Part 2: Sir Roger Penrose & Stuart Hameroff: What is Consciousness? (#248)

A conversation with Nobel Prize Winner and renowned mathematical
physicist Sir Roger Penrose and anesthesiologist Dr. Stuart
Hameroff about consciousness and quantum mechanics. Sir Roger
Penrose and Dr. Stuart Hameroff have tackled one of the most vexing
problems in science -- how does consciousness work? Their theories
of consciousness were selected by the Templeton Foundation for
study. We will discuss Is the brain a sophisticated computer or an
intuitive thinking device? Following on from their conference in
Tucson which pitted Integrated Information Theory (IIT) against
Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR), Sir Roger Penrose OM
and Stuart Hameroff discuss the current state of theories that
might explain human consciousness and objections to them from FQXI
and others. Sir Roger Penrose describe examples of
‘non-computability’ in human consciousness, thoughts and actions
such as the way we evaluate particular chess positions which cast
doubt on ‘Turing’ computation as a complete explanation of brain
function. As a source of non-computability, Roger discuss his
‘objective reduction’ (‘OR’) self-collapse of the quantum
wavefunction which is a potential resolution for the ‘measurement
problem’ in quantum mechanics, and a mechanism for non-computable
physics. Dr. Stuart Hameroff reviews neuronal and biophysical
aspects of Orch OR, in which ‘orchestrated’ quantum vibrations
occur among entangled brain microtubules and evolve toward Orch OR
threshold and consciousness. The nature, feasibility, decoherence
times and evidence for quantum vibrations in microtubules, their
role and correlation with consciousness, effects upon them of
anesthetic gases and psychedelic drug molecules will be discussed,
along with Orch OR criticisms and predictions of microtubule
quantum vibrations as therapeutic targets for mental and cognitive
disorders. Be my friend: Twitter:
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