Quantum Entanglement in Your Brain Is What Generates Consciousness[?]

Quantum Entanglement in Your Brain Is What Generates Consciousness, Radical Study Suggests

Darren Orf

The study, published this month in the journal Physics Review E, suggests that a fatty material called myelin that surrounding the nerve cell’s axon—the fiber that transmits electrical impulses to other nerves or body tissues—provides an environment in which the entanglement of photons is possible. This could potentially explain the rise of cognition, and especially synchronization, which is essential for information processing and rapid response.

“Consciousness within the brain hinges on the synchronized activities of millions of neurons, but the mechanism responsible for orchestrating such synchronization remains elusive,” the paper reads. “The results indicate that the cylindrical cavity formed by a myelin sheath can facilitate spontaneous photon emission from the vibrational modes and generate a significant number of entangled photon pairs.”

The team built mathematical models detailing how infrared photons could impact the myelin sheath and impart energy to chemical bonds—specifically, carbon-hydrogen bonds embedded in this fatty tissue. This, in turn, could spur biphoton generation with many pairs exhibiting entanglement, and serve as a type of “quantum communication resource” within the nervous system.

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Nobel laureate Roger Penrose is widely held to be one of the most brilliant living physicists for his wide-ranging work from black holes to cosmology. And then there’s his idea about how consciousness is caused by quantum processes. Most scientists have dismissed this as a cute eccentricity—a guy like Roger gets to have at least one crazy theory without being demoted from the supersmartypants club. The most common argument for this dismissal is that quantum effects can’t survive long enough in an environment as warm and chaotic as the brain. Well, a new study has revealed that Penrose’s prime candidate molecule for this quantum activity does indeed exhibit large scale quantum activity. So was Penrose right after all? Are you a quantum entity?

Quantum Entanglement in Your Brain Is What Generates Consciousness, Radical Study Suggests

Darren Orf

Here we go again. Materialist (I should say scientistic) scientists trying to prove that consciousness is or is generated by the operation and interaction of billions of neurons/synapses in the brain (something they a priori for metaphysical reasons believe because it just has to be true according to their fixed ideology), this time once again pulling out some apparent neuronal quantum mechanical interactions as the mechanism that somehow allows materiality to generate consciousness. As usual ignoring all the strong philosphical arguments that this is impossible, one of the least being the well-known Chalmers "Hard Problem", and ignoring and dismissing all the paranormal phenomena evidence against it.

The Phys.org site's article on this goes into more detail with a comment from one of the researchers:

One possibility, the authors write, is that the entanglement of photons could transform into entanglement along potassium ion channels in the neuron. If so, the opening and closing of one channel may affect the performance of another somewhere else.

Chen told Phys.org that their result is a combination of two phenomena that exist but are still largely mysterious: consciousness (let alone quantum consciousness) and quantum entanglement.

"We won't say there is a direct connection. At this early stage, our primary goal is to identify possible mechanisms of neural synchronization, which affects numerous neurobiological processes. Through this work, we hope to gain a better understanding."

I do think any hard proof that quantum processes are necessary for human consciousness to be realized in the brain hurts materialists far more than immaterialists, but this is very preliminary research either way.

The title: "Quantum Entanglement in Your Brain Is What Generates Consciousness, Radical Study Suggests" has very different meanings depending on whether you believe the brain produces consciousness.

If you don't believe the brain produces consciousness it sounds like they are implying there is something special or magical about quantum entanglement that can explain the hard problem.

If you do believe the brain produces consciousness, it sounds like they are just saying the quantum entanglement is involved to how the brain works. I assume this is what the authors intended it to mean.

Quantum Entanglement in Your Brain Is What Generates Consciousness, Radical Study Suggests

Darren Orf

The study, published this month in the journal Physics Review E, suggests that a fatty material called myelin that surrounding the nerve cell’s axon—the fiber that transmits electrical impulses to other nerves or body tissues—provides an environment in which the entanglement of photons is possible. This could potentially explain the rise of cognition, and especially synchronization, which is essential for information processing and rapid response.

“Consciousness within the brain hinges on the synchronized activities of millions of neurons, but the mechanism responsible for orchestrating such synchronization remains elusive,” the paper reads. “The results indicate that the cylindrical cavity formed by a myelin sheath can facilitate spontaneous photon emission from the vibrational modes and generate a significant number of entangled photon pairs.”

