Psience Quest

On the Theoretical Possibility of Quantum Visual Information Transfer to the Human Brain

V. Salari, M. Rahnama, J.A. Tuszynski

Quote:The feasibility of wave function collapse in the human brain has been the subject of vigorous scientific debates since the advent of quantum theory. Scientists like Von Neumann, London, Bauer and Wigner (initially) believed that wave function collapse occurs in the brain or is caused by the mind of the observer. Experimentally, first Hall et al. performed an experiment to investigate wave function collapse caused by the mind of the observer. Their experiment did not detect any trace of wave function collapse as a result of human intentionality.

A refined version of Hall et al.’s experiment was performed by Bierman in which a different result was obtained from what Hall et al. reported.On the basis of evoked potential diagrams, Bierman has concluded that brain can cause a collapse of external quantum states. It is a legitimate question to ask how human brain can receive subtle external visual quantum information intact when it must pass through very noisy and complex pathways from the eye to the brain?There are several approaches to investigate information processing in the brain, each of which presents a different set of conclusions.

Penrose and Hameroff have hypothesized that there is quantum information processing inside the human brain whose material substrate involves microtubules(MTs) and consciousness is the result of a collective wave function collapse occurring in these structures. Conversely, Tegmark stated that owing to thermal decoherence there cannot be any quantum processing in neurons of the brain and processing in the brain must be classical for cognitive processes. However, Rosa and Faber presented an argument for a middle way which shows that none of the previous authors are completely right and despite the presence of decoherence, it is still possible to consider the brain to be a quantum system.

Additionally, Thaheld, has concluded that quantum states of photons do collapse in the human eye and there is no possibility for collapse of visual quantum states in the brain and thus there is no possibility for the quantum state reduction in the brain.In this paper we conclude that if we accept the main essence of the above approaches taken together, each of them can provide a different part of a teleportation mechanism. Here, we propose a new model based on the premise that there exists a quantum teleportation mechanism between the eye and the brain. Specific assumptions used to build the model involve both classical and quantum mechanical elements. Our approach can combine the above seemingly contradictory conclusions in a compact and coherent model.This model revives this hypothesis that human brain can cause a collapse of quantum states,because in this model external quantum information can penetrate into the brain as an intact state

Note this paper [in the OP] was written in 2010, before the experiments strongly suggestive of human eyes being to detect photons and possibly even entanglement.

People can sense single photons

Quote:Vaziri plans to test how the visual system responds to photons in various quantum states — in particular those that are in a ‘superposition’ of two simultaneous states. Some physicists have suggested that such experiments could test whether a superposition of two states could survive in a person's sensory system, and perhaps be perceived in the brain.

There was also supposed to be further experimentation by Kwait and his colleagues trying to figure out where collapse might happen along the route from eye-to-brain...but oddly enough not sure the results were ever published though I could be missing something...

There was even a Sci Am article about this...

Some more info on the eye as a photon detection device, note how the experimental design parallels Psi research ->

Seeing the quantum

Rebecca Holmes

Quote:There’s one more important trick to studying single-photon vision. Just sending a single photon to an observer and asking: ‘Did you see it?’ is a flawed experimental design, because humans find this question difficult to answer objectively. We don’t like to say ‘yes’ unless we’re sure, but it’s hard to be sure about such a tiny signal. Noise in the visual system – which can produce phantom flashes even in total darkness – also adds to the confusion. A better strategy is to ask the observer to choose between two alternatives. In our experiments, we randomly choose whether to send a photon to the left or the right side of the observer’s eye, and in each trial they are asked: ‘Left or right?’ If the observer can answer that question better than random guessing (which would give at most 50 per cent accuracy), we know they are seeing something. This is called a forced-choice experimental design, and it’s common in psychology experiments.

Quote:Standard quantum mechanics predicts that a superposition of left and right shouldn’t look any different to an observer than a photon that’s randomly sent either to the left or to the right. Upon reaching the eye, the superposition of left and right will probably collapse to one side or the other so fast that it would be unnoticeable. But no one has tried such an experiment, so we don’t know for sure. Any statistically significant difference in the proportion of people reporting something to the left or right in a superposition trial would be unexpected – and could mean something is missing from quantum mechanics as we know it. The observer could also be asked to record their subjective experience of viewing a superposition state, compared with the random mixture. Again, according to standard quantum mechanics, we don’t expect to see any difference – but if we did, it could point to new physics and a better understanding of the quantum measurement problem.

Quote:But the observer will likely only be lucky enough to notice their photon in a small proportion of the experimental trials, so they would never measure the true frequency of that measurement outcome. Like a single-photon vision test, the experiment will be carefully designed to eliminate bias and help the observer be as objective as possible. A forced-choice design is the secret ingredient again. We will randomly choose whether to send the entangled photon to the left or right side of the observer’s eye, and at the same time send a second, non-entangled control photon to the opposite side with probability equal to the maximum expected frequency of the measurement outcome that would not violate local realism. In each trial, the observer will decide whether they saw anything on the left side and the right side – so they can respond left, right, or both. If the observer chooses the side with the entangled photon as frequently or more often than they choose the control side, the outcome violates local realism.

At the end she talks of coming back to these types of experiments when technology improves. So perhaps they concluded they just didn't have the technology to produce accurate results...but then why mention how close they were to getting results in Sci Am?