Tony's Home
| Superposition Separation | Structures | OrchOR | TimeScales - Table - Graph |
Stuart Hameroff's Calgary paper is entitled
Anesthetics provide some evidence in favor of tubulin dimers as the basis of human brain activity:
anesthestic action may be due to submillimeter gravity or van der Waals interactions of anesthetics with the conformational structure of tubulin dimers blocking transitions of polarization states, causing loss of consciousness; and
anesthetics not only affect the consciousness of higher animals, but, at similar concentrations, also stop the movement of paramecia, amoebae, and green slime molds, all of whom rely on microtubules of their cytoskeleton for movement.
It is important to note that, due to the nonlocality of actions on microtubules, the possibility that different anesthetics may physically attach to different parts of a microtubule does NOT prove that the dimer is not the basis of human brain activity. The actions of the various anesthetics at their various sites of attachment may be nonlocally transmitted through the microtubule to the dimer site, thus producing anesthesia.
As Robert Neil Boyd has pointed out to me, Magnetite in Brains may allow Brains to interact with electromagnetic fields. This could provide a link between Brains and many types of electromagnetic phenomena, including but not limited to Schumann Resonance Phenomena.
Jon Dobson and Tim St. Pierre at the University of Western Australia have a web page that says: "... Biomineralization of ferrimagnetic magnetite is known to occur in a number of organisms including animals ... Recent investigations have revealed the presence of biogenic magnetite in human brain tissue as well ... we are examining tissue samples using scanning and transmission electron microscopy (SEM and TEM), electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and energy filter TEM (EFTEM) imaging in order to locate the particles in the tissue and determine their relationships to structures in the brain. The presence of ferrimagnetic material in human brain tissue also provides plausible theoretical mechanisms for the interaction of environmental magnetic fields with the human central nervous system ...".
Kobayashi, Kirschvink, and Nesson, in Nature v.374, p.123, 9 March 1995, caution against the possibility of contamination in experimental procedures. They say "... A simple calculation shows that the mechanical energy present in a single 0.1 um magnetite crystal exposed to a 60 Hz, 0.1 mT magnetic field is many times the thermal background noise. Such particles, if adsorbed on cell surfaces or ingested by the cells, could conceivably transfer this energy to contiguous cell structures such as mechanically-activated ion channels (which operate with a gating force close to the thermal noise limit), and thereby alter cytoplasmic ion concentrations ...".
Kirschvink "... has plotted the hundreds of beachings of whales and dolphins along the U.S. east coast. He finds that these cetaceans tend to run aground at spots where the earth's magnetic field is diminished by the local magnetic fields of rocks. These coastal magnetic lows are at the ends of long, continuous channels of magnetic minima that run for great distances along the ocean floors. Kirschvink believes that the stranded whales and dolphins were using these magnetic troughs for navigation and failed to see the stop sign at the beaches and ran aground. The magnetic troughs in this view are superhighways for animals equipped with a magnetic sense. If Kirschvink's theory is correct, the magnetic sensors of the whales and dolphins are extremely sensitive, because the deepest magnetic troughs are only about 4% weaker than the background magnetic field. Magnetite crystals have been found in birds, fish, and insects, where they are thought to contribute to a magnetic sense of some sort. So far, no magnetite has shown up in whales and dolphins.", according to an article Whales and Dolphins Use Magnetic Roads, Science News, 126:389, 1984, by S. Weisburd.
According to an article by Charles Walcott, et al; "Pigeons Have Magnets," Science, 205:1027, 1979, "... Homing pigeons seem to possess at least two direction sensors. Years of experiments with released birds have proved that they use sun compasses on sunny days but have magnetic backups for cloudy days. But how do they sense the earth's magnetic field? Paired-coil tests suggested that the pigeon compass resided in the neck or back of the head. Narrowing the search with sensitive magnetometers and two dozen dissected pigeons, the authors discovered tiny bits of tissue containing magnetite crystals. The same tissues contained yellow crystals likely made by the iron-storage protein ferritin, which was probably used in the biological synthesis of the magnetite. ...". In Science Frontiers #9, Winter 1979, William R. Corliss added the comment: "Many species of mud bacteria also synthesize magnetite for purposes of orientation, indicating that nature or some directive force used the same strategy in two widely separated species."
