At New Scientist last week, George Musser talked about the way a theory of consciousness that sees the brain as a quantum system is now under reluctant consideration. Musser, author of Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023) went to visit anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, who — with theoretical physicist Roger Penrose — advances the quantum-based Orch Or Theory (orchestrated objective reduction of the quantum state).

Do Quantum Phenomena Create Conscious Experience?

Musser explains the basic idea of the Orch Or Theory (OOT), that conscious experience arises from quantum phenomena in the brain. The theory gained little traction in the past because it was difficult to test but Musser thinks that the use of anesthetics on brain organoids (picture above, they are lumps of brain tissue grown in a medium), along with other new methods, may enable the theory to be tested:

Such ideas have existed, in various guises, on the fringes of mainstream consciousness research for decades. They have never come in from the cold because, as their critics argue, there is no solid experimental evidence that quantum effects occur in the brain, never mind a clear idea of how they would give rise to consciousness. 

GEORGE MUSSER, “CAN QUANTUM HINTS IN THE BRAIN REVIVE A RADICAL CONSCIOUSNESS THEORY?”, NEW SCIENTIST, 17 JANUARY 2024

What, more specifically, is the Orch Or theory?

In short, it says that consciousness arises when gravitational instabilities in the fundamental structure of space-time collapse quantum wave functions in tiny structures called microtubules that are found inside neurons — and, in fact, in all complex cells.

MUSSER, ”RADICAL CONSCIOUSNESS THEORY?”

In quantum theory, a particle does not really exist as a tiny bit of matter located somewhere but rather as a cloud of probabilities. If observed, it collapses into the state in which it was observed. Penrose has postulated that “each time a quantum wave function collapses in this way in the brain, it gives rise to a moment of conscious experience.”

Hameroff has been studying proteins known as tubulins inside the microtubules of neurons. He postulates that “microtubules inside neurons could be exploiting quantum effects, somehow translating gravitationally induced wave function collapse into consciousness, as Penrose had suggested.” Thus was born a collaboration, though their seminal 1996 paper failed to gain much traction.

Of course, the Nineties was the decade of the Astonishing Hypothesis (Scribner, 1994), wherein Nobel laureate Francis Crick (1916–2004) proclaimed, “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” In those days, many thought that materialism had already won and no more sophisticated analysis was needed.

Quantum Processing in Bird Brains

Musser tells us that recent research suggests some kind of quantum processing does occur in the brain. One suggested example is the way a bird’s internal compass includes radicals with an “odd, unpaired electron”:

When these radicals eventually react, the outcome will depend on the strength and orientation of the magnetic field. The thinking is that the bird is sensitive to this in a way that allows it to tell north from south. The process is highly quantum as the radical pair electrons are entangled, which means that they act as a single quantum object, even though they are some distance apart.

MUSSER, ”RADICAL CONSCIOUSNESS THEORY?”

If that’s correct, we already know of at least one quantum process in a nervous system. Linking that up to human consciousness is still a stretch but, he says, scientists are more willing now to at least consider it.

And Other Research?

Musser seems to be on to something. In 2022, for example, researchers at Trinity College in Dublin did experiments that suggest our brains do quantum computation. They think that their finding may help solve a mystery:

Quantum brain processes could explain why we can still outperform supercomputers when it comes to unforeseen circumstances, decision making, or learning something new. Our experiments, performed only 50 meters away from the lecture theater where Schrödinger presented his famous thoughts about life, may shed light on the mysteries of biology, and on consciousness which scientifically is even harder to grasp.

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, “NEW RESEARCH SUGGESTS OUR BRAINS USE QUANTUM COMPUTATION,” PHYS.ORG, OCTOBER 19, 2022. THE PAPER IS OPEN ACCESS

Likewise, Dorje C. Brody, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Surrey, hopes that quantum processes can shed light on human behavior. For example, the order in which questions are asked is important in quantum physics but not in classical physics. But in that respect, the human mind often behaves more in a quantum way, he says:

For example, in a study published 20 years ago about the effects that question order has on respondents’ answers, subjects were asked whether they thought the previous US president, Bill Clinton, was honest. They were then asked if his vice president, Al Gore, seemed honest.

When the questions were delivered in this order, a respective 50% and 60% of respondents answered that they were honest. But when the researchers asked respondents about Gore first and then Clinton, a respective 68% and 60% responded that they were honest.

DORJE C. BRODY, “COULD QUANTUM PHYSICS BE THE KEY THAT UNLOCKS THE SECRETS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOUR?,” JANUARY 19, 2024

He sees the human response as more like a quantum system. 

How trying to understand human consciousness or behavior via quantum processes will work out is anyone’s guess. But here’s a prediction: It won’t help the cause of materialism much.