In episode 14 of the Quantum Consciousness series, Justin Riddle spells out the orchestrated objective reduction theory of consciousness by Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose. Biology requires a central processing unit to integrated information across the cell. While quantum computation offers unique solutions to biology’s problems, the warm wet noisy environment of the brain does not lend itself easily to stable quantum superpositions. Penrose & Hameroff propose that nonpolar pockets with limited environmental influence creates the conditions for delocalized clouds of electrons that enter superposition. Benzene rings and aromatic rings provide a geometric means of building superposed electron channels. At the core of each protein, nonpolar channels of electrons create a macroscopic functional unit to guide protein function. Tubulin extend this principle by aligning with their neighbors in a cyclical pattern to create topological pathways. The topological qubits in microtubules extend to their neighbors via microtubules associated proteins (MAPs). Quantum computers require a digital interface phase and a non-local quantum computation phase. Actin microfilaments dynamically isolate and expose the microtubules to the environment through phase transition from a liquid-state (digital) to a gel-state (quantum). As the microtubules are isolated, the superposition grows in complexity until it reaches an objective threshold and self-collapses. This collapse rate is hypothesized to be the equivalent of a single moment of conscious experience. As these moments are strung together, a conscious experience is created. Anesthetics and psychedelics are theorized to bind to tubulin proteins and either silence the electron channels or to enhance their resonance, thereby modifying conscious experience.