Magnetite Magnetosomes (mostly related to bacteria) are described on an American Geophysical Union web page as "... [falling] within a narrow size range of 35-120 nm when measured along their long axes ... within this size range the particles are uniformly magnetized, permanent single magnetic domains (SD) ... Magnetosomes occur in at least three different crystal forms determined using transmission electron microscopy. The simplest form, found in M. magnetotacticum, is cubo-octahedral, which preserves the cubic crystal symmetry of magnetite ... A second type, found in coccoid and vibrioid strains, is an elongated hexagonal prism with the axis of elongation parallel to the <111> crystal direction ... A third type, observed in some uncultured cells, is an elongated cubo-octahedral form producing unique bullet-shaped, tear-drop, and arrowhead particles ...".
The study of the structure and properties of Atomic Clusters may be applicable to BioMagnetite.
The BBC reported on 19 March 1999 that "... Professor John Collinge, Director of the UK's Medical Research Council's Prion Unit ... [has] unmasked the mysterious mechanism by which normal prion proteins in the brain are transformed into a different, deadly form. This happens when a rogue prion corrupts a perfectly normal prion, PrP, which usually sits on the surface of brain cells. It is believed that the abnormal prion causes the normal protein
to change shape to form a new rogue prion
.A domino effect follows. The altered proteins cannot dissolve as normal and build up in hard clumps or "plaques". This kills the cells they form in and is also a barrier to scientific analysis of the rogue protein's structure. The protein clumps are the "holes" which characterise the prion brain diseases and cause the brain damage which is ultimately fatal. ... just how the prion persuades the normal protein to change was until now completely unknown. Catching the conversion in the act allowed the British scientists to discover that just one, subtle change is responsible. ... "We now know that the conversion involves breaking a single bond in the molecule using conditions which exist normally within cells," explains Professor Collinge. ... "This remarkable property of prion protein is unprecedented: no other protein has yet been shown to be able to exist in two such entirely unrelated shapes." ... The research is published in Science magazine and was funded by the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. ...".
Neural nets in the brain can last a long time, and can learn (as in memorize).
The formation of a thought is a transient phenomenon, as is clear to anyone who ever had an "aha" or "Eureka" moment, and it is well described by the coherent tubulin electron process of Quantum Consciousness.
Jack Sarfatti has proposed a model linking consciousness in the human brain to consciousness of our universe using his version of GRW decoherence time. His model is roughly:
Tgrw = 1/H = 4 x 10^17 seconds, which varies with the age of our universe. It is completely adhoc in the GRW formal model which is completely phenomenological not fundamental. He does not use the GRW Gaussian range a_grw so far in any of his computations. In GRW, and in Jack Sarfatti's version of GRW, there is no relationship between a_grw and Tgrw, they are independent.However, if you use Jack Sarfatti's model and also assume that a_grw = 1 nanometer = tubulin cage size, then you get:
- Tgrw = 4 x 10^17 sec
- a_grw / c = 1 nanometer / c = (1/3) 10^(-7-10) = 3 x 10^(-18) sec
- Geometric mean = sqrt( 4 x 10^17 x 3 x 10^(-18)) =roughly= 1 sec, which is roughly ball park for human brain presponse times etc.
Note that Jack Sarfatti's Tgrw is also close to Tgrw for protons.
Motivated by Jack Sarfatti's model, and by his use in his human brain model of coherent states of electrons connected by what he calls virtual soft photons, which seem to me to be equivalent to the Conformal Graviphotons of my D4-D5-E6-E7 physics model. In this section, I will use the term graviphoton, with the understanding that their force strength (as distinct from the gravitational force strength of the gravitons of conventional gravity) is given by the same Fine Structure Constant as the force strength of electromagnetic photons.
Jack Sarfatti uses the equation
where h is Planck's constant, e is the electric charge of the electron, c is the speed of light, e^2/hc is the Fine Structure Constant, m is the electron mass, H is the Hubble factor 1/T where T is the age of our universe, and N is a number that will turn out to be the number of electrons in a coherent state of conscious superposition.
