Does consciousness come from quantum processes in the brain?

26:44How would you explain that? Like, I think I'm getting tripped up on the non-computable thing. Just like, give me a sentence that bottom lines, Penrose believes that our brains are... Penrose believes that our brains operate on some principles which can't be computed, that there's no algorithm to go from what you're feeling and thinking now to what you're feeling and thinking in a second. Okay. That there's no computer program you could write to predict it, because it relies on some physical process which is non-computable. Okay. Does that relate to any of the theories that we were just talking about?

27:16No. No. It's very different from any of these theories. It's its own personal theory of consciousness. But it does connect to his theories of the foundation of quantum mechanics, which we'll talk about after the break.

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29:43Like the price of your Wi-Fi. Thanks to the Xfinity five-year price guarantee, you're guaranteed five years of the most reliable, fiber-powered Wi-Fi with no annual contracts and our best equipment. Plus, get online in minutes with same-day Wi-Fi and stream your favorite podcast on iHeartRadio. Lock in your price and unlock the possibilities. Xfinity. Imagine that. Restrictions apply. Select plans only. Not available in all areas. Use a fiber coaxial cable.

30:19All right, so Penrose has decided that our brain is not like a computer. And now we are talking about the next step of this complicated process. Daniel, where are we going next? So Penrose says our brains are not like a computer. Let's look out in the universe to find some physical thing which seems like not a computer. And maybe we can use that as the basis of our theory of consciousness. All right. So his target here is quantum mechanics because quantum mechanics is very weird. And computers are like deterministic, right? They operate under basic rules of algebra and logic. And so you can always predict what they're going to do.

31:01Whereas quantum mechanics is fuzzier and weirder and we don't quite understand it. and how one thing gets chosen. And so it sounds like maybe a promising area to find some non-computable physical law that you could use as your basis of consciousness. All right. So let's remind ourselves, what is the other really hard philosophical problem out there right now? Not just consciousness, put that in a box. Let's talk about the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, the other major thing that everybody else struggles with. And this is a question of how the universe decides what we see when we measure a quantum object.

31:38Because remember, the cool thing about quantum objects is they can be in a superposition. You have an electron, you put it through a machine, it can either go left or right. Before you measure it, it's in a superposition of left and right. It's not that it's gone left and you don't know it, or that it's gone right and you don't know it, or even that it's somehow done both, right? You see that in popular science all the time. Instead, it's in a superposition of both of those states. And that's something that quantum objects can do. They can have a superposition. They cannot be settled into one particular outcome.

32:09But then when we measure something, we put a detector to say, did it go left or did it go right? Then the universe picks one. The superposition collapses into either left or either right. And how this happens and why it happens is the question of quantum measurement. Because this seems to happen when we measure a quantum object with a classical detector. Like I have a big detector in my lab and it's made of big physical things and I'm moving around. It's the size and scale of me. It's not the kind of thing that can be in superposition. I can't be in a superposition. You can't be in a superposition.

32:45It makes a definitive measurement, a left or a right. It doesn't come back and say lefty and righty at the same time. right? It measures left or right. And when a classical object like that measures a quantum object, the quantum object collapses into either left or right. Superposition is gone. The super weird bit is that that doesn't happen if we interact our quantum object with another quantum object. Like say I shoot in another electron and I can entangle them together. And now they can be like, one is left and one is right, or one is right and one is left. They can maintain their superpositions even though they interact.

33:20But when they interact with the classical detector, boom, collapse happens. And that's super weird because what's the classical detector made out of? Well, quantum objects. So why does interacting with the classical detector have to collapse the superposition? When you interact with the first quantum object at the very tip of the detector, that should just be like interacting with another quantum object. You should stay in a superposition. And then in the next particle, and then the next particle. At what point is your classical object, which is made of quantum objects, no longer capable of being in a superposition?

33:52Why does that happen? That's the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. How and when and why you go from superposition to collapse. That was a really good explanation. I don't think you've given that particular explanation on the show before. And excellent. So what's the best answer we have for that, Daniel? We have a bunch of weird answers. The most common answer is nonsensical. This is the Copenhagen theory. And it says, look, there's two kinds of things in the universe. There's quantum stuff, which can be in superposition, and there's classical stuff, which cannot be in superposition. And then you ask, well, what's the difference between classical and quantum stuff?

