Dr. N.L. Kachhara
The second category, also falling in scheme (A), includes approaches that use the status quo of present-day quantum theory to describe neurophysiological and/or neuropsychological processes. The early approaches of von Neumann and Wigner mentioned above fall in this category. "The first detailed quantum model of consciousness was probably the American physicist Evan Walker's synaptic tunneling model in which electrons can "tunnel" between adjacent neurons, thereby creating a virtual network overlapping the real one. It is this virtual nervous system that produces consciousness and that can direct the behavior of real nervous system. The real nervous system operates by means of synaptic messages; the virtual one operates by means of the quantum effect of tunneling. The real one is driven by classical laws, the virtual one by quantum laws. Consciousness is therefore driven by quantum laws; brain's behavior is described by classical laws."
In 1989 British psychiatrist Ian Marshall showed similarity between the holistic properties of BEC and those of consciousness and suggested that consciousness may arise from the excitation of such BEC.
I briefly discuss the important more recent approaches here.
Stapp
American physicist Henry Stapp proposed a quantum theory of consciousness based on Heisenberg's interpretation of QM, that reality is a sequence of collapses of wave functions, i.e. of quantum discontinuities. He observes that this view is similar to William Jame's view of the mental life as "experienced sense object." Using von Neumann's approach, he remarked that "the state of the universe is represented by a wave function which is a compendium of all the wave functions that each of us can cause to collapse with her or his observations. That is, the state of the universe is an objective compendium of subjective knowing."
Stapp's interpretation of quantum theory is that there are many knowers. Each knower's act of knowledge results in a new state of the universe. Quantum theory is not about the behavior of matter, but about our knowledge of such behavior. "Thinking" is a sequence of events of knowing. The physical aspect of nature is a compendium of subjective knowledge. The conscious act of asking a question is what drives the actual transition from one state to another, i.e. the evolution of the universe. The universe is a repository of knowledge, that we have access to and upon which our consciousness has control.
Stapp claims that von Neumann extended the Copenhagen Interpretation by replacing the observer-observed system separation with a separation into a physically described part, consisting of the system to be measured, the measurement device, as well as the brain and body of the observer, and a psychologically described part, the consciousness of the observer. The link between both parts is then the brain of the observer, which is being acted upon by the consciousness of the observer. It is our consciousness that collapses the physical state of a system. According to this interpretation, the universe (and each part of it) is only in a well-defined state when we observe it. This has strange consequences; such as if no one looks at the moon for some time the moon would finally spread out into the entire universe. Conscious beings can therefore influence the physical world by asking questions about its nature and by specifying possible answers. Note that collapse is also possible without the presence of a conscious agent.
Stapp sees collapse as a mental process and the deterministic evaluation of brain states as physical. The process by which collapse selects an actuality from a set of possibilities is seen a process of choice, and not merely a random dice-throw. Stapp envisages consciousness as exercising top-level control over neural exercising in the brain. Quantum brain events are suggested to occur at the whole brain level and are seen as being selected from the large- scale excitation of the brain. The neural excitations are viewed as a code, and each conscious experience as a selection from this code. The brain, in this theory, is proposed to be a self-programming computer with a self-sustaining input from memory, which is itself a code derived from previous experience. This process is suggested to result in a number of probabilities from which consciousness has to select. The conscious act is a selection of a piece of top-level code, which then exercises ongoing control over the flow of neural excitation. Stapp thinks that this process refers to the top level of brain activity involved with information gathering, planning and the monitoring of the execution of plans. Conscious events are, in this theory, proposed to be capable of grasping a whole pattern of activity, thus accounting for the unity of consciousness, and providing a solution to the "binding problem."
Stapp follows the logical consequences of this approach and achieves a new form of idealism: all that exists is that subjective knowledge, therefore the universe is not about matter, it is about subjective experience. Quantum theory does not talk about matter; it talks about our perceiving matter. Stapp rediscovers George Berkeley's idealism: we are only our perceptions (observations).
Quantum Brain Dynamics (QBD)
"In QBD, the electrical dipoles of the water molecules that constitute 70% of the brain are proposed to constitute a quantum field, known as the cortical field. The quanta of this field are described as corticons. In the theory, this field interacts with quantum coherent waves generated by biomolecules in the neurons and propagating along the neural network." Frohlich is the source of this idea that quantum coherent waves could be generated in the neuronal network.
