroff M.D. |
 Stuart Hameroff M.D., was featured in the popular film "What the Bleep do we know?" which served up a mind jarring blend of Quantum Physics, spirituality, neurology and evolutionary thought. Stuart is Professor of Anesthesiology and Psychology, and Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona.
Consciousness is viewed as an emergent property of computation among brain neurons, governed strictly by classical physics. In this conventional view, consciousness is epiphenomenal (occurring too late for conscious action), and strictly local, i.e. extending only within the limits of the brain. Over the course of history, claims have been made for so-called parapsychological effects in which various aspects of mental states seem to communicate non-locally in space and time, e.g. telepathy, pre-cognition and out-of-body experiences. Such claims are not considered plausible in the classical physics view of consciousness and brain function. However non-locality is an essential feature in quantum physics which governs reality at small scales, and can have effects in our everyday world. Non-local quantum entanglement, computation and coherence have been proposed to mediate consciousness, for example in the Penrose-Hameroff Orch OR model of quantum computation in microtubules within brain neurons. In principle, non-local entanglement among spatiotemporally separated conscious people or animals can occur.
Stuart Hameroff M.D. is Professor of Anesthesiology and Psychology, and Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. A full-time clinical anesthesiologist, he organizes the well-known interdisciplinary conferences Toward a Science of Consciousness, and has published numerous books and papers on how the brain produces consciousness. In the mid 90s Hameroff co-developed with Sir Roger Penrose the controversial Orch OR theory of consciousness based on quantum computing in microtubules inside brain neurons. His research website is Quantum Consciousness.
|
|