34:28And they say, I don't know. You say, well, where's the line between quantum and classical stuff? And they say, undefined. So it's not really an answer, right? Let's just say that there is classical stuff and there is quantum stuff. So it's one of these like answers only by definition that doesn't really satisfy anybody. It's just like throwing their hands up in the air and being like, I don't know, I quit. Yeah. Yeah. And it's weird because it's on one hand, the most common explanation and the one you see in like quantum textbooks and popular science. But in philosophy of physics, people like it's incoherent.

34:59It's not even a theory. It doesn't even explain it. It doesn't even try. But it allows you to move forward and calculate stuff without worrying about it. So if you don't really care about the answer, you can just sort of accept that and move on. It does sound impressive, the Copenhagen interpretation. It does sound – it sounds impressive. Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen. Yes, but then the good news is now that you've listened to this podcast, the next time someone says the Copenhagen interpretation, you can go, the Copenhagen interpretation. And now you get to sound snotty. So another famous interpretation is the many worlds interpretation.

35:36and this says there is no collapse. What happens is that the universe branches. There's a version where the universe goes left and a version where the universe goes right. We happen to be in one of them and not the other one, but there is no real collapse. And this is a beautiful theory because collapse is weird. Collapse doesn't exist in the equations of quantum mechanics. The equations suggest everything just keeps evolving and maintaining the wave function. And so this is in some sense the most natural interpretation of quantum mechanics. Sean Carroll is a big advocate for this and talks about it very eloquently.

36:11He was on our podcast to talk about that. It was a lot of fun. And essentially in that scenario, you become part of the system. Like you make a measurement. Now you are in one branch of the wave function. The superposition still exists. The electron can still be left or right, but you are in the right branch, which is why you're measuring right. And there's another version of you in the left branch, and that version of you is measuring the left. This is often misunderstood as like the whole universe is duplicated, like we make a copy and create more electrons. But instead, just think of it as like the superposition of possibilities just keeps flowing, man.

36:47And now you're part of the system instead of looking at it from the outside. All right. So, but how does that answer the question about like, you're this big classical object that's making the measurement. And as you're moving from one electron to another in the classical object, how do you go from being an electron to being a classical object? There are no classical objects. Everything is quantum. Whoa. And every time you interact, you become entangled with the system. That is a lot for my brain to handle. Yeah. Okay. Another really fun idea is called Bohmian Mechanics. And this says, forget all this random stuff.

37:26Quantum mechanics is not actually random. It's deterministic. It's controlled by some global pilot wave. And this does an end run around Bell's experiments, which, if you remember, proved that there's no local hidden variables controlling quantum mechanics. That truly is random. by saying, oh, there's no local hidden variables. There can be global hidden variables. And that's the pilot wave. It's this weird thing that sits on top of the universe and decides where particles go. And so there's no randomness at all. It's just all determined by this pilot wave that we can't see or measure that's deciding.

38:00And it makes it look like it's random, but it really isn't. Is there any way to test this? There is no way to test these two theories. They make exactly the same predictions for all experiments. So they're just interpretations. They're just ways of saying, what's happening behind the scenes invisibly? And because it's the invisible part we're talking about, and that's the only place they differ, we can't come up with experiments to differentiate between these two. Okay. But the crucial thing for our conversation about Penrose is that in the Copenhagen interpretation, where you have this weird moment where we go from superposition to collapse, that collapse is what interested Penrose, right?

38:37Because it sounds on the surface of it like, hmm, maybe this is something that can help us establish consciousness because there's something weird that's happening here. But the hurdle immediately is that collapse in the Copenhagen theory is random, okay, but it's computable in the sense that you can't tell exactly what's going to happen, but you can predict the probabilities. Okay. And so Penrose is looking for something that's not random and not computable. So he can't use this Copenhagen collapse theory. So he comes up with his own theory of the measurement problem, his own theory of collapse.

39:15It's called objective reduction. He comes up with a theory that has a collapse of the wave function, but the collapse is not random, but it is non-computable. So he's come up with his own theory, not Copenhagen, not many worlds, not Bohmian, his own explanation for collapse that provides a not random, non-computable mechanism for the collapse, which is what he's going to need later for his theory of consciousness. Does this do a better job of explaining quantum mechanics? Or is this just like motivated by a desire to explain consciousness? And so he's creating a whole new world? It sort of does a better job in that it's more ambitious.