His motivation for the equation is that "... the idea is to match the height of two barriers per qubit. One barrier is the usual quantum action barrier of height h, the other is post-quantum reaction barrier of height (e^2/hc)(mc^2/N^2H) for an N-qubit entangled network. ... That is
- e -> e/N
- h -> N^2h
- c(group) -> c/N^2
- c(phase) -> cN^2
- epsilon -> epsilon N^4
- so c(group)^2 -> c^2/N^4
- So Coulomb barrier against cold fusion is e^2 -> e^2 /N^2
Post-quantum barrier against signal-nonlocality is (e^2/hc)(mc^2/N^2H) compared to h. ... [it is the] ... height of reaction barrier per qubit of mass m, charge e when N of them are phase-locked to the near field ...".
The way I see it is to write h in terms of the Planck Energy Epl and Planck Time Tpl:
You get:
= (e^2/hc) ( ( mc^2/Epl ) ( (1/H)/Tpl ) )
Look at what the factors mean:
Now, assume that at each Planck time, our universe creates a pair of new Planck-mass Black Holes that quickly decay to form about 2 x 10^(-5) gm of ordinary matter/energy and that each new pair of Planck-mass Black Holes has one electron tuned to it,
This cosmology is a hybrid between the conventional expanding universe with fixed amount of matter and the steady state continuous creation universe (of Hoyle et al). As an amount of energy/matter equivalent to twice the Planck energy (about 2 x 10^(-5) gram in mass terms) is created every Planck time (about 10^(-43) sec) so that (1/H)/Tpl = 10^(17+43) = 10^60 Planck times, at each of which there is creation of 10^19 protons (two Planck masses), there should now be a total of about 10^79 protons, a reasonable approximation to the baryonic mass of our universe,.Each newly created cluster of particles from decay of a Black Hole Pair would be balanced in electric and color charges and would be a small cluster of leptons, quarks, and gauge bosons. Each new cluster would have a particular shielded tuned-electron, just as each tubulin in the human brain has a particular electron.
Each case raises questions of how to maintain coherent links to other tuned-electrons in clusters/tubulins, but my model assumes that coherent links are so maintained.
In my model, we do live in what I call a universe that did begin its individual life about 10^10 years ago as a dense fluctuation in a parent universe. The dense fluctuation expanded from that big bang birth and after 10^10 years it is as it is now. Until it gets so big and thin that it buds off into its own descendant universes, the Hubble 1/H is a useful tool for the types of calculations that Jack is doing and I am doing. However, it is not by any means the only universe or all there is. There are many other universes (parents, brothers and sisters, children, cousins, etc.). Not only that, but each has further multiplicity in terms of many-worlds histories. For such larger collections, I use terms like multiverse and macrospace.When I am talking about Jack Sarfatti's model being a useful way to look at both the universe and humanity, I am not talking about looking at everything and humanity. Although that can be done, it is another article for another time. I am just making a small limited point about how humanity can perceive and orient itself with respect to its neighborhood (universe), not with respect to its entire world (macrospace of multiverses).
Also assume that each newly created tuned-electron can be connected to each of the pre-existing tuned-electrons by a graviphoton, and
that the probablility of a graviphoton being absorbed by a new tuned-electron is given by the product of
To see what is happening, look at all the 10^60 tuned-electrons in our universe at the present time, and let them all emit graviphotons going (like many sperm cells going to an egg) to the next newly-created Planck energy bunch of stuff.
and
the probability that the new tuned-electron will actually absorb the graviphoton (thus creating a graviphoton link) will be (e^2/hc).
Therefore, letting N^2 be an approximation of N(N-2)/2,
is the number of graviphoton links in a coherent set of tuned-electrons in our present universe, and
is the number of tuned-electrons forming a coherent set in our present universe.
What does a pair of 2 tuned-electrons connected by such a graviphoton look like? Perhaps like a more complicated version of the IBM image that shows an electron at one focus of an ellipse and a "mirage" electron at the other focus. From a Bohm point of view, the waves connecting the tuned-electrons may be regardible, not only as graviphotons,but also as Bohm (or post-Bohm) wave-function guiding waves, whose "quanta" might be called something like "quantons".
