Episode 37: Conscious awareness is the most fundamental level of the universe with Dr. Stuart Hameroff

Well known for his controversial work with quantum theorists Roger Penrose, Dr. Hameroff suggests that consciousness originates in quantum states, and then interacts with neural microtubules indicating that the brain actually still has something to do with consciousness while at the same time, introducing the idea that quantum field theory holds that consciousness is fundamental and exists outside of the brain.“ When I learned about microtubules, back at Hahnemann in 1972. I wondered, how they knew where to go and what to do and what was their organizing principle? Did they have intelligence? I believe, microtubules are both the skeletal structural support and the nervous system within the cell, because cells are much too intelligent to be simple on off states.” Some may believe that the brain is a computer processing information, and consciousness is some kind of output but, that’s not how it works. In fact, people in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and neuroscience, consider the brain as a computer of say, 100 billion neurons 10 to the 11th neurons but, Dr. Hameroff feels, you got to consider the neurons, what's inside the neurons, and you got to go deeper more like 10 to the 27th, to even be close to the human brain or consciousness.

Conscious awareness happens at the level of Planck scale, which is the most fundamental (energy) level of the universe. Consciousness is out there having these proto conscious moments much like musicians warming up. It sounds like noise but, once they’re orchestrated it becomes music. That's exactly what the microtubules do orchestrate these random quantum moments of consciousness into a full, rich, conscious experience.