39:56Not only is he going to try to solve the measurement problem, a huge outstanding puzzle in philosophy, in order to set him up to solve the question of consciousness, another huge outstanding puzzle in philosophy. He's going to do it by trying to simultaneously solve the quantum gravity puzzle. Wow. Which physicists have been banging their head against the wall for 100 years, right? He's like, oh, maybe I can go for a home run here. Let's go for the trifecta. A hat trick. Yes, exactly. I think that's, you get three things in a row with the hat trick. That's what we want. Yeah, well, he's going to go for four in a minute.

40:33Oh, okay. Let's take a break and we'll let Penrose do his hat trick. And then he can do his hat trick plus one, because I don't know enough about sports to know what happens when you get four points.

40:52For business owners and entrepreneurs, there's a constant challenge, getting things done fast and done well. Why not have both? That's why Wix Harmony stands out. It's an AI website builder that helps create a website quickly without compromising your vision. A fully functional site can be built for any business just by describing the idea. Then you can choose to chat with AI or edit everything manually to get it exactly right. There's also ARIA, an AI agent available to answer questions or help complete tasks. And here's what makes it even better. ARIA doesn't just live in a chat box. You can click anywhere on your site and ask her to make changes instantly.

41:37It's these details that make creating with Wix Harmony feel seamless. Join millions of businesses already using Wix and try Wix Harmony for free at wix.com slash harmony. That's wix.com slash harmony. This July 4th, come celebrate at America's Block Party, hosted by America 250. America's Block Party is a can't-miss 4th of July concert happening at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Experience music performances by major artists, patriotic tributes and the kickoff to giving forth helping to make July 4th the largest day of giving in American history it's more than just fireworks join this landmark celebration and get your America's block party tickets now for$17.76 at America250.org slash la introducing the all-new Mazda CX-5 featuring more connection hey Google where's the nearest Pilates class safety that has your back.

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43:13Lock in your price and unlock the possibilities. Xfinity. Imagine that. Restrictions apply. Select plans only. Not available in all areas. Use a fiber coaxial cable.

43:33And we're back. And so let's go ahead and talk about how Penrose solves the quantum mechanics problem in a non-computable way. Did I say the science words in the right order there? You totally did. Yes, you science did correctly. So we have this problem in physics, which is that we have two wonderful theories. We have quantum mechanics, which explains particles and randomness, and has been tested like 10 decimal places and is totally correct. And it's amazing and beautiful. And we also have gravity. And we have a theory of general relativity, which tells us a story about space and time. And it's been tested to 10 decimal places and is totally correct.

44:15And that's wonderful, except that the two theories are fundamentally at odds with each other. And we do not know how to bring them together. And most of the time, that's not a problem because things are either gravitational, like the way the Earth moves around the sun or the way black holes form, or they're quantum mechanical, like the way electrons interact in a system or what happens when you smash protons at the Large Hadron Collider. You can ignore one and you can choose one and ignore the other. But there are some times in the universe when both are at play, like what's at the heart of a black hole or what was it like in the early universe?

44:50In those regimes, we don't know how to operate. We can't make predictions, for example, before the earliest moment in the universe because we don't have a theory of quantum gravity. We can't tell you what's inside a black hole because we don't know how to do gravity for tiny particles. Okay. So major stumbling block for particle physics and for cosmology. And one of the issues is that when you try to do gravity for particles, you get stuck. And you get stuck like this. Well, if particles can have probabilities of being in different locations, like is the electron left or is the electron right, then that location determines where space is curved, right?

45:30And that means that space can have different curvatures. So if the electron could be left and could be right, that means that space could be bent over here or it could be bent over there. And so now you have this weird thing where the curvature of space isn't known because you don't know where the masses are. The masses only have a probability of being in certain places. So either you have like the probability of different curvatures or space has probabilities built into it. And so nobody knows how to tackle that problem. I'm so glad biology has everything figured out. So Penrose says, all right, well, what if each of those superpositions, those different possible arrangements of mass, which cause their own different space time curvatures, what if those different possibilities, that's what causes the collapse?

