This episode continues my series on consciousness—are we just biological robots? Following on from my exciting interview last week with quantum biophysicist Dr. Luca Turin, I dig further into competing quantum theories of consciousness. The famous Sir Roger Penrose and his partner Stuart Hameroff have proposed the Orchestrated OR theory. This theory posits a modification of the incomplete theory of quantum mechanics that underlies half of physics. They argue that consciousness arises from moments of wavefunction collapse that are objectively linked to certain aspects of quantum superpositions. They further argue that biology has evolved a mechanism to orchestrate these wavefunction collapses in tiny subcellular structures called microtubules. My guest today has been doing experiments in the lab to determine if physical processes in microtubules respond to anesthetics.
Professor Jack Tuszyński obtained his Ph.D. in condensed matter physics in 1983 from the University of Calgary. From 1983 to 1988 he was a faculty member at the Department of Physics of the Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s. He moved to the University of Alberta in 1988 as an assistant professor, between 1990 to 1993 he was an associate and then full professor at the Department of Physics. Between 2005 and 2020 he has held the prestigious Allard Chair in Experimental Oncology at the Cross Cancer Institute where he leads an interdisciplinary computational drug discovery group. He is also a Fellow of the National Institute for Nanotechnology of Canada. He has held visiting professorship and research positions in China, Germany, France, Israel, Denmark, Belgium and Switzerland. He is widely published in the scientific literature providing frequent invited talks on his ground-breaking work.
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