Tucson Jewish Post
January 21, 2005
Stuart Hameroff M.D.
Professor, Departments of Anesthesiology and Psychology
Director, Center for Consciousness Studies
The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
www.consciousness.arizona.edu/hameroff
What arcane, beyond-weird branch of science promises burgeoning new business opportunities, medical breakthroughs, and an understanding of spirituality?
The answer is quantum physics. Don't cringe. Despite Byzantine mathematics, quantum physics is actually approachable by non-Geeks, as evidenced by the surprise hit film "What the #$*! Do We Know?" ("Whatthebleep" to afficionados) in which quantum physics plays the hook.
Quantum means the smallest unit of anything, though the implications are far stranger. It seems the world is governed by two sets of scientific laws. In our everyday “classical” world, even chaotic activities are predictable by Newton's laws of motion and a few others.
However at small scales (and the cutoff between the two realms is ambiguous) different rules apply. In the quantum world objects can be in two or more places simultaneously! Even large objects may be quantum-schizophrenic until measured or consciously observed. So your Menorah might have 16 candles when you're not looking at it. This state of multiple coexisting possibilities is called quantum superposition.
Even stranger, quantum particles can be separated but remain unified, with instantaneous communication. This is called quantum entanglement, what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance."
These two properties - superposition and entanglement - are used in quantum information technologies, like quantum computing, teleportation and cryptography. In quantum computers, information is represented not just as “bit” states of 1 or 0 (as in regular computers), but also as quantum bits (“qubits”) - superpositions of both 1 AND 0. Qubits communicate by spooky entanglement, performing incredibly fast computation. After a while, someone measures/observes the qubits and they each “collapse”, choosing definite states of either 1 or 0, the answer or solution to the quantum computation.
In quantum teleportation the quantum state of a particle is transmitted elsewhere by entanglement so the particle is reproduced precisely at a distance. Eventually, all particles in a large object may be teleported. Beam me up Scotty!
Quantum computers and teleporters exist only as prototypes, but quantum cryptography is already in commercial use. The idea is that entanglement allows teleportation of secret information upon which it is impossible to eavesdrop. As you might imagine, military and financial interests are bonkers over the possibilities.
Quantum effects also hold molecules together, accounting for all of chemistry and biochemistry. For example “clouds” of smeared-out electrons rule the dynamics of proteins which change their shape to perform functions including those in the brain responsible for consciousness. Anesthetic gases, which render patients unconscious while sparing other brain activities, act only by quantum interactions on electron clouds inside certain proteins. And quantum fields may be essential for organized cell division, immune function and other biological necessities.
But quantum effects seem to be washed out at larger scales, though exactly why and how are unknown. Early experiments indicated that conscious observation “collapsed the wave function”, that the world may exist in quantum superposition when nobody was looking. Other ideas suggest that each superposition branches off to form a new universe (the “multiple worlds hypothesis”). British physicist Sir Roger Penrose suggested that there exists a specific threshold for self-collapse due to the underlying fabric of reality. Each superposition is a separation at the infinitesimally tiny level of Einstein’s spacetime continuum, where (according to Penrose) Platonic values and precursors of conscious feelings are embedded. Superpositions/separations – bubbles in the fabric of the universe - are unstable, and (rather than branching off to form a new universe) self-collapse, creating conscious perceptions and choices. Consciousness exists on the edge between the quantum and classical worlds, percolating through the spacetime continuum.
This connection to an underlying vessel of Platonic wisdom and proto-conscious sensation rings true with Buddhist beliefs, as well as those of the Kabbalah. For example the Kabbalah describes two worlds: the 1 percent world of aggravation and strife where we normally exist, and the 99 percent world of wisdom and light which we strive to approach. Consciousness, according to the Kabbalah “dances on the edge” between the two worlds. Substitute the Platonic quantum world for the 99 percent world (though small in scale, the quantum world is vast in information), and Newton’s large scale world for the 1 percent world and, voilá: Kabbalah meets modern physics!
And because I appear in Whatthebleep and a forthcoming film by Madonna about Kabbalah (talking about quantum physics and consciousness), another amazing achievement of quantum physics is giving a middle age Jewish doctor a budding (if very modest) film career!