46:15So think of like one arrangement of particles having one set of curvature and another possible arrangement of the same state, right? Quantum mechanical superposition having a different arrangement. And if those two arrangements of space-time, which cause different curvatures, get different enough, then something becomes unstable in the universe and collapses, okay? So when the gravitational difference between two quantum branches exceeds some threshold, then the wave function collapses from superposition into one option. So now instead of just talking about electrons, we're talking about groups of particles.

46:54It could also just be one electron. Because in principle, electron has mass and it should curve space-time. Okay. And the question is, does it curve space-time over here or over there? Okay. And Penrose is saying if the difference between those two things gets big enough, like you have enough particles in there, then it collapses. and there's a threshold there. And it doesn't rely on observation or on interaction, but the bigger the tension between the two gravitational possibilities and whenever it gets above some threshold, it collapses. And so this is his theory called objective reduction. So we're not yet at consciousness.

47:28This is just Penrose's theory of why things collapse. And along the way, he's gonna try to reconcile quantum mechanics and gravity. So he's saying that it's this tension between the different gravitational results of two elements of the superposition that causes them to collapse down to one. So then what does Penrose's idea do with the fact that we know that when you observe something, you get a collapse? Yeah. So Penrose is saying, well, when you observe with a quantum object, you're adding a bunch of stuff to the system that goes above the threshold, because now you have enough gravity in there to get above the threshold.

48:03Your big classical detector, which has a big piece of material on it, has so much gravity in it that it can't be in two states at once without those two things collapsing. So that's why classical things can't be in a superposition because they exceed this threshold, which is very, very small. It's like Planck scale threshold. And so only really tiny stuff can be in a superposition because bigger stuff exceeds this threshold. And this is a cool idea. Nobody's proven it. Nobody knows whether this is true. We can't test it at all. And like many theories in quantum gravity. We can't test them because we can't probe this stuff.

48:39We can't go inside a black hole. We can't visit the early universe. For Penrose, the cool thing about this is now the collapse is not random, but it's also not algorithmic. It's non-computable. It's determined by something he calls the platonic truth of the universe. And so why it goes into left or right, why it collapses into one or the other is not random, but it's non-computable. And so he's tried to solve this measurement problem and along the way come up with a proposal for quantum gravity unification. And what he ended up with is a explanation for quantum mechanics and the measurement problem, which says that the collapse is not random, but also non-computable.

49:23And that's what he thinks consciousness is, right? And so he thinks that maybe this kind of experience, having these microstates collapse using his objective reduction theory is a fundamental building block of consciousness. because remember he was looking for something in the physical universe, which is not random, but also non-computable. And, you know, that's not enough. It's not like saying, hey, consciousness has these two characteristics and this thing I just came up with also has those two characteristics. Therefore, they're the same thing. Like not everything that's big and red is a firetruck, right?

50:00Having two things in common doesn't mean that they're identical, but it's sort of a hint in the right direction. Okay. Great. Because right now that would say that rocks have consciousness because they have these features, right? Yeah, exactly. And so now we come to the biological side of this. There was a guy, an anesthesiologist named Stuart Hameroff, and he's been thinking about anesthetics and consciousness as anesthesiologists will do. And he read about Penrose's theory of objective reduction. And he went to chat with Penrose and he said, I have an idea for where this quantum stuff is happening.

50:36And so there's these things inside neurons that are protein scaffolds. They're called microtubules. And they're really tiny little things. They're like 50 micrometers long. They're really thin. They're like 25 nanometers thin. And they're involved in maintaining the structure of the cell and they form a cytoskeleton. And so these things are inside your neurons. And they're really, really small. And he thought maybe these things support quantum superpositions. They can be in two different states, like this twist or that twist. And because they're so small, they can be in a superposition of different states.

51:16And he has this idea that anesthetics work by binding two microtubules to turn off your consciousness. He thinks microtubules are quantum objects in that they can be in this superposition and that their collapse is where the moment of consciousness comes from. That when these quantum tubules become unstable and they collapse in this non-random, non-computable way, that's the moment of consciousness. So, Hameroff and Penrose came together to make this theory called orchestrated objective reduction theory. So, remember Penrose came up with objective reduction, which explains how things collapse quantum mechanically.