The proponents of QBD differ somewhat as to the exact way in which it produces consciousness. Riccardi and Umezawa suggested utilizing the formalism of quantum field theory to describe the brain states, with particular emphasis on memory. The basic idea is to conceive of memory states in terms of states of many-particle systems, as in equivalent representations of vacuum states of quantum fields. Jibu and Yasue show how consciousness could arise from interaction between the electromagnetic field and molecular fields of water and protein. Jibu and Yasue explain how the classical world can originate from quantum processes in the brain. They think that several layers of the brain can host quantum processes, whose quantum properties explain consciousness and cognition. They focus on structures such as microtubules which lie inside the neuron, and which contain quasi-crystalline water molecules that again lend themselves to quantum effects. The function of this quantum field could be cognitive: some particular quantum states could record memory. Viitiello thinks that the quantum states involved in QBD produce two poles, a subjective representation of the external world and a self. This self opens itself to the representation of the external world. Consciousness is, in this theory, not in either the self or the external representation, but between the two in the opening of one to the other.
The majority of presentations of this approach do not consistently distinguish between mental states and material states. This suggests the reducibility of mental activity to brain activity, within scenario (A), as an underlying assumption. However, the QBD approach avoids the restrictions of standard quantum mechanics in a formally sound way.
Danah Zohar
"Physicists at Weizmann Institute in Israel have done a variation of the "double-slit" experiment; they used electrons, instead of photons, and observed how the resultant influence pattern (which indicates wave- like properties of the particle) dissipated the longer you watched the electrons go through the slits. As a wave the electron passes through both slits simultaneously but if it "senses" that it is being watched, the electron (as a particle) goes through only one path, diminishing the interference pattern. Elementary particles (such as photons and electrons) appear to possess a certain degree of "intelligence" and awareness of the environment."
This is assumed to mean that consciousness appears to be as fundamental a property to elementary particles as properties that make it "matter" or a "physical force" (for example, mass, spin and charge). This is more evident in BEC which behave as super particles. However, low energy and low frequency elementary particles easily lose their property of consciousness when they become entangled with other particles and decoherence sets in. This state is analogous to the state of a demagnetized metal object. Like magnetization, when groups of particles are in the same quantum state, i.e. when they are in a state of quantum coherence, the property of consciousness in exhibited. A state of an extremely low degree of consciousness is exhibited by inanimate matter at macroscopic scales in highly decoherent low-energy classical universe. This means that bulk matter in a non-coherent state is effectively unconscious.
"Quantum physicist Danah Zohar of the above group describes consciousness as something that includes general capacity for awareness and purposive response. Roger Penrose refers to these as passive consciousness and active consciousness. When a person is awake the information about his/her surroundings is presented to his/her brain by his/her sense organs. The brain processes and computes millions of bits of information presented to it every second by the sensory organs and present the processed information to consciousness."
"Danah Zohar points out that ion channel oscillations in neurons are quantum phenomena which generate a Frolich-like coherent electric field. There are ion channels (protein molecules) lining the membrane walls of individual neurons, which open or close in response to electrical fluctuations resulting from stimulation. They act like gates to let Sodium, Potassium and other ions through. They are of a size to be subject to quantum fluctuations and superposition. Each channel as it oscillates generates a tiny electric field. When a large number of ion channels (there are 10 million in each neuron) open and close in unison, as they do when stimulated, the whole neuron fires or oscillates and a large scale electric field is generated across the neuron, certain neurons act as pace makers. When a pacemaker neuron oscillates in response to stimulation, bundles of neurons oscillate with it, a finding by a neurobiologist that when a person sees an object all neurons in the cerebral cortex, associated with that perceptual object, oscillates in unison regardless of their location in the brain." This explains how a large number of disparate and distant neurons can integrate their information to produce a holistic picture.
BEC "creates a unity from the diverse bits of information drawing them to a meaningful whole. The millions of sensory data from sense organs received every moment are channeled to various disparate areas of the brain and processed by the computing facility of the brain. Consciousness receives this processed information through and creates a holistic scene. It is this integration of all the processed bits of information to create a one whole that creates the identity as a person, the self or the "I" ness." Danah Zohar concludes that consciousness functions according to the laws of quantum mechanics.
It has been found that when a stimulus is presented to a sensory organ of an anaesthetized person all brain process relevant to that stimulus takes place as if he/she is not anaesthetized. None has yet pointed to a single event that occurs in awake but not in anesthetized brain. When a hypnotherapist suggests, for example, that he/she is seeing red light to a hypnotized subject, all above processes take place in the brain as if the subject is actually seeing red light.
Beck and Eccles
Beck and Sir John Eccles think that mind or consciousness is separate from the brain, consciousness must first be there before the neurological events begin. Therefore, the mind controls matter rather than matter (the brain) controlling the mind. Eccles points out that the scope of consciousness may not remain limited within the confines of the human skull, because consciousness at times can remain completely disembodied. Beck states explicitly that "science cannot, by its very nature, present any answer to questions related to mind.
Sir Karl Popper describes the mind and brain exists in two separate realities. The brain is a functioning material organ of the body, and the mind or consciousness is the immaterial symptom of the living entity or soul which motivates the body.
