On Consciousness

[UltraBudgie]

New research on anesthesia unlocks important clues about the nature of consciousness (September 3, 2024)

For decades, one of the most fundamental and vexing questions in neuroscience has been: what is the physical basis of consciousness in the brain? Most researchers favor classical models, based on classical physics, while a minority have argued that consciousness must be quantum in nature, and that its brain basis is a collective quantum vibration of "microtubule" proteins inside neurons.
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More broadly, a quantum understanding of consciousness “gives us a world picture in which we can be connected to the universe in a more natural and holistic way,” Wiest says. Wiest plans to pursue future research in this field, and hopes to explain and explore the quantum consciousness theory in a book for a general audience.

Here is the paper (eNeuro 15 August 2024).

They're saying this supports the theories of Penrose, et al, that consciousness manifests due to quantum fluctuations within microtubules.  As such, it aligns with what I think -- that consciousness is non-local in origin, and the brain acts as a receiver and causal amplifier, rather than being the fundamental source.

As I recently heard someone describe it, "folded brains dramatically increase the influence a given region in space-time can have, simply due to the increased number of neurons. So our brains double as an antenna for some unseen influence that manifests through quantum uncertainty."

Edit: The paper bigly references Hameroff's 2022 paper Consciousness, Cognition and the Neuronal Cytoskeleton – A New Paradigm Needed in Neuroscience, which is also interesting reading:

Viewing the brain as a complex computer of simple neurons cannot account for consciousness nor essential features of cognition. Single cell organisms with no synapses perform purposeful intelligent functions using their cytoskeletal microtubules. A new paradigm is needed to view the brain as a scale-invariant hierarchy extending both upward from the level of neurons to larger and larger neuronal networks, but also downward, inward, to deeper, faster quantum and classical processes in cytoskeletal microtubules inside neurons.

Considering only neuronal membrane, synaptic activities and axonal firings as “bits,” the brain-as-computer is an insult to neurons, to life itself (which may derive from quantum coherence in organic chemistry, e.g., Schrödinger, 1944; Hameroff, 2017), and to consciousness, quite possibly a fundamental feature of the universe (Penrose, 1989; Koch, 2012).