Since 1/H can be measured, not only as a time, but also (using c as a conversion factor between space and time coordinates) as a length representing the scale of our universe (for which 1/H is now roughly 10^28 cm), and since the transmission by speed-of-light graviphotons of a coherence/decoherence event throughout the set of N coherent particles spread throughout the universe takes proportionately longer for greater 1/H, it is reasonable that Tu is inversely proportional to H.
Since a decoherence event affecting any one of the N coherent particles will decohere all of them, it is reasonable that Tu is inversely proportional to N.
This justifies the formula used by Jack Sarfatti, Tu = 1 / H N , for which at present, 1/H = 10^10 years, which is 10 billion years, at which time N = 10^18, so that , to rough order of magnitude Tu = 1 / H N = 3 x 10^17 sec ./ 10^18 = 0.3 sec, which, as Jack Sarfatti notes, is in the ball park of the "... Crick brain frequency = order 40 Hz ...".Jack Sarfatti's formula is based on his model in which Tgrw = 1/H = 4 x 10^17 seconds
The way I look at is to take as fundamental, not (1/H), but GRW decoherence. The total time for which N coherent particles can maintain Superposition is Tgrw / N, so I use
and get for the present time Tu = 3 x 10^16 / 10^18 = 0.03 sec, which is shorter than the figure of Jack Sarfatti, but even closer to the "... Crick brain frequency = order 40 Hz ...", so there may be resonant tuning of human consciousness with the consciousness of our present-day universe. .If the characteristic timescale of human consciousness is fixed by human brain biophysics/biochemistry, then that resonant tuning may not hold for all time. Here are some calculations of Tu for some other ages of our universe:
It will not be until about age 10^20 years (when N = 10^23 or so, for which tubulin decoherence time would be about 10^(-14) sec) that the dark remnants of stars and planets have escaped from the galaxies, thus ending what might be called the Galactic Era of our universe.
In my view:
Consciousness time of the human brain is based on tubulin T_N and the Tgrw time of the tubulin-electron, 3 x 10^14 sec.
An alternative view of human brain consciousness time might consider Tgrw based on a_grw of 1 nanometer, the range within which the tubulin electron is confined in its cage, which Tgrw is about 3 x 10^17 sec.
Graviphotons that connect the tuned-electrons of universe consciosness have both electromagnetic and gravitational aspects. Jack Sarfatti uses electromagnetic soft virtual photons, thus emphasizing the electromagnetic aspects. Penrose and Hameroff use gravity in their tubulin-electron brain structures, thus emphasizing gravitational aspects. I think that both aspects are useful, and prefer to use graviphotons so that I can use both aspects. I do tend to emphasize the electromagnetic aspects in universal consciousness and the gravitational aspects in human brain consciousness, but I believe that they can be reconciled and are in fact different ways of looking at similar things.
Note that N is NOT the total number of electrons in our present universe, as N evolves as sqrt( 1/H ) = square root of age of universe while the total number of all particle in the universe, if a new Planck energy worth of them is created each Planck time, evolves in linear proportion to the age of the universe. Therefore, as the universe ages, a progressively smaller part of it is consciousness/connected by graviphotons to any given tuned-electron, and unless there is a higher-level mechanism to connect up the disconnected regions, our universe may become more and more "Balkanized".
Maybe the function of intelligent life in our universe, including but not limited to humanity, is to connect up the Balkanized regions of our universe (as perhaps by intergalactic communication networks or connections with higher-level beings).
Maybe the fact that humans also have N = 10^18 is due to evolutionary patterning of humanity as a micro-model of our universe, with each individual human being able to tune into one of the Balkan parts of our universe.
If global communication, trade, and transportation produce a harmonious global human community, then humanity might realize that it can help to do the same thing in our universe, and begin to look beyond itself in a constructive way.
If humanity degenerates into a stagnant global dark age, then maybe other life forms in our universe can do the job, with humanity going the way of dinosaurs/Neanderthals.
Based on Sidharth vortex structures, the Planck length is a sort of geometric mean between an Ordinary SpaceTime with distances above the Planck length and an Exotic SpaceTime with distances below the Planck length.
If you use units in which h has the dimension of area and 1/H has the dimension of length, then
h = 10^(-27) gm cm^2 sec^(-1) = 10^(-66) cm^2
so that
The Planck length Lpl = 10^(-33) cm is the geometric mean of
The Clifford algebra Cl(N) of N elements (due to William Kingdon Clifford) has graded structure:
All these grades add up to a total of all 2^N elements of the Clifford algebra.