The team built mathematical models detailing how infrared photons could impact the myelin sheath and impart energy to chemical bonds—specifically, carbon-hydrogen bonds embedded in this fatty tissue. This, in turn, could spur biphoton generation with many pairs exhibiting entanglement, and serve as a type of “quantum communication resource” within the nervous system.

All of this just dances around the question. It continues to avoid the grim reality that seems to horrify the Materialist and Physicalist ~ that minds, consciousness, do not have physical qualities, and do not act like we observe material and physical stuff to act, which in turn do not display any of the mental qualities we can clearly observe in our own minds ~ if we are willing to introspect deeply enough.

The times I've had the ignorant tell me that thoughts are just neuronal firings... tell them otherwise, and they don't seem to be able to comprehend.

All of this just dances around the question. It continues to avoid the grim reality that seems to horrify the Materialist and Physicalist ~ that minds, consciousness, do not have physical qualities, and do not act like we observe material and physical stuff to act, which in turn do not display any of the mental qualities we can clearly observe in our own minds ~ if we are willing to introspect deeply enough.

The times I've had the ignorant tell me that thoughts are just neuronal firings... tell them otherwise, and they don't seem to be able to comprehend.

Sure, I mean I haven't changed my mind that the Materialist/Physicalist faith is a false religion.

But as you are noting here so long as the idea that consciousness is correlated with the neuronal level there will be a barrier to getting Survival and Psi accepted by academia.

Consciousness [when] tied to the brain being dependent on the deeper quantum level is a positive for proponents as it would shift a lot of perspectives.

Additionally for many in the public the idea that our bodies are machines acting out the discovery of mathematics, production of literature, and so on seems to make sense. If physicalists have to instead say all our maths and arts come lucky indeterministic "swerves" at the QM level they will see a (massive?) drop in how much of the public they can persuade.

Dualism, at that point, could see a huge resurgence with some boost for Idealism as well depending on what happens with quantum physics research.

Sure, I mean I haven't changed my mind that the Materialist/Physicalist faith is a false religion.

But as you are noting here so long as the idea that consciousness is correlated with the neuronal level there will be a barrier to getting Survival and Psi accepted by academia.

Consciousness [when] tied to the brain being dependent on the deeper quantum level is a positive for proponents as it would shift a lot of perspectives.

Additionally for many in the public the idea that our bodies are machines acting out the discovery of mathematics, production of literature, and so on seems to make sense. If physicalists have to instead say all our maths and arts come lucky indeterministic "swerves" at the QM level they will see a (massive?) drop in how much of the public they can persuade.

Dualism, at that point, could see a huge resurgence with some boost for Idealism as well depending on what happens with quantum physics research.

Perhaps, but maybe I'm simply cynical, given that Physicalists keep trying to allow the only valid interpretations of quantum mechanics to be those that confirm their ideology, while happily saying that no-one understands quantum physics (except them, conveniently, but they never say it explicitly).

Many Physicalists are keen to get rid of the conscious observer from quantum physics, by deliberately redefining observers as able to be physical objects. They however conveniently omit that these physical objects were designed with intent to measure, but can never seem to argue against it, so they side-step talking about it.

Perhaps, but maybe I'm simply cynical, given that Physicalists keep trying to allow the only valid interpretations of quantum mechanics to be those that confirm their ideology, while happily saying that no-one understands quantum physics (except them, conveniently, but they never say it explicitly).

Many Physicalists are keen to get rid of the conscious observer from quantum physics, by deliberately redefining observers as able to be physical objects. They however conveniently omit that these physical objects were designed with intent to measure, but can never seem to argue against it, so they side-step talking about it.

I would agree with what you say, but not sure how it directly relates to the question of whether the correlates of consciousness are at the neuronal or quantum-biology level?

Many Physicalists are keen to get rid of the conscious observer from quantum physics, by deliberately redefining observers as able to be physical objects. They however conveniently omit that these physical objects were designed with intent to measure, but can never seem to argue against it, so they side-step talking about it.

No, you're arguing against a straw man. Physicalists subscribe to either De Broglie's pilot wave theory (e.g, David Bohm, John Stewart Bell) or the Many World Interpretation (e.g. Sean Carrol).