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Scientists offer quantum theory of soul's existence

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DMT777

DMT777

Rising Star
American Dr Stuart Hameroff and British physicist Sir Roger Penrose developed a quantum theory of consciousness asserting that our souls are contained inside structures called microtubules which live within our brain cells.

Their idea stems from the notion of the brain as a biological computer, "with 100 billion neurons and their axonal firings and synaptic connections acting as information networks".

Dr Hameroff, Professor Emeritus at the Departments of Anesthesiology and Psychology and Director of the Centre of Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, and Sir Roger have been working on the theory since 1996.

They argue that our experience of consciousness is the result of quantum gravity effects inside these microtubules - a process they call orchestrated objective reduction (Orch-OR).

In a near-death experience the microtubules lose their quantum state but the information within them is not destroyed. Or in layman's terms, the soul does not die but returns to the universe.

Dr Hameroff explained the theory at length in the Morgan Freeman-narrated documentary "Through the Wormhole", which was recently aired in the US by the Science Channel.

The quantum soul theory is now trending worldwide, thanks to stories published this week by The Huffington Post and the Daily Mail, which have generated thousands of readers comments and social media shares.

"Let's say the heart stops beating, the blood stops flowing, the microtubules lose their quantum state," Dr Hameroff said.

"The quantum information within the microtubules is not destroyed, it can't be destroyed, it just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large.

"If the patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says 'I had a near death experience'."

In the event of the patient's death, it was "possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body indefinitely - as a soul".

Dr Hameroff believes new findings about the role quantum physics plays in biological processes, such as the navigation of birds, adds weight to the theory.
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I've found some of Hameroff's stuff pretty interesting. I don't know if his theory in particular is correct, but i definitely wouldn't be surprised if microtubules are essential for understanding how consciousness works
 
My guess is that this theory is no different than the dozens of other theories that abuse quantum mechanics in order to make some extravagant claim about consciousness. The making of such extravagant claims doesn't particularly disagree with me, and I would love it if such a claim was accompanied by rigorous mathematical and/or scientific justification but they never are.

In my opinion, such vague and starry-eyed new articles don't tell us anything about the validity of this theory. If we really want to form a knowledgeble opinion about this idea, the least we must do is read and fully understand the original paper. Unfortunately, most people who know enough about quantum mechanics to have already done that disagree with the conclusions of the paper.

Then again, this paper may be right on; or it might be more reluctant to jump to claims of certainty than that newspaper article seems to imply. My tone has changed because I just noticed that Penrose is one of the authors, and I used to be a fan of his. Time will tell of the legitimacy of this direction of scientific thinking.
 
SWIMfriend said:
microtubules? The problem there is that microtubules have no "informational" connection to neurons as a whole, which could explain cognition.
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The entire body is causally connected, I would say that's a rather self-evident informational connection.
 
I don't really care about "souls", but whoever made this theory is saying they know what is responsible for consciousness. Now that would make things really interesting. The practical applications of knowing what is responsible for consciousness is the a holy grail of science. I seriously doubt they've discovered anything though.
 
embracethevoid said:
SWIMfriend said:
microtubules? The problem there is that microtubules have no "informational" connection to neurons as a whole, which could explain cognition.
Click to expand...
The entire body is causally connected, I would say that's a rather self-evident informational connection.
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Sorry, but this seems like a non-sequitur to me. Are toenails, as part of our bodies, therefore related to consciousness? I'm sure you mean to say that at least the entire brain (including MTs) is necessary for cognition to occur, but this does not mean that microtubules are a sufficient cause of consciousness. The Orch-OR model seems more like a fun thought experiment than a serious scientific posit. However, both Hameroff and Penrose seem to take it pretty seriously.

Interesting move, injecting the non-computability of quantum behavior into structural components of brain cells to suggest that there is some kind of scientific proof of souls. (oops, I meant to prove that there are qualia)

It seems to me that both want something intuitively (qualia, dualism, free will, the soul, pick your poison) that they most likely can't have scientifically.

Anyways, the entire model is built on the Penrose-Lucas Argument, which appears handily refuted. Orchestrated objective reduction - Wikipedia

For anyone interested here is one of the relevant papers. I'm deeply skeptical, but I would love to hear everyone else's approach to it.

You can find all Hameroff's work on the Orch-OR model here.
 
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