Quantum Mind 2003

Consciousness, Quantum Physics and the Brain

March 15-19, 2003, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona

Sponsored by

Center for Consciousness Studies, University of Arizona

The Fetzer Institute

The YeTaDeL Foundation

Mind Science Foundation

Samueli Institute for Information Biology

School of Computational Science, George Mason University

Topics:

·       Quantum models of consciousness 

·       Quantum information science

·        Decoherence, anti-decoherence and topological quantum error correction

·        Cosmology and consciousness

·        Protein, cytoskeletal and DNA dynamics

·       Time: physics and perception

·       Nonlocality and entanglement between macro-systems: experimental evidence

·       Quantum mind and social science

·       Skeptical criticism

Plenary Presentations, Concurrent Presentations

Could quantum information be the key to understanding consciousness? Could consciousness enable future quantum information technology?

The nature of consciousness and its place in the universe remain mysterious. Classical models view consciousness as computation among the brain's neurons but fail to address its enigmatic features. At the same time quantum processes (superposition of states, nonlocality, entanglement.) also remain mysterious, yet are being harnessed in revolutionary information technologies (quantum computation, quantum cryptography and quantum teleportation). A relation between consciousness and quantum effects has been pondered for nearly a century, and in the past decades quantum processes in the brain have been invoked as explanations for consciousness and its enigmatic features. Critics deride this comparison as a mere "minimization of mysteries" and quickly point out that the brain is too warm for quantum computation which in the technological realm requires extreme cold to avoid "decoherence", loss of seemingly delicate quantum states by interaction with the environment. However quantum computation would surely be advantageous from an evolutionary perspective, and biology has had 4 billion years to solve the decoherence problem and evolve quantum mechanisms. Furthemore recent experimental evidence suggests quantum nonlocality occurring in conscious and subconscious brain function, and functional quantum processes in molecular biology are becoming more and more apparent. Moreover macroscopic quantum processes are being proposed as intrinsic features in cosmology, evolution and social interactions.  Following the first "Quantum Mind" conference held in Flagstaff at Northern Arizona University in 1999, "Quantum Mind II" will update current status and future directions, and provide dialog with skeptical criticism of the emerging paradigm.

Speakers:

Sir Roger Penrose University of Oxford, Mathematical Physics

Paul Benioff Argonne National Laboratory, Theoretical Physics

Henry Stapp Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Physics

Guenter Mahler University of Stuttgart, Theoretical Physics

Mae Wan Ho

Paavo Pylkkanen University of Skövde, Institute for the Humanities

Harald Walach

Jiri Wackerman Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene

Jack Tuszynski University of Alberta, Condensed Matter Theoretical Physics

Dick Bierman

Koichiro Matsuno Nagaoka University, Bioengineering

Stuart Hameroff University of Arizona, Anaesthesiology, Psychology and Consciousness Studies

Nancy Woolf Neurobiology & Psychology, UCLA

Scott Hagan NARC, Japan, Computational Modeling

Paola Zizzi University of Padova, Astronomy

Alexander Wendt University of Chicago, Political Science

Jeffrey Satinover Yale University, Condensed Matter Theoretical Physics

Roeland van Wijk

Guenter Albrecht-Buehler Northwestern University, Cell & Molecular Biology

Ken Augustyn Veridian Corporation

Sisir Roy Indian Institute of Technology, Physics

Hartmann Roemer University of Freiburg, Field Theory

E. Roy John NYU School of Medicice, Psychiatry & Electroneurophysiology

Menas Kafatos George Mason University, Computational Science & Space Research

Karl Pribram, Stanford University, Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Neurophysiology

Abstract for my own (plenary) presentation:

Varieties of computational experience: Molecular biology and quantum information processing

Jeffrey Satinover, Department of Physics, Yale University

It remains widely believed that biological processes can be wholly understood using the models and mathematical methods of classical physics, chemistry and thermodynamics. In this view, quantum theory merely provides for the rules of material interaction; the quantum statistics of many-body systems gives these interactions a distinct cast in circumstances of exceptional isolation and control but are washed out in the thermodynamic conditions that prevail in living systems. This view is flatly wrong. Without appeal to any theory of consciousness, nor to formal (qubit-based) "quantum computation," there are innumerable processes critical to living matter that depend directly upon quantum effects that play themselves out on a mesoscopic scale, and whose consequences are as baffling as all quantum results. These processes are also inherently computational in character. This presentation will describe examples of such processes and explain how their quantum and computational characteristics distinguish them from qubit-based quantum computation. It will be argued that the evidence for such processes in living systems is already (a) ubiquitous and unique, (b) of enormous theoretical significance, (c) readily assimilable at (scarcely beyond) the advancing edge of current scientific research, (d) becoming central to emerging, rigorously scientific, biological models and (e) that it can help provide accountability and rigor for the more speculative ideas that are a large part of, for example, this conference. To crib from Richard Feynman: "Imagination, but imagination in a strait-jacket."