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Syntropy 2013 (2): 243-279
ISSN 1825-7968
Appendix 7. Quantum Consciousness:
The first detailed quantum model of consciousness was probably the American physicist Evan Walker's synaptic tunneling model (1970), in which electrons can "tunnel" between adjacent neurons, thereby creating a virtual neural network overlapping the real one. It is this virtual nervous system that produces consciousness and that can direct the behavior of the real nervous system. A few researchers have invoked another quantum effect, Bose-Einstein condensation which is a general case of superconductivity. A Bose-Einstein condensate is the equivalent of a laser, except that it is the atoms, rather than the photons, that behave identically. The intriguing feature of a Bose-Einstein condensate is that the many parts of a system not only behave as a whole, they become whole. Their identities merge in such a way that they lose their individuality. In 1986 the British physicist Herbert Froehlich suggested that such condensation can be achieved in Nature by biological organisms. In particular, it should arise when biological oscillators which are in a nonequilibrium state (such as all plants and animals) are maintained at constant temperature. The biological usefulness of such biological oscillators is that, like laser light, they can amplify signals and encode information (e.g., they can "remember" an external stimulus). In 1989 the British phychiatrist Ian Marshall showed similarities between the holistic properties of condensates and those of consciousness, and suggested that consciousness may arise from the excitation of such a Bose-Einstein condensate
Drawing from Quantum Mechanics and from Bertrand Russell's idea that consciousness provides a kind of "window" onto the brain, the philosopher Michael Lockwood advanced a theory of consciousness as a process of perception of brain states. First he noted that Special Relativity implies that mental states must be physical states (mental states must be in the space given that they are in time). Then Lockwood interpreted the role of the observer in Quantum Mechanics as the role of consciousness in the physical world. Lockwood argued that sensations must be intrinsic attributes of physical states of the brain: in quantum lingo, each observable attribute (e.g., each sensation) corresponds to an observation of the brain. Consciousness scans the brain to look for sensations. It does not create them, it just seeks them.
In 1986 John Eccles, the British neurophysiologist who discovered neurotransmitters, has speculated that synapses in the cortex respond in a probabilistic manner to neural excitation, a probability that could well be governed by quantum uncertainty given the extremely small size of the Synapsis'"microsite" that emits the neurotransmitter. If this is true, Eccles speculate that an immaterial mind (in the form of "psychons") controls the quantum "jumps" and turns them into voluntary excitations of the neurons that account for body motion.
The American physicist Nick Herbert has been even more specific on the similarities between Quantum Theory and consciousness. Herbert thinks that consciousness is a pervasive process
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