Some of the grades have unusual properties:
If the N tuned-electrons (the N-dimensional vector space basis) are in a coherent superposition configuration corresponding to a state of thought/consciousness, then if you rotate that vector space, you get another configuration that corresponds to the same thought (like a cube rotated is still a cube), so the number of rotations N(N-1)/2 gives the number of ways that you can vary the electron states and still have the same thought.
Robert Neil Boyd suggested that a significant number, in addition to N electrons, N^2 (an approximation of N(N-1)/2 pairs of electrons, with order not mattering), and 2^N combinations (subsets) of electrons (with order not mattering), might also involve factorials such as the K! permutations of K electrons (with order mattering) for some K related to N.
Such K! factorial factors do not appear directly in the Clifford algebra Cl(N), but factorials do appear in the Weyl group of the Lie algebra Spin(N) of Cl(N), which is of order 2^((N/2)-1) (N/2)!. The important points are that:
At the low energy level where we and the D4-D5-E6-E7-E8 VoDou Physics model live, I consider spacetime to really be 8-dim, of which 4-dim is normal physical spacetime and 4-dim is an internal charge/color symmetry space. Locally (that is, in the neighborhood of any given point of spacetime) physics (including ALL experiments of which I know) is pretty well described by a Lagrangian constructed from the Clifford algebra Cl(8) of an 8-dim vector space.What happens if you add a ninth dimension to the 8-dim space? You have to go outside/beyond the 8-dim space. That means to go to a larger Clifford algebra, that is Cl(9). If you think that the real universe is really big, (although a smaller thing than the multiverse or macrospace) and that the real universe has, say, 8N dimensions, then you have to go to Cl(8N) to get something big enough to describe it. Now, use Clifford periodicity to factor Cl(8N) into the tensor product of N copies of Cl(8), and rememeber that Cl(8) describes how physics (at our level) works in the neighborhood of a given point. Therefore, each of the N copies of Cl(8) should describe how physics works at each of N points.
Next, what you have to do is to make sure the N copies somehow fit together in a consistent way. You can do this by putting each of them at a vertex of an E8 8-dim HyperDiamond lattice. If N is big enough, you then have a model that describes physics at our level in our universe. The physical 4-dim spacetime that we see is really a 4-dim HyperDiamond lattice slice of the 8-dim E8 lattice, each vertex of which has fermions from the spinor reps of the Cl(8) Lie algebra Spin(8) and gauge bosons from the adjoint rep of Spin(8).
Now we have constructed a physics model that really works at our level of experience. It explains every experimental observation humans have ever done.
Since Cl(8) is the fundamental building block of Cl(8N) for all N, consider what you need as building blocks of Cl(8) itself. We will find that all of Cl(8) can be built from the elementary representations of the bivector Lie algebra Spin(8). To see how this works, look at the graded structure of Cl(8):
All these grades add up to a total of all 256 = 2^8 elements of Cl(8), and the totality of all 256 = 16x16 = (8+8)(8+8) elements of Cl(8) can be represented with respect to the 16-dim spinor representation of Spin(8), which in turn can be represented as the sum of
all of Cl(8) can be represented in terms of the 8-dim representation of Spin(8).
Can anything smaller be a building block for all of Cl(8)?
The 8-dim representation of Spin(8) looks like an 8-dim vector space that is isomorphic to the Octonions. The unit sphere in 8-dim Octonion space, the 7-sphere S7, is parallelizable so that it corresponds to a 7-dim subspace of the Octonions (the imaginary Octonions ImO). S7 is the only parallelizable sphere (the others are S1 and S3) that is not a Lie group. The commutators of the S7 infinitesimal generators do not close to form a Lie algebra, but can be extended by 7+14 = 21 additional generators to form the 28-dim Lie algebra Spin(8). Therefore S7 generates Spin(8), and therefore generates Cl(8), so that:
S7 is the smallest thing identified directly with Cl(8) that generates Cl(8N) for all N, but since you can use
you can say that the structure of Cl(N) for all N is determined even by such simple things as binary choice or the empty set, and is therefore likely truly fundamental.
