Neurophysics For People Who Don't Like Neurology... Or Physics

Or objective evidence.  Or so-called "logic":

Stuart Hameroff, an anesthesiologist who has spent many years studying brain functions, has collaborated with renowned Oxford University polymath Roger Penrose on a model that explains consciousness as the result of quantum processes occurring in tiny structures called microtubules in brain cells. “I think consciousness under normal circumstances occurs at the level of space-time geometry in the brain, in the microtubules,” Hameroff says. “But the fluctuations extend down to the Planck scale [far smaller than an atom] because the microtubules are driven bioenergetically to be in a coherent state. When the blood supply and the oxygen stops, things go bad and the coherence stops, but quantum information at the Plank scale isn’t lost. It may dissipate into the universe but remain somehow entangled in some kind of functional unit, maybe indefinitely. If the patient is revived, the information gets picked back up again.”

To be kind, it is not immediately obvious to the average layman that this is a complete load of bullpucky.

Penrose's (and by extension, Hameroff's) hypothesis fails on three fronts: First, it does not accurately describe what we know the brain does; Second, it does not accurately describe what we know consciousness does; Third, it is physically impossible.*

It is important to note that when Hameroff says "microtubules are driven bioenergetically to be in a coherent state", that this is a hypothesis, and there is no evidence that any such thing occurs, and considerable evidence that it cannot occur.

Where did the Planck-scale processes that cause it come from? Penrose’s answer: They came from the Big Bang. In this view, consciousness - all consciousness - was created at the same moment when the universe was created. If the soul exists, it, too, might be anchored to our moment of cosmic origin. This is what Italian astrophysicist Paola Zizzi terms the “Big Wow,” shorthand for her description of the connection between “the very early quantum computing universe and our mind.”

Again, this is the most astounding nonsense.  We know how quantum processes behave: Quantum mechanics is perhaps the most successful theory of physics, ever.  Even if Penrose's ideas were correct, there would be no informational connection between a human mind today and the formation of the universe.  Complex quantum states simply don't hang around that way; it is, again, physically impossible.  And simple quantum states don't possess any attributes that can carry information like that.  Like black holes, subatomic particles have no hair. When Hameroff says:

When the blood supply and the oxygen stops, things go bad and the coherence stops, but quantum information at the Plank scale isn’t lost. It may dissipate into the universe but remain somehow entangled in some kind of functional unit, maybe indefinitely.

He is flying in the face of all of quantum mechanics and modern neuroscience.  Complex entangled states do not survive like that; do not carry information of the sort he is implying; are not in evidence anywhere in the physical brain or in its function; and do not share any significant characteristics with the way the human mind actually behaves.  Quantum information at the Planck scale is not lost, that is true, but what that information tells us is that this particle is an electron; this particle is a neutron. 

And that's all. 

Persistent quantum information of that sort is very specific and very limited.  It is impossible to tell, from observing an electron, anything of its past.  All electrons are identical except for position and momentum.  This one may have been part of an atom of lead a second ago; this one in an atom of gold.  There is no way, not even theoretically - indeed, particularly not theoretically - to tell, unless you have continuously observed the two electrons over that period (a process that has its own quantum mechanical difficulties).

Penrose surely knows better, at least on the physics side, so I assume that something he has said has been misunderstood.  On the other hand, I have seen nothing to suggest that he knows anything of modern neuroscience.

Because modern neuroscience shows quite clearly that consciousness is brain function, that aspects of consciousness can be tied to very specific brain functions, and that neither the mind nor the brain exhibit any quantum properties except in the bulk, statistical sense that they share with prosaic objects such as frozen fish and pocket calculators.

The best layman's introduction to modern neuroscience I know of is MIT's 9.00 Introduction to Psychology as taught by Jeremy Wolfe.  You can download the lectures, and I can't recommend them highly enough to anyone interested in the subject (and it is a subject I think everyone should be interested in).

(Wishful thinking by Brendan Loy found via Insty.)

* Why is it that some of the smartest people have some of the ugliest websites?  Okay, the answer is that they have better things to do, I know that.  But still...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:34 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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