what is consciousness? stuart hameroff md anesthesiology, psychology and center for consciousness...

What is consciousness? Stuart Hameroff MD Anesthesiology, Psychology and Center for Consciousness Studies The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona www.quantumconsciousness.org

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In Western philosophy, consciousness isa representation of the world in our brain

Mind Matter

MaterialismBrain=Mind=Computer

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In Eastern philosophy consciousness is connected to a deeper reality

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Mind = Matter

Panpsychism

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Mind Matter

Idealism

Consciousness

Lighting

Irony

ScriptStory

Costumes

Actors

Props

Cartesian Theater

Stage

For Descartes, consciousness like a play on stage The Cartesian Theater

Descartes believed an immaterial soul perceived the world in our head

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Mind Matter

Cartesian Dualism

Logic

TopDown

Inputs

Memory

Data

Global Workspace(computers)

GlobalWorkspace

Consciousness

Simon and Newell developed similar brain/mind computer architectures

CPU

Consciousness

ExecutiveCortex

Sensory Inputs

Emotions

Memory

Thalamo-corticalProjections

Cortex

Thalamus

Neuroscientists Baars, Edelman/Tononi, Changeux/Dehaene, Crick/Koch cast thalamo-cortical oscillations as Global workspace for consciousness

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Consciousness

ExecutiveCortex

Sensory Inputs

Emotions

Memory

Thalamo-corticalProjections

Cortex

Thalamus

Neuroscientists Baars, Edelman/Tononi, Changeux/Dehaene, Crick/Koch cast thalamo-cortical oscillations as Global workspace for consciousness

Bottom-up, top-down, hierarchical, based on sensory inputs, arousal

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But consciousness also internally-generated: mind wandering, daydreaming, memories, meditation The Brain's Dark Energy/Default network Raichle (2006) Science 314: 1249 – 1250, 2006)

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Brain functions (cognition)

• Sensory perception• Control of behavior• Learning, Memory• Attention, Sleep• Language• Intelligence• Visceral/sexual

may be either non-conscious (Chalmers’ easy problems, zombie modes, auto-pilot)

Brain functions (cognition)

• Sensory perception• Control of behavior• Learning, Memory• Attention, Sleep• Language • Intelligence• Visceral, Sexual

non-conscious (zombie/auto-pilot) or conscious

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Brain functions (cognition)

• Sensory perception• Control of behavior• Learning, Memory• Attention, Sleep• Language • Intelligence• Visceral, Sexual

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accompanied by gamma synchrony EEG

Brain functions (cognition)

• Sensory perception• Control of behavior• Learning, Memory• Attention, Sleep• Language • Intelligence• Visceral, Sexual

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moving through the brain

Brain functions (cognition)

• Sensory perception• Control of behavior• Learning, Memory• Attention, Sleep• Language • Intelligence• Visceral, Sexual

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Brain functions (cognition)

• Sensory perception• Control of behavior• Learning, Memory• Attention, Sleep• Language • Intelligence• Visceral, Sexual

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Gamma synchrony in olfactory bulb cortex correlates with conscious smell.

J Neuroscience. 26(8):2269-77, 2006

Neuron46(5):761-72, 2005

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Neuroscience. 159(4):1257-63, 2009

Brain Research. 1156:46-58, 2007

Conscious feelings of pleasure and reward correlate gamma synchrony in dopaminergic nucleus accumbens

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The best neurophysiological correlate of consciousness (NCC) comes from EEG, voltage fluctuations recorded from scalp or brain surface.

EEG is divided into frequency bands:

Delta (< 4 Hz)Theta (4 to 8 Hz)Alpha (8 to 12 Hz)Beta (13 to 30 Hz) Gamma (> 30 Hz)

Coherence in gamma synchronyamong different brain regions is the best correlate of consciousness

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Lutz et al, PNAS

“... consciousness itself is only momentary........ a sequence of moments..causing each other…each moment of consciousness only lasts for a very short period of time. A very advanced meditator…is able to detect the transition from moment to moment…They are..1/64th of the snap of a finger.”

John Dunne Emory University

Buddhist writings quantify the frequency of conscious moments. The Saarvastivaadins (Von Rospatt, 1995) describe 6,480,000 moments in 24 hours (one moment per 13.3 seconds = 75 Hz), and Chinese Buddhists as 50 ‘thoughts’ per second (50 Hz). Gamma synchrony EEG is 30 to 90 Hz.

Dendrites

Cell body Axonal firing, or ‘spike’

Dendrites

‘ Hodgkin-Huxley neuron’ leads to integrate-and-fire

Where’s consciousness?

Where’s the BING?

EEG measures post-synapticdendritic integration(not axonal firings)

Synchrony comes fromdendrites

Two types of synapses1) Chemical synapses 2) Electrical (gap junction) synapses

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Nancy Woolf

Normal Alzheimers

Mind Matter

Deeper reality

Neutral Monism

Reality is described by two distinct sets of laws, forming two worlds:

The quantum world and the classical world.

Classical

Quantum

Classical(large scale, observable)

Quantum (small scale, unobservable)

Classical(large scale, observable)

Consciousness

Quantum (small scale, unobservable)

Four features of the quantum world:

1) Particles can exist in multiple possible states or locations simultaneously: “superposition”

2) Unified particles which become separated remain connected over distance and time: “quantum entanglement”

3) Multiple particles can condense into one unified entity: “quantum coherence”

4) Precise location AND momentum of quantum particle are indeterminate: “uncertainty”

Quantum superpositionIn the quantum world, particles/objects….