The paper gr-qc/0007006 by Paola Zizzi shows that "... during inflation, the universe can be described as a superposed state of quantum ... [qubits]. The self-reduction of the superposed quantum state is ... reached at the end of inflation, and corresponds to a superposed state of ... [ 10^19 = 2^64 qubits ]. ... This is also the number of superposed tubulins-qubits in our brain ... leading to a conscious event. ...".
Therfore, for the human brain to maintain coherent superpostion thought over all its tubulins, the number of tubulins of the human brain would have to be less than the decoherence number 2^64 = 10^19. Since the human brain has about 10^18 tubulins, it would seem that the human brain is about as big as an individual brain can get without undergoing self-decoherence.
Here are some details, in the form of an edited summary of the Paola Zizzi paper, and some comments that I think are relevant:
In gr-qc/0007006, Paola Zizzi says, ( with some editing by me denoted by [ ] ):
"... the vacuum-dominated early inflationary universe ... is a superposed quantum state of qubits. ...... the early universe had a conscious experience at the end of inflation, when the superposed quantum state of ... [ 10^18 = N quantum qubits ] ... underwent Objective Reduction. The striking point is that this value of [ N ] equals the number of superposed tubulins-qubits in our brain ...
... [ in the inflationary phase of our universe ] ... the quantum register grows with time. In fact, at each time step
... [ Tn = (n+1) Tplanck (where Tplanck = 5.3 x 10^(-44) sec) ] ... a Planckian black hole, ( the n=1 qubit state 1 which acts as a creation operator , supplies the quantum register with extra qubits. ...
At time Tn = (n+1) Tplanck the quantum gravity register will consist of (n+1)^2 qubits. [ Let N = (n+1)^2 ] ...
By the quantum holographic principle, we associate N qubits to the nth de Sitter horizon ... remember that |1> = Had|0> where Had is the Hadamard gate ... the state ... [ of N qubits ] ... can be expressed as
... [ |N> = ( Had|0> )^N ] ... As the time evolution is discrete, the quantum gravity register resembles more a quantum cellular automata than a quantum computer. Moreover, the quantum gravity register has the peculiarity to grow at each time step ( it is self-producing ). If we adopt an atemporal picture, then the early inflationary universe can be interpreted as an ensemble of quantum gravity registers in parallel ... which reminds us of the many-worlds interpretation. ...
The superposed state of quantum gravity registers represents the early inflationary universe which is a closed system. Obviously then, the superposed quantum state cannot undergo environmental decoherence. However, we know that at the end of the inflationary epoch, the universe reheated by getting energy from the vacuum, and started to be radiation-dominated becoming a Friedmann universe. This phase transition should correspond to decoherence of the superposed quantum state. The only possible reduction model in this case is self-reduction ...
during inflation, gravitational entropy and quantum entropy are mostly equivalent ...
Moreover ... The value of the cosmological constant now is
... /\N = 10^(-56) cm^(-2) ... in agreement with inflationary theories.
If decoherence of N qubits occurred now, at Tnow = 10^60 Tplanck
( that is, n = 10^60, N = 10^120 ) there would be a maximum gravitational entropy
... [ maximum entropy Smax = N ln2 = 10^120 ] ... In fact, the actual entropy is about
... [ entropy now Snow = 10^101 ] ... [Therefore] decoherence should have occurred for
... [ Ndecoh = 10^(120-101) = 10^19 = 2^64 ] ... which corresponds to ... [ n = 9 and to ] ... the decoherence time
... [ Tdecoh = 10^9 Tplanck = 10(-34) sec ] ...".
From the point of view of my Vodou Physics model, the fundamental structure is the 2^8 = 256-dimensional Cl(8) Clifford algebra, which can be described by 2^8 qubits.
Our inflationary universe decoheres when it has Ndecoh = 2^64 qubits.
What is special about 2^64 qubits ?
2^64 qubits corresponds to the Clifford algebra Cl(64) = Cl(8x8).
By the periodicity-8 theorem of real Clifford algebras that
we have:
= Cl(8) x Cl(8) x Cl(8) x Cl(8) x Cl(8) x Cl(8) x Cl(8) x Cl(8)
Therefore,
Cl(64) is the first ( lowest dimension ) Clifford algebra at which we can reflexively identify each component Cl(8) with a vector in the Cl(8) vector space.
