oxford | The Penrose-Hameroff ‘Orchestrated objective reduction’ (‘Orch OR’)
theory suggests consciousness arises from ‘orchestrated’ quantum
superpositioned oscillations in microtubules inside brain neurons. These
evolve to reach threshold for Penrose ‘objective reduction’ (‘OR’) by
E=h/t (E is the gravitational self-energy of the
superposition/separation, h is the Planck-Dirac constant, and at the
time at which Orch OR occurs) to give moments of conscious experience.
Sequences, interference and resonance of entangled moments govern
neurophysiology and provide our ‘stream’ of consciousness. Anesthetic
gases selectively block consciousness, sparing non-conscious brain
activities, binding by quantum coupling with aromatic amino acid rings
inside brain proteins. Genomic, proteomic and optogenetic evidence
indicate the microtubule protein tubulin as the site of anesthetic
action. We (Craddock et al, Scientific Reports 7,9877, 2017) modelled
couplings among all 86 aromatic amino acid rings in tubulin, and found a
spectrum of terahertz (‘THz’) quantum oscillations including a common
mode peak at 613 THz. Simulated presence of 8 different anesthetics each
abolished the peak, and dampened the spectrum proportional to
anesthetic potency. Non-anesthetic gases which bind in the same regions,
but do not cause anesthesia, did not abolish or dampen the THz
activity. Orch OR is better supported experimentally than any other
theory of consciousness.
