Dr. Stuart Hameroff, an anesthesiologist and professor at the University of Arizona, discusses the idea that quantum events in protein filaments that provide structure to cells — microtubules — facilitate consciousness.
Highlights
- According to Dr. Hameroff’s theory of consciousness, microtubules “run the show” inside cells and serve as a good model for the formation of memory — storing and processing information — and consciousness itself.
- A key differentiating factor between computer-based artificial intelligence (AI) computations and consciousness is that consciousness requires understanding, which computers cannot do.
- Running counter to prevailing views, Dr. Hameroff believes that consciousness does not arise from electrical signals that neurons use to communicate with one another — action potentials — but rather the collapse of quantum events from one possibility or another in microtubules.
In a Closer to Truth YouTube video, Dr. Stuart Hameroff, an anesthesiologist and professor at the University of Arizona, gives a description of his quantum physics-based theory of consciousness. According to Dr. Hameroff, microtubules are ideally suited for quantum information processing, memory formation and processing, and consciousness itself.
Quantum Events in Microtubules as Models of Memory Processing and Consciousness
In the video interview, Dr. Hameroff says that microtubules run cellular processes from neuronal rewiring (synaptic plasticity) to the formation of neuronal connections (synaptic formation). Through his study of information processing within microtubules, Dr. Hameroff came to realize that using microtubules as a model for memory formation increases the capacity of the brain enormously at the quantum level.
One day, following his proposal of memory processing in microtubules, someone asked Dr. Hameroff how microtubules could explain consciousness — which includes general awareness and feelings like joy, fear, and love. This brought up the conundrum of confronting the hard problem of consciousness, which aims to explain why there is “something like it is” for each individual having a conscious experience. Dr. Hameroff did not know how information processing at the level of microtubules answers the hard problem of consciousness, so the individual who posed the question recommended that he read Sir Roger Penrose’s book The Emperor’s New Mind.
In the book, Penrose addressed the issue of AI-based computations, saying they are not the same as consciousness since consciousness involves non-computable understanding. For example, a computer may win at chess, but it does not reach an understanding of why it does so. The AI-based computer is just following algorithms. Conscious understanding, on the other hand, involves more than computation — some other factor. For Dr. Hameroff, this begged the question of what that other factor could be.
Quantum Events Occurring in Microtubules Are Consciousness
To answer this question required some sort of a stretch or leap of faith that Dr. Hameroff now realizes was quite “profound.” According to Sir Roger Penrose’s argument, the only thing in nature that could give this non-computable understanding inherent to consciousness is a type of quantum collapse of a wave function. A wave function collapse is a quantum event where a superposition — where multiple quantum state possibilities exist simultaneously — collapses to one possibility or another. When that happens, according to Penrose, there is a moment of subjectivity.
Dr. Hameroff believes the collapsing of wave functions generating consciousness occurs within microtubules inside neurons. He adds that, contrary to the prevailing view, consciousness does not arise from the propagation of electrical action potentials between neurons. Rather, he thinks consciousness, arising from microtubule information processing, triggers action potentials, which relay messages between neurons.
Additionally, Dr. Hameroff says that, according to his calculations, we need the neurons contained in about 10% of the brain for a conscious moment to occur. Furthermore, as microtubules undergo collapse of the wave function within these neurons, they produce vibrations occurring much faster than brainwaves. Dr. Hameroff continues that these rapid microtubule vibrations give rise to slower brain waves that can facilitate gamma synchrony — synchronized oscillations across brain regions that predominate during periods of focused mental activity. Thus, according to Dr. Hameroff, collapsing wave functions within microtubules facilitate conscious moments and give rise to brain waves across various brain regions that initiate mental states such as concentration.
Philosophical Implications of Stuart Hameroff’s Quantum Theory of Consciousness
The last topic that Dr. Hameroff discusses is the philosophical implication of his theory. According to Dr. Hameroff, once the collapse of wave functions occurs in microtubules, consciousness occurs. In other words, the collapse of wave functions within microtubules does not produce consciousness but actually is identical to consciousness. This occurrence in microtubules determines the quantum states of molecules called tubulins that compose microtubules. Once the tubulin states are chosen, they trigger neuronal firings and produce behavior.
The Penrose-Hameroff Quantum Model of Consciousness
According to Sir Roger Penrose, who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics, the collapse of wave functions may be the only thing in nature that can explain how moments of subjectivity occur. Dr. Stuart Hameroff then had the idea that the collapse of wave functions occurs in microtubules within neurons after reading Sir Roger Penrose’s book, The Emperor’s New Mind. The combination of their ideas led to this quantum physics-based model of consciousness, now referred to as the Penrose-Hameroff model. While accepting this theory may require somewhat of a leap, it has one important theoretical feature: it has not been disproven.
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