Quantum Consciousness . Stuart Hameroff

Most explanations portray the brain as a computer, with nerve cells ("neurons") and their synaptic connections acting as simple switches. However computation alone cannot explain why we have feelings and awareness, an "inner life."

We also don't know if our conscious perceptions accurately portray the external world. At its base, the universe follows the seemingly bizarre and paradoxical laws of quantum mechanics, with particles being in multiple places simultaneously, connected over distance, and with time not existing. But the “classical” world we perceive is definite, with a flow of time. The boundary or edge (quantum state reduction, or ‘collapse of the wave function”) between the quantum and classical worlds somehow involves consciousness.

I spent twenty years studying how computer-like structures called microtubules inside neurons and other cells could process information related to consciousness. But when I read The emperor’s new mind by Sir Roger Penrose in 1991 I realized that consciousness may be a specific process on the edge between the quantum and classical worlds. Roger and I teamed up to develop a theory of consciousness based on quantum computation in microtubules within neurons. Roger’s mechanism for an objective threshold for quantum state reduction connects us to the most basic, “funda-mental” level of the universe at the Planck scale, and is called objective reduction (OR). Our suggestion for biological feedback to microtubule quantum states is orchestration (Orch), hence our model is called orchestrated objective reduction, Orch OR.

In recent years I have considered that such a connection to the basic proto-conscious level of reality where Platonic values are embedded is strikingly similar to Buddhist and other spiritual conceptsconcepts.

This website is intended to convey the ideas and implications behind Orch OR. Click here for a general overview. However for a reader-friendly, entry level approach, try Interviews (or Popular Press under Media). The general categories are:

Personal includes my professional status, a statement about my interest in consciousness, curriculum vitae, contact information and a personal photo gallery.

Publications includes articles related to quantum consciousness/Orch OR in several categories:

Media includes lectures, Powerpoint presentations, computer simulations, popular press articles, images.

Views includes slightly tangential material from me and others.

Quantum Mind Archives includes abstracts from the two Quantum Mind conferences held in 1999 in Flagstaff, Arizona, and in 2003 in Tucson. Also included are archives from the Quantum Mind email discussion group which ran from June, 1998 to October, 2002.

Ultimate Computing is my complete book Ultimate computing: Biomolecular consciousness and nanotechnology , published by Elsevier-North Holland in 1987. Some have called it my “pre-quantum ode to microtubules” (assisted by Conrad Schneiker)

Some other recent talks:

After-dinner speech at NMQF-CBC Braintrust, Washington D.C., April 20, 2010

Dialogue with ZaChoeje Rinpoche

Arizona State Society of Anesthesiology - How anesthesia really works