Quantum health and intracellular information technology Stuart Hameroff M.D. Professor, Anesthesiology and Psychology Director, Center for Consciousness.

Quantum health and intracellular information technology

Stuart Hameroff M.D.Professor, Anesthesiology and PsychologyDirector, Center for Consciousness StudiesThe University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona

www.quantumconsciousness.org

Health is the optimal state of a living system

But how do living systems differ from nonliving systems?

What is life?

19th century scientists believed life force fields connected all living beings: vitalism, animism or élan vital

But reductionist science showed biomolecular origins for life

Vitalists were purged from science and medicine

Varela, Maturana, Margulis:

Life is order from disorder (negative entropy) from entropy

Life defies the second law of thermodynamics:

Order (negative entropy) tends toward Disorder (entropy)

Memory –Long term potentiation (LTP)

Hameroff, Craddock & Tuszynski, 2010

Hameroff, Craddock & Tuszynski, 2010

Hameroff, Craddock & Tuszynski, 2010 – ‘Memory bytes’ - A molecular code for intra-cellular information processing

Reality is described by two distinct sets of laws. • Our everyday “classical” world follows predictable behaviors

• At small scales (and sometimes at large scales!) bizarre laws of quantum mechanics reign

Quantum

Classical

Quantum particles can

1) Exist in multiple possibilities: “superposition”

2) Remain connected over distance: “nonlocal entanglement”

3) Condense into one entity: “quantum coherence”

4) Quantum/classical transition (collapse) somehow involves consciousness (“observer effect”)

Sir Roger Penrose – Consciousness is a process on the edge between quantum and classical worlds,connected to the most basic level of the universe

Penrose-Hameroff ‘Orch OR’ theory of consciousness

Recent evidence shows ballistic/superconductivity at 8 MHz in microtubules (Bandyophadyay)

Quantum World Classical World Co-existing possibilities Definite

Interconnected/entangled Isolated

(?) Universal mind Material (?) Spiritual Material

Hope Doubt

Quantum vitalism?

EnlightenNext Magazine, spring 2010

Conclusions

• Microtubules are the information superhighway inside cells, and should be targets for pharmacological and optical encoding and regulation

• Life and consciousness are quantum processes subtly connected to the fine structure of the universe

• Spiritual beliefs are scientifically plausible

www.quantumconsciousness.org