Your brain might be a quantum computer that hallucinates math

Your brain might be a quantum computer that hallucinates math

Tristan Greene

Why go through all the trouble of hallucinating an answer across myriad neuronal complexes when individual neurons could just pretend to be ones and zeros like a binary computer?

The answer may lie in the quantum nature of the universe. When you perform a simple math function, such as adding two plus two, your brain may hallucinate all of the possible answers at once while simultaneously working to both remember the answer (you’ve definitely added those numbers before) and to process the data (1+1+1+1).

If the human brain were binary, you’d probably have to wait for it to go through each permutation individually instead of hallucinating them all at once.

The result is that you’re probably answering the question in your head before you can actively recognize that you’re thinking about it because both functions occur simultaneously. That’s called quantum time travel.

It seems better to posit an irreducible consciousness that might use quantum processes as suggested by Penrose & Hammeroff / Stapp/ etc. Though this speculation might at least encourage further research.