It is the reason that our universe decoheres at N = 2^64 = 10^19,
so that inflation ends at age 10^(-34) sec.
Note that Ndecoh = 2^64 = 10^19 qubits is just an order of magnitude larger than the number of tubulins Ntub = 10^18 of the human brain. In my model of Quantum Consciousness ( and that of Jack Sarfatti ), conscious thought is due to superposition states of those 10^18 tubulins. Since a brain with Ndecoh = 10^19 tubulins would undergo self-decoherence and would therefore not be able to maintain the superposition necessary for thought, it seems that
Although my understanding of the Penrose-Hameroff brain model may not be complete, I agree with Jack Sarfatti when he says, about the Penrose-Hameroff model: "... I recall they say 10^4 neurons with 10^7 tubulins per neuron ...". If so, the Penrose-Hameroff model uses no more than about 10^11 tubulins for a conscious thought, while my model ( and Jack Sarfatti's ) uses about 10^18 tubulins. In my opinion, the results of Paola Zizzi support my brain model ( and Jack Sarfatti's ), as opposed to the model of Penrose-hameroff.
1970, 1977 - Evan Harris Walker, in "The Nature of Consciousness," Mathematical Biosciences 7 (1970) 131-178 and "Quantum Mechanical Tunneling in Synaptic and Ephaptic Transmission," Int. J. Quantum Chemistry, 11 (1977) 103-127, calculates that Neurons Communicate across the Synaptic Cleft Junctions by Quantum Tunnelling. Walker's full model differs from the model described on this web page in that Walker uses RNA molecules rather than Tubulins in Microtubules as Stepping Stones between Communicating Junctions.
1994 - Stuart Hameroff's brilliant insight is that a single electron in a tubulin can switch back and forth between two states, so that single electron can be the key, connecting the electron to the brain at large through the chain:
Roger Penrose's insight is that quantum gravity could be the mechanism by which the single electron connects to the larger structures. Penrose writes this up in his book Shadows of the Mind, in which he notes that closed timelike loops are an important part the the phenomena. Penrose's proposal of closed timelike loops attracts the attention of Jack Sarfatti, who had for many years been advocating the reality and usefulness of closed timelike loops.
1995 - Dimitri Nanopoulos writes hep-ph/9505374, and begins a research program with N. E. Mavromatos and others based on quantum phenomena in microtubules.
1996 - Hameroff and Penrose write the Orch OR paper, in which they do more detailed descriptions and calculations about microtubules and structures containing them. In particular, they use the equation E = h / T estimate that a 500 millisecond event involves about 10^9 Tubulins. The Hameroff-Penrose model differs from the model described on this web page in that, as Stuart Hameroff says "... Roger Penrose and I have proposed that MAPs remain classical, and the connection points of MAPs on the MTs act as environent, and through decoherence prevent local regions (7 tubulin neighborhoods) from becoming part of the quantum state, thus acting like a "node" or guitar fret to "tune" the MT quantum oscillations (and hence "orchestrated" objective reduction). ...", and in that the Hameroff-Penrose model gets Quantum Links between Microtubules in the same Neuron by "... the Jibu/Yasue/Hagan [superradiance in water] model, or [by] entanglement among quantum superpositioned tubulins and components ...", according to Stuart Hameroff, who says "... You don't need MAPs for that. ..." in the Hameroff-Penrose model. On the other hand, the model of this web page uses MAPs as Quantum Links between Microtubules, and restricts superradiance in water to the core of Microtubules.
1997 - Dean Radin writes The Conscious Universe (HarperCollins 1997), in which he shows experimental verification of precognition, in which experimental subjects exhibited presponses to stimulus images that they were shown later during a time period that totalled several seconds, with the electrodermal activity of the subjecs being sampled about 5 times per second. This gives experimental support to the idea of closed timelike loops.