51:59this orchestrated objective reduction theory says, okay, it's microtubules in your neurons that are collapsing. And the neural processes in those neurons orchestrate the buildup of these superpositions, which then become unstable and they collapse. And every time they collapse, that's a little bit of the conscious experience. And so this orchestration is like the physical basis for intentional control. It's not like, you know, you are outside the universe and you're determining it in some spiritual way, but they can affect the way that the collapse happens and in that way impact the decisions you're making.

52:39So Hammeroff, the anesthesiologist, helps by proposing exactly where this quantum process might be happening in the brain, which is non-computable and non-random in the way that Penrose wanted. All right. So first, I think I'm constrained by the metaphor that I always use when I think about microtubules, which is I think of them as like the studs and joists of like your cells. You know, they give you the structure. So this idea that they're like in a superposition is foreign to me. So the idea is that they're like twisted and they untwist. Is that that's true? Question mark. It's about the conformational states.

53:21I don't think it has to be twists necessarily. But these things are not firm, right? They can wiggle a little bit. And so, you know, they have a possibility to wiggle this way or wiggle that way or stretch this way or stretch that way. Here, we're definitely at the very edge of my biological knowledge. Yeah, yeah. I'm not a microtubule person, unfortunately. And so - And these are also not the things that give Jedis the force in Star Wars. Right. Those are the midichlorians. Oh, I wasn't seeing where you were going there. Thank you for walking me the rest of the way. Okay. So you get consciousness in like little drips and drops every time these superpositions collapse?

53:59Yeah. Okay. That's the idea. And so, you know, we've tried to explain consciousness by saying it's the collapse of the states of these microtubules in your brain, which is noncomputable, yet not random, and happen when the superpositions get big enough that they go above this quantum gravity threshold that Penrose has postulated. That's a big idea. So these microtubules are basically in these quantum states and the collapse of those states is your experience. There's a lot of big leaps here that it's just sort of dot, dot, dotting over. Even if this is all true and microtubules are in quantum superpositions and that collapse is non-computable and non-random, I don't see how that connects to consciousness.

54:46We thought that link was kind of weak earlier, saying that we can understand the theory of non-computability, therefore our thinking itself is non-computable. That seems kind of weak. And even if you accept that, just because our thinking is non-computable and there's something non-computable happening inside our brains doesn't mean, again, that it's the fire truck, right? There's no clear thing connecting one to the other. But, you know, Hemeroff's argument is these things are connected to consciousness because anesthetics bind to these things to turn off your consciousness, right? So there's our fourth element of the hat trick.

55:23We're also going to explain the mystery of anesthetics. But when we did the episode on general anesthetics and I was interviewing an anesthesiologist. She said that when you inject noble gases, which don't react to anything, into people, you get a similar effect to knock people out. And they're probably not binding to the microtubules, right? And so we don't understand what's happening with anesthetics at that level, I thought. Yeah. So we've tried to present the best case we can for this. Now it's time to, you know, poke at some of its weaknesses. We've hinted at a few of those already, and the point you made is a great one.

56:03But more broadly, people think that microtubules are anyway just too noisy to maintain any sort of coherent quantum superpositions. Like, they're big. You know, these things are not individual particles. They're micrometers long. And Max Tegmark's response to this theory is, quote, the brain is about as quantum coherent as a cup of warm, wet oatmeal. Like the idea that these things could maintain a superposition, which requires being isolated from the rest of the environment in order to maintain that superposition until the moment you want to collapse, right? Seems hard to do because they're already big and connected with each other.

56:41And so to have them individually collapsing, they need to be isolated so they can maintain that superposition. And that seems pretty tough. The big concern here, though, is that this is a lot of speculation. And, you know, a lot of it could be right, but most of it can't really be tested. Like we can't test the theory of quantum gravity. We can't test quantum mechanical interpretations. We can't test these questions about consciousness. It's also beyond our ability to probe. And so it's sort of like saying, hey, these four things that we can't really ever test, what if there's one coherent explanation?

