The other important new idea in "Shadows of the Mind" is his
   review of the "microtubule" model of consciousness based on
   observations of Stuart Hameroff MD. on the action of
   anesthetic molecule which apparently jam into hydrophobic
   spaces preventing the single electron quantum jumps that
   control the configuration of protein dimers on neuron walls.
   There is also evidence of coherent electromagnetic radiation
   inside the hollow microtubules which form a ubiquitous
   infrastructure of ionic transport inside every living cell.
   The loss of consciousness when these all-important electrons
   are frozen by the anesthetic molecules is an important clue.
   These electrons may be the "Eccles Gates" where mind connects
   with matter.

   The microtubule picture presented in Penrose's book seems to
   provide the ideal physical substrate for this model.  In
   particular, the leading candidate for mind is the collective
   quantum wave function of the quantum connected single electron
   "switches" sitting in superpositions of two positions at the
   alpha-beta boundary of each protein dimer.  The hydrophobic
   cage effect seems to provide protection of decoherence of the
   mental wave function with the thermal environment while
   allowing read-write couplings, via Frohlich electric dipole
   membrane oscillation, of data stored in the dimer array to the
   coherent self-trapped electromagnetic filaments inside the
   hollow wave guides of the tubules in "vicinal" water (p.368).
   This mental wave function of the electron Eccles Gates not
   only exerts nonlocally coordinated quantum forces on each
   Eccles gate which is transduced to nanoscale protein dimer
   configurational changes affecting nerve impulse transmission,
   hence, our overt muscular behavior.  But, in addition, the
   back reaction of the electrons on their collective wave
   function completes the feedback-control loop in which the
   mental wave function is itself modified by its actions on the
   outside world of matter.  The completion of this loop is the
   mechanism of awareness, of perception.  For what else can
   perception be but the changes in the wave function induced by
   changes in the configurations of particles to which the wave
   function couples?