The Good News

For my brother Marek and for Richard B., both of whom have given me significant pointers.

For the second time in my recent life, I have had that profound feeling of 'good news' - rather as those who first heard the Gospel must have felt. It is an exultant sense of revelation, a feeling that life does have meaning and that a rational yet spiritual path exists between that of reductionist science and organised religions.

The first such moment of enlightenment came during my reading of Stuart A. Kauffman's  Humanity in a Creative Universe. The second came a few days ago, while watching Nikola Danaylov interviewing Stuart Hameroff. Now, Prof Hameroff is well-known for his work on consciousness  with Sir Roger Penrose, mathematician, physicist, philosopher and author of The Emperor's New Mind. So I was expecting a good interview.

I'm not one for the medium of video or podcast; I prefer the written word. But in this case, I watched from beginning to end, sensing a profound confirmation of my instinctive beliefs in the direction of where truth ultimately lies.

"Consciousness is the ultimate product of the brain. Consciousness is really the most important thing there is... Without consciousness there is no purpose to life," says Prof Hameroff. "We can't measure or detect consciousness directly," he says, referring to David Chalmers' concept of the philosophical zombie - a human that appears exactly like us but lacking the subjective experience of awareness. "The brain is a pinkish-grey piece of meat with a hundred billion neurons which talk to each other through synapses; most people say the brain is a computer, neurons are like bits; if you get complicated enough computation and consciousness emerges as a novel property. But no one can explain why it emerges. We have many things that are complex that are not conscious... So computation and complexity are not the answer."

Prof Hameroff mentions the philosophical enigma known as the hard problem of consciousness - how and why sentient organisms have qualia or phenomenal experiences. "The predominant opinion among neuroscientists, artificial intelligence researchers and computer scientists is that the brain is basically a straightforward classical Newtonian computer, do you agree with that?" asks Mr Danaylov. "It is for certain things, for non-conscious behaviour. But for consciousness, you need an extra ingredient. You need quantum mechanics, I believe," replies Prof Hameroff.

He then sets out the Orch-OR (Orchestrated Objective Reduction) hypothesis, devised by himself and Sir Roger Penrose, which posits that consciousness originates from processes inside neurons, rather than from connections between neurons. This is a quantum-physics process called objective reduction, orchestrated by microtubules within the neurons.

"The brain has a 100 billion neurons, each neuron has 1,000 synapses, each switching at around 100 hertz. That gives you 10¹⁵ to 10¹⁶ operations per second for the entire brain. So the [artificial intelligence] Singularity types say when we have a computer that can do 10¹⁶ operations per second we'll have brain equivalence, it will be identical to your brain, consciousness can happen in it. Now the trouble with that is that when you go to the microtubular level there's 10⁹ tubulins - that's the subunits within the neuron - switching at 10 megahertz so that's 10¹⁶ operations per second per neuron, and there's 10¹¹ neurons in the brain, so to simulate a brain you need 10²⁷ operations per second." Prof Hameroff draws our attention to single-cell organisms such as amoeba and paramecium, which display feelings and signs of learning.

He mentions his cooperation with Sir Roger Penrose, which happened after the publication of The Emperor's New Mind, a counterblast aimed at the AI/Singularity proponents. Sir Roger argues that human consciousness is non-algorithmic, suggesting that it occurs at the quantum mechanics level. While Sir Roger had the maths and physics, his book did not posit any biological mechanism through which these quantum decompositions could happen - Prof Hameroff proposed microtubules, and Orch-OR was born.

"Dreams are quantum information. Time is all screwed up, you have multiple co-existing possibilities, the logic is backwards, bizarre things that match quantum information which has not reached collapse. If it does, you have a conscious moment," says Prof Hameroff, whose day job is as an anaesthetist and sees people slipping in and out of consciousness routinely.

Mr Danaylov asks about how the publication of Orch-OR was met by scepticism from prominent scientists who said that absolute zero was needed to perform quantum computing. "For a while, it was theory vs theory," replies Prof Hameroff. "Ours is the most comprehensive theory," he said (the interview was conducted in 2013) "because it covers neuroscience, physics, philosophy and quantum biology." No other theory of consciousness, he says, puts it all together. "Quantum mechanics is the most successful theory ever put forth. It predicts things out to 25 decimal points. Yes it's mysterious. Just because it's mysterious doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's clear consciousness and quantum mechanics are related." The quantum effects in photosynthesis prove that absolute zero is not necessary, he says.

AI has, over the past 20 years demonstrated ever greater intelligence, but no sign of anything near artificial consciousness, says Prof Hameroff, doubting that computers will ever reach that state. "Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, it will happen when computers reach a certain level of complexity," proposes Mr Danaylov. Prof Hameroff decries such thinking. "Consciousness emerging from complexity... is a desperate explanation."

"In the philosophical sense, if the Orch-OR theory is correct, it means that consciousness is really happening at the level of space-time geometry, at the Planck scale [1.6x 10^-35m], the lowest level of the universe, between the ears, in the microtubules in the brain." Prof Hameroff talks about patients with cardiac arrests and near-death, out-of-body experiences. "They saw a white light, a tunnel, in some cases they floated out of their body. Maybe - and I've seen this happen - in normal circumstances the space-time geometry is in the brain, but when quantum coherence is lost, the blood stops flowing, the energy is lost, the quantum information isn't destroyed, but it sort of dissipates and leaks out into the universe at large, but remains entangled, a sort of quantum soul, if you will; the patient revives, it goes back in, the patient says, 'hey I was floating above my body'. Or maybe if the patient dies it persists indefinitely in the universe at large, maybe even goes back into a new organism or creature - reincarnation. It makes these things possible. It makes afterlife a plausible scientific possibility."

This is amazing.

Mr Danaylov asks Prof Hameroff whether he is a dualist. Prof Hameroff says "I am not a dualist. I think that the soul would be in Planck scale space-time geometry, not outside science. It is outside of the classical [Newtonian], material world. The quantum level is pre-material, because the collapse hasn't happened yet. Material emerges from quantum, it's at that point that consciousness happens. Quantum information can exist in space-time geometry at large in the universe... You can't say 'no' until you prove what consciousness is."

Summing up then, "consciousness is more than computation. Consciousness is something deeper, more profound, connected to the quantum structure of the universe. It bridges between science and spirituality." Wow. This aligns most perfectly with the way my thinking on these matters has evolved over the decades.

If these quotes have piqued your interest and you want to watch the whole interview, please feel free to do so - I'd be interested in your reactions!

 



This time last year:
Jeziorki railway modernisation - update

This time three years ago:
On the death of my mother

This time four years ago:
Marek Raczkowski on All Saints' Day

This time five years ago:
Disclosure of UFOs - are we ready? 

This time six years ago:
Jeziorki pond development

This time seven years ago:
Captain Wrona's perfect gear-up landing

This time ten years ago:
Where's the daylight gone?

This time 11 years ago:
All Saints' Day - Wszystkich Świętych