57:14Yeah, man, pass the banana peels. That sounds cool. But what are we going to do with that, right? Yeah. That doesn't mean it's not a good exercise to think about and ponder and use to generate new novel ideas and stuff. Absolutely. Yeah. So I did talk to my friend who's a neuroscientist. She does research on fruit flies and stuff like this. And I asked her, do you think neurons are random or deterministic? Like if you feed a neuron the same input twice, are you going to get the same answer or does it depend on the quantum nature of the things a neuron is made out of? And she was like, neurons are totally deterministic.

57:51Like there's noise reduction stuff that's happening in there. You tweak a neuron the same way twice, you're going to get the same answer. And, you know, she latches onto neurons in the lab and does this. So she knows a lot about neurons. So already it seems hard to build consciousness out of neurons if those neurons already have the quantumness averaged out. The neurons are essentially already being classical. They're like baseballs more than they're like electrons. I mean, I guess Penrose's argument is that this goes deeper than neurons, but I'm skeptical of that as well. But these are not hard criticisms because there isn't really anything you can concretely attack in this theory because there are no experiments that you can do.

58:31You can just argue about the ideas. Well, I think that we have all earned ourselves some self-care this evening. So get in a bubble bath with a bath bomb. Go have a bottle of whiskey. Not a bottle of whiskey. I mean a glass of whiskey. Not the whole bottle. Make good choices, friends. This was, there was a lot going on in this episode, but we learned a lot. And you got us through it, Daniel, in a really gentle way. All right. Well, let's send this back to Scott and see if his bubble bath and his glass of whiskey have put him in a place where he goes, ouch or mmm, I get it now. Thank you very much for sending in your question, Scott.

59:08Let's hear what Scott has to say. Hello, Daniel and Kelly. Thanks so much for responding to my question about Penrose and Hameroff's orchestrated objective reduction theory of consciousness. Kelly well captured my experience when she said That was a lot for my brain Which is fairly typical when I listen to you guys Not exactly ouch, but not totally I get it now either But whether or not my consciousness arises From the collapse of quantum superpositions In the microtubules, in the neurons in my brain It does love being challenged and stretched And exploring new ideas Which I think is actually a form of self-care I feel like I have at least some new understandings of theories of quantum superposition and theories of consciousness, as well as the challenge of testing those theories.

59:56I appreciate them putting forward this idea to expand our thinking around the hard question, and I also appreciate the skepticism that Daniel brings to the idea. So thanks again for answering my question, or at least trying your very best to do that. Mahalo. Well, Daniel's explanations today made me go, hmm, not ouch today. So thank you for that great explanation of a super interesting theory. All right. And thank you very much, everybody, for being curious about the universe and for wanting to understand these ideas on the cutting edge. Please, please share your curiosity with us. Send us your questions and lend us your ears.

1:00:33And if you're enjoying the show, feel free to leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app.

1:00:45Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio. We would love to hear from you. We really would. We want to know what questions you have about this extraordinary universe. We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions for future shows. If you contact us, we will get back to you. We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us at questions at danielandkelly.org. Or you can find us on social media. We have accounts on X, Instagram, Blue Sky, and on all of those platforms, you can find us at D and K Universe. Don't be shy. Write to us. This July 4th, come celebrate at America's Block Party, hosted by America 250.

1:01:28America's Block Party is a can't-miss Fourth of July concert happening at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Experience music performances by major artists, patriotic tributes, and the kickoff to Giving Fourth, helping to make July 4th the largest day of giving in American history. It's more than just fireworks. Join this landmark celebration and get your America's Block Party tickets now for$17.76 at America250.org slash LA. Introducing the all-new Mazda CX-5, featuring more connection. Hey, Google, where's the nearest Pilates class? Safety that has your back. More discovery on the scenic routes.

1:02:07more passion in the details and more control in changing weather. The all-new Mazda CX-5. More to move every side of you. See it in five films at mazdausa.com slash five sides. Google is a trademark of Google LLC. Sequences shortened and simulated. Change comes fast. So wouldn't it be nice if one thing stayed the same? Like the price of your Wi-Fi. Thanks to the Xfinity five-year price guarantee, you're guaranteed five years of the most reliable, fiber-powered Wi-Fi with no annual contracts and our best equipment. Plus, get online in minutes with same-day Wi-Fi and stream your favorite podcast on iHeartRadio.

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