1) Behave like waves……

Exist in two or more locations or states simultaneously (quantum superposition), Electron spin up and spin down

Quantum entanglementIn the quantum world, particles/objects….

2) Remain intimately connected when spatially separated (quantum entanglement – Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance”).

Quantum coherenceIn the quantum world, particles/objects….

3) Condense into unitary objects (quantum coherence, Bose-Einstein condensation) governed by one wave function. If one component is perturbed, others “feel it”.

Quantum effects are used in quantum information technology

• Quantum computers – Information represented as “bits” of 1 or 0 as in conventional computers, but also as quantum bits, “qubits” of superpositions of both 1 AND 0. Qubits communicate/compute by entanglement, collapse/reduce to answer.

• Quantum cryptography – Quantum states transmitted by nonlocal entanglement; eavesdropping alters message, hence secrecy insured. Now used commercially!

• Quantum teleportation – States of particles communicated by nonlocal entanglement, resulting in destruction/exact duplication elsewhere. Beam me up, Scotty!!!

Why don’t we see quantum superpositions in our world?

1) Consciousness collapses the wave function: Schrodinger’s cat

2) Superpositions are separations in reality: multiple worlds

3) Decoherence: Superpositions persist until interaction with classical environment at the border between quantum and classical worlds. (But this doesn’t explain isolated superpositions)

4) David Bohm’s Quantum potential: Underlying pilot waves (“Implicate order”)guide quantum particlesto choose/“unfold to” classical states (“explicate order”)

Sir Roger Penrose

Consciousness is an actual physical process, a sequence of quantum state reductions connected by E=h/t to an objective threshold inherent in spacetime geometry (objective reduction, OR)

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Penrose: underlying structure of the quantum world embeds Platonic information and precursors of life and consciousness

Freeman Dyson: “Mind and intelligence are woven into the fabric of the universe”

(The quantum world is NOT random/uncertain; randomness/uncertainty introduced in measurement/decoherence. Einstein: “God does not play dice with the universe!”

Einstein: Matter is equivalent to curvature in spacetime - not only at large scales, but at infinitesimally tiny scales – the basement level of the universe at the Planck scale…10-33 cm

Penrose observed that quantum superposition – an object in two places/states simultaneously – equated to two spacetime curvatures in different directions:

a bubble or separation in the fabric of reality

But the separations are unstable, and after a time t (given by E=h/t) will spontaneously self-collapse to one curvature or the other (an “objective reduction” – O.R.).

Q uantum Inform ation Q uantum Inform ation Q uantum Inform ation Q uantum Inform ation

C lassica l In form ation C lassica l In form ation C lassica l In form ation C lassica l In form ation(M em ory) (M em ory) (M em ory) (M em ory)

0 25 50

O RC onscious

"N O W "

O RC onscious

"N O W "

O RC onscious

"N O W "

O RC onscious

"N O W "

O RC onscious

"N O W "

ClassicalInform ation

C lassicalInform ation

C lassicalInform ation

C lassicalInform ation

C lassicalInform ation

E( S u p e r p o s i t i o n /

S e p a r a t i o n )

7 5 1 0 0

T i m e ( T ) m s e c

Pre-conscious

quantumsuperposition

Pre-conscious

quantumsuperposition

Pre-conscious

quantumsuperposition

Pre-conscious

quantumsuperposition

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Orch OR conscious events - Ripples in quantum spacetime geometry occurring at gamma synchrony

Penrose-Hameroff 1995Quantum computations in microtubules reduce by OR, orchestrated by synapses - Orch OR

Penrose-Hameroff Orch OR model

1995/1996 original publications1995 to present – criticism, no refutation1998 – 20 testable predictions publishedValidations: 1) coherent megahertz excitations in microtubules (Pokorny 2004) 2) warm quantum coherence in biology (Engel et al, 2007) 3) topological quantum error correction 4) ballistic conduction in microtubules at megahertz (Bhadyapatyay) 5) gap junctions mediate neural correlate of consciousness (1999-2003)

Conscious pilot/Orch OR is the most complete theory of consciousness

Hameroff and Penrose 96 –Precursors of conscious experience embedded in the fabric of spacetime, fundamental spacetime geometry at the Planck scale

Loop quantum gravity/quantum geometry String theory, Calabi-Yau space

Consciousness, information in the fabric of spacetime geometry?

Where’s consciousness? Where’s the BING?

Our choices, actions and perceptions may be influenced by quantum Platonic values at the Planck scale (e.g. The “Way of the Tao”)

Mind Matter

Quantum spacetime geometry

Ground of being

NondualityNeutral Monism

Mind Matter

Quantum spacetime geometry

Ground of being

NondualityNeutral Monism

Penrose Objective Reduction decoherenceOrch OR measurement

Conclusions

Consciousness is a sequence of discrete quantum events at the fundamental level of spacetime geometry Such events are connected to the brain via quantum processes in microtubules Conceivably, when brain metabolism ceases, quantum information in spacetime geometry can persist, and remain entangled as a ‘soul’ Soul-like quantum information could return to the body (NDE/OOB), or an embryo or zygote (reincarnation)

Toward a Science of Consciousness 2010April 12-17, Tucson, Arizona

www.consciousness.arizona.edu

www.quantumconsciousness.org