Conversations on Consciousness

The other way of looking at it is that consciousness, or perhaps
something proto-conscious, is fundamental to the universe; it’s part
of our reality, much like spin, or mass, or charge. I mean there are certain
irreducible things in physics that you just have to say ‘they’re
there’ and consciousness is like that. This is the view that Dave
Chalmers took in his book, which followed the talk I mentioned. He
said that consciousness must involve something fundamental, something
that’s intrinsic to the universe, and I agree with that.
Now, where we disagree is that he thinks that this fundamental
entity, whatever it is, can be attained at various levels, whereas
Roger Penrose and I think that the qualia, if they are fundamental,
must exist at the fundamental level of the universe, the lowest
level of reality that exists. In modern physics that’s best described
at the Planck scale, the level at which space-time geometry is no
longer smooth but quantized. When you go down in scale to roughly
10–33 cm you get to this level of space–time where there is a granularity,
and that’s the fundamental level. It is at that level where we think
qualia are embedded as patterns in this fundamental granularity
of space–time geometry that makes up the universe. Roger had also
suggested that Platonic values in mathematics as well as ethics and
aesthetics were embedded there.

Sue But I don’t see how talking about the Planck scale, and other levels
of physics, relates in any way to the problem we’re talking about.
That is, that sitting here I’m experiencing a world. There is this complicated
world appearing around me, with you and me, my body and yours
in this space here. What has that to do with all these microscopic
details?

Stuart Your complicated world is described by two sets of laws—
Newton’s laws and so forth at the macroscopic level, but the bizarre
laws of quantum mechanics at small scales. Particles may exist in multiple
places simultaneously—superpositions—be interconnected over
distances, and time is reversible. The problem is we don’t know how
small is small. The boundary between the quantum world and the
everyday world—quantum state reduction, or the so-called collapse
of the wave function—is a big question in physics and seems to have
something to do with consciousness.
The point is that our perceived reality—the everyday classical
world—precipitates from the ‘microscopic details’, as you put it,
conscious moment by conscious moment. Quantum computers do
this—multiple possibilities reduce or collapse to the answer. So in
our unconscious minds we have superpositions of multiple possible
choices or perceptions which reduce or collapse to one particular
choice or perception, say, 40 times per second. Each reduction
chooses a set of qualia.
So I would say that the image you have in your brain right now of
looking at me, trying to understand what I’m saying, the surroundings,
and our environment, is like a painting (if you will allow me a
metaphor) and the qualia, the proto-conscious qualia that I’m talking
about, are like the paints on a palette. The artist doing a painting has
a palette with all these different, simple, primitive colours, and he or
she integrates them into a complex scene. So, similarly, I would argue,
our brains are able to access the qualia at this fundamental level, but
only a particular type of quantum process is able to do that.
Sue So can you explain briefly what kind of quantum process you’re
talking about, and where it happens in the brain?
Stuart Roger Penrose developed this idea in his book The Emperor’s New
Mind in 1989. He argued, using Gödel’s theorem, that our minds do
things that are non-computable; that are non-algorithmic. They
are inherently different from conventional classical computers. Roger
deduced this non-computable element much like Sherlock Holmes
followed clues to find the murderer, sometimes very obscure and
subtle clues, to find that the only source in the universe for this noncomputable
influence is the particular type of collapse of the wave
function due to quantum gravity at the fundamental Planck scale.
Not only does it connect to qualia, it brings in a non-algorithmic—
a non-computable—factor which distinguishes our choices from
those of computers. So he was proposing a certain type of quantum
computing in the brain.
But Roger didn’t have a good candidate for quantum computing in
the brain, only suggesting the possibility of superpositions of nerves
both firing and not firing. I had been studying the computational
capabilities of protein structures called microtubules which make
up the internal scaffolding within nerve cells. It seemed that microtubules
were excellent candidates for quantum computation, that
quantum computing might be happening inside nerve cells where
they could be isolated. I also knew from my study of anaesthesia that
the molecular mechanisms by which anaesthetic gas molecules erase
consciousness involve only quantum mechanical interactions with
certain proteins in the brain. So it was reasonable to believe that consciousness
involved quantum processes and that microtubules might
be quantum computers.
It could work like this. Let’s say you’re looking at the menu at
the Mexican restaurant for lunch and you consider the tostada, or the
burrito, or the chimichanga. In your subconscious mind you have a
superposition of all three of these. Then it collapses and you choose
the chimichanga. Maybe some non-computable Platonic value influenced
your choice. That’s the way to look at volition.
Sue It sounds as though you believe in free will?
Stuart I have no choice but to believe in free will!
Free will, of course, is one of those very difficult issues, but I think
in this approach we can actually explain it in the following way. In
the model Roger and I have developed, we have quantum computation
in the microtubules inside neurons that reaches the threshold
for collapse 40 times a second, to coincide with the 40 Hz gamma
oscillations that exist in the brain. And the outcome of each reduction
is a process of quantum superposition, quantum computation, which
follows the Schrödinger equation, which is basically deterministic.
However, at the instant of collapse there’s another influence that
enters. This is Roger’s non-computable influence which is due to the
fine grain in space–time geometry. This has a little influence on the
choices, so that choices result from both the deterministic quantum
computation and this non-computable influence. The experience of
that is free will.
Now I think of it this way. To make an analogy, imagine you’ve
trained a zombie robot to sail a sailboat across a lake, and there’s
three ports on the other side, A, B, or C, and the wind is shifting constantly.
So the wind in this case is going to play the role of the noncomputable
influences, and the tacking and jibing of the boat are
going to be the algorithmic deterministic processes that the robot
zombie has been trained to do. But each time he or she tacks it’s going
to be influenced by this non-computable influence, so that the outcome—
the port A, B, or C at which the boat lands—will be a result of
both. I think the experience of exerting this deterministic process
along with this non-computable influence is what we call free will.
Therefore, we occasionally do things that are more or less unexpected
even to ourselves.


I think this is exactly what is happening, consciousness ‘dances
on the edge between the quantum world and the classical world’.
And the more we are influenced and in touch with the quantum
subconscious world of enlightenment, the happier we can be.

Stuart Hameroff