Thoughts of an astrophysicist and science writer
Astrophysicist and science writer Elizabeth Fernandez believes that quantum mechanics may help us better understand how the brain works and elucidate consciousness:
Some scientists wonder if quantum processes, including entanglement, may help explain the brain's enormous power and ability to produce consciousness. Recently, scientists at Trinity College Dublin suggested that entanglement may be at work in our brains using technology to study quantum gravity. If their results are confirmed, it may be a big step towards understanding how the brain works, including consciousness.
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Her thesis is that the brain relies on quantum processes to think, not classical physics:
If quantum processes were at work in the brain, it would be difficult to observe how they work and what they do. In fact, if you don't know exactly what you're looking for, it's very difficult to find quantum processes. "If the brain uses quantum computations, those quantum operators may be different from those known from atomic systems," Christian Kirskens, a neuroscience researcher at Trinity and one of the paper's authors, told Big Think.
MRI that can sense entanglement
Scanned 40 subjects with MRI capable of sensing entanglement
When two particles, such as photons or electrons, become entangled, they remain connected even if they are far apart. Just as ballet and tango are born from individual dancers, entanglement is born from the connection between particles. This is what scientists call "emergent nature." – Caltech Science Exchange
Correlation with heartbeat communicating with the brain
However, no one knows what mechanism maintains the coupling. The researchers wanted to see if proton spins in the brain were entangled by interactions through unknown intermediates.
They correlated brain activity with a heartbeat that was constantly communicating with the brain. The heartbeat generates a heart rate potential (HEP), which corresponds to a spike in the NMR signal and corresponds to the interaction of proton spins. Fernández told me, "This signal could be the result of entanglement, and witnessing this may indicate that non-classical intermediaries did indeed exist." If so, then bran operates according to quantum physics, not classical physics, and quantum physics allows entanglement, which may play a role in the uniqueness of our consciousness. Here's an interesting fact:
HEP is an electrophysiological event like alpha and beta waves. Kerskens explains. "HEP is tied to consciousness because it depends on it. Similarly, the signal indicating entanglement was present only while conscious, which was shown when the two subjects slept during the MRI. This can be seen from the fact that when the two subjects fell asleep during the MRI, this signal faded and disappeared.
Of course, for the same reason that it is difficult to see ourselves as seen by others, apart from other things, it is always possible that none of us can really understand our consciousness. It may be a problem of unsolvable perspective. But we can figure it out.
On the other hand, theoretical physicist Marcelo Griser is reminded of the strangeness of the world in which we really live. The light of interest in quantum mechanics is both a particle and a wave (or neither). It's hard to imagine, but easy to demonstrate:
The dual behavior of photons appears in response to the experimental setting. Light passing through a narrow slit diffracts like a wave. When it collides with electrons, it scatters like particles. In other words, it is our experiments and our questions that determine the physical properties of light. This introduces a new element to physics. That is, the interaction of the observer and the observed. A more extreme interpretation would be that the experimenter's intentions determine the physical properties of the observed object, that is, the mind determines the physical reality. But what we can say with certainty is that the light responds to our questions in many ways. In a sense, light is a wave, a particle, neither.
Quantum processes are useful to know when you hear a new theory with a gimmick that denies or explains human consciousness. We know it's not that simple.
Read also: Researchers The clavicle of the brain acts as a router for thinking Francis Crick thought that the collarbone may be the "seat of consciousness," but this is essentially a materialistic concept. However, researchers believe that this is a mistake. Of course, viewing the clavicle as a router is more consistent with the immaterial nature of consciousness than as a seat.