Macroscopic quantum coherence in the brain

Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 16:50:25 -0700 (PDT)
From: Matti Pitkanen <matpitkanen@phcu.helsinki.fi>
To: quantum-d@teleport.com
Subject: Macroscopic quantum coherence in the brain


Dear Rhett,

It is really difficult to write so that everyone in the audience
would understand: after all, a radically new spacetime concept
is involved! I have spent 18 years to develop this concept and
gain the needed intuition... These consciousness people are open
minded, and my sincere hope is that theoretical physicists in
the audience will realize how far reaching the consequences of
this new spacetime concept are and begin working with it.

With Best Regards

Matti


The following is essentially an abstract of 'Mechanism for generating
macroscopic quantum coherence in brain', which can be found on my
homepage along with other material related to T(opological)G(eometro)
D(ynamics) inspired  theory of  consciousness.


Microtubules as infrared quantum antennas?

1. Problem of macroscopic quantum coherence in brain

The basic problem in quantum theories of consciousness is to
understand how macroscopic quantum coherence in brain is generated.
Bose Einstein (BE) condensates are believed to be crucial and
microtubules are good candidates for  the seats of BE condensates.
The great problem is how the BE condensates associated with
different   microtubules combine to form macroscopic BE condensate
and it might  well be that New Physics is needed.  T(opological)
G(eometro)D(ynamics) [TGD]  might provide this New Physics.

2. BE condensates are unavoidable in TGD

One of the basic differences between TGD and standard gauge theories
is that vacuum gauge fields with nonvanishing gauge current density
are generic phenomenon. These c-number currents automatically
generate quantum  coherent states via their coupling to quantized
boson fields so that the BE condensates crucial for consciousness
are unavoidable in TGD.

3. Microtubules as quantum antennas generating photonic and
gravitonic BE condensates

Two kinds of  extremals of Kahler action,  the so called vacuum
(VE) and  massless extremals (ME) might be relevant in case of
microtubules. Both ME:s and VE:s generate gravitonic and photonic
condensates. If  photonic condensate is present microtubule is
said to be active, otherwise dormant. The em current associated
with ME:s/VE:s generates BE condensate of photons and microtubule
acts as infrared  quantum antenna.

4. How can the BE condensates of different microtubules interfere
constructively?

The basic problem is how  microtubules in ME mode can  tune the
phases and frequencies of their em currents so that individual BE
condensates interfere constructively. Classical sourceless Kahler
field  at the condensate level at which microtubules are  condensed
can  indeed serve as pacemaker both in active and dormant ME modes.
The gap junctions connecting different cell membranes are important
in creating macroscopic quantum coherence for cell membrane super-
conductors (see last chapters of [TGD]) and probably also play an
important role in the generation of photonic coherence.

5.  Functions for photonic BE condensates

Since microtubule dynamics are slow as compared with IR frequencies
[Nanopoulos] they might provide the means for  amplitude modulated
transmissions. Microtubules could also give rise to elementary sense
of vision for cells in infrared region and  there is empirical
evidence for this in case of some monocellular organisms [Albrecht-
Buehler]. The identification of biophotons [Popp] as BE condensate
generated by centriole  (T shaped pair of short microtubules)  is
natural. The hypothesis suggests itself of the representation of at
least some sensory modalities as IR radiation in wavelength region
characteristic to each modality .

6. VE:s and their deformations and cognitive aspects of conscious
experience

The superpositions of VE:s entangled  with their BE condensates
provide a possible realization for quantum computer type operations.
Associations can be realized as  conscious experiences associated
with the  state function reduction removing the VE-BE entanglement.
It is quite possible that VE:s are slightly deformed to become
nonvacuum extremals by their interaction with matter:  the vacuum
degeneracy however is still   very probable.  The interaction with
matter provides a means of coding information about the real word
time development into the structure of deformed vacuum extremal
(memories, thoughts).

7. The role of gravitonic BE condensates?

The predicted presence  of gravitonic BE condensates in biosystems
provokes rather exciting speculations about the possibility of
'collective consciousness'.  Of course, one must remember the
extreme weakness of gravitational interaction.

8. Coupling of IR BE condensate with cell membrane superconductor

IR BE condensates have natural coupling to the Josephson currents
associated with the  cell membrane assumed to be  superconducting
(see earlier  3. Aug. JCS  posting 'Cell membrane as super conductor?'
and last parts of [TGD] and [padTGD] on my homepage). There is also
slight evidence that 'active' DNA could  be superconducting [TGD]
and generate also BE condensate and couple to microtubules via its
BE condensate.

One of  the  many remaining problems  is the identification of the
mechanism for superconductivity in biosystems, and work on this
is in progress. Suffice it to say that the TGD concept of spacetime
suggests an extremely general mechanism of superconductivity.

Matti Pitkanen


References

[Albrecht-Buehler] Albrecht-Buehler,G. (1991) Surface extensions of
3T3 cells towards distant infrared light sources. Journal of Cell
Biology, 114, 493-502.

[Nanopoulos] D.V. Nanopoulos (1995) Theory of Brain function,Quantum
Mechanism and Superstrings, CERN-TH/95-128, hep-ph/9505374

[Popp]  R. Rattermayer and F.A. Popp: Evidence of Photon Emission
from DNA in Living Systems, in Naturwissenschaften, Vol. 68, No 5,
577

[TGD]M. Pitkanen (1990) Topological Geometrodynamics. Internal
Report HU-TFT-IR-90-4 (Helsinki University).   Summary of of
Topological Geometrodynamics in book form. Book contains
construction of Quantum TGD, 'classical' TGD and  applications to
various branches of physics. Bio-applications are considered in the
last part of the book.


[padTGD] M. Pitkanen (1995) Topological Geometrodynamics and p-Adic
Numbers. Internal Report HU-TFT-IR-95-5 (Helsinki University).
Report on application of p-adic numbers in attempts to understand
quantum field theory limit of TGD.



The updated versions of both reports are available as ps-files from
my homepage

http://blues.helsinki.fi/~matpitka/

Homepage contains also hypertext representation of basic ideas and
concepts of TGD. The  articles 'TGD inspired theory of consciousness'
and 'A mechanism for generation of macroscopic quantum coherence in
brain' are especially relevant for this posting.