1998 - B. G. Sidharth (at Hyderabad) wrote some papers in which he proposed that at its Compton radius scale, a single electron might be described in terms of a Kerr-Newman Black Hole with no horizon, that is, a naked singularity violating the cosmic censorship conjecture. Dimi Chakalov (maver@omega.bg) read Sidharth's papers and told Jack Sarfatti about them. Since Jack had thought of a similar description of the electron back in the 1970s, and worked on it back then with Adbus Salam, Jack read Sidharth's papers very closely, and Jack found an error in Sidharth's calculations. Sidharth's calculation error was in using the wrong one of two formulas for quantum gravitational fluctuations. The two formulas were both described by John Wheeler in his 1962 book Geometrodynamics, but when Wheeler (along with Misner and Thorne) wrote the big black book GRAVITATION in 1973, only one of the formulas was in the book. Sidharth had only seen the 1973 GRAVITATION book, and had not seen the more obscure 1962 Geometrodynamics book, so Sidharth used the only formula he saw, which was the one in the 1973 GRAVITATION book, and which was the wrong formula. Jack, being puzzled by the calculation error of Sidharth, wrote about it to his e-mail friends, and Nick Herbert told Jack about the correct formula, which Nick had (independently of Wheeler) rediscovered in the 1970s (also, as Nick has noted, the correct formula was also discovered by Peres and Rosen). Jack noticed that the correct formula is analogous to the electromagnetic Induction Region fluctuation formula(as opposed to the electromagnetic Static Region formula), and Jack then noticed that if you use the Induction Region gravitational fluctuation formula, you get strong gravity fluctuations that extend beyond the electron to the range of about a micron, which therefore might be a useful part of the orchestration process in the chain
There are now experiments under way at Stanford and Colorado to try to detect gravity effects at the sub-millimeter level, which has never been experimentally done before, so maybe in the near future we will have some experimental results against which these theories can tested.
Jack then looked at a single electron in a tubulin, and also looked at the E part of the equation E = h / T, and his insight was that, since E = G m^2 / a, where m is the electron mass, and a is the displacement, then by using some algebra (and for simplicity ignoring some factors like 2 etc), you can rewrite T = h / E as T = h / ( G m^2 / a ) = ( h / m c ) ( c^2 / G m ) ( a / c ) = ( Compton / Schwarzchild ) ( a / c ) where Compton is the Compton radius of the electron, about 10^(-11) cm, and is physically thought of as one wavelength of the electron if you think of it, in the quantum picture, as a wave instead of a particle, and Schwarzchild is the Schwarzchild radius of the electron, about 10^(-55) cm, and is physically the radius of a Black Hole whose mass is the mass of the electron. The ratio Compton/Schwarzchild might be thought of as a measure of how far removed the electron is from the quantum fluctuations of gravity and spacetime that we think are important. For the electron, the ratio is 10^(55-11) = 10^44, which is very large and is responsible for the very long time T = 10^26 sec that is characteristic of a single electron. To compare, a Planck-Mass Black Hole has Compton Radius = Schwarzchild Radius, so that its ratio is 1 (MUCH smaller than 10^44), and that is why people often use the Planck-Mass scale as the scale on which quantum treatment of gravity is necessary.
1999-2000:
2001: During or prior to February 2001, Jack Sarfatti changed his model of consciousness
It seems to me that Jack has arrived at N = 10^18 in his 2001 model by
Personally, I think that Jack's newer 2001 model of consciousness is a result of him making changes in the wrong directions, but I am attempting to describe it here for historical completeness and so that people reading about his newer work will see how (at least in my opinion) it compares with his earlier 1998-2000 model of consciousness.
The Future: Now, what I am writing on my web page is mostly about a simple brain/thought cycle. However, there is a lot more to thought than the simple brain/thought cycle. For instance, single-cell organisms can be intelligent, and human intelligence is really distributed throughout the body, and somewhat beyond it as well. What I would like to see in the future is how the processes extend within the brain beyond the simple cycle involving Tubulins, Microtubules, and Junctions, (this gets into which neurotransmitters do what and how they do it, etc.) and also how the processes extend beyond the brain to humanity's connections with our universe, to our future, and to the macrospace of multiverses.
[Thanks to Geoffrey Ducharme for telling me about an error that I have corrected.]
to use what we used to call in college
SuperNatural Units in which c = G = h = 1 = 2 = pi
(In other words I sometimes ignore factors like 2 and pi, etc., for simplicity.)
......