Scientists offer quantum theory of soul's existence

[mgt23]

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/quantu ... 6507452687

Scientists offer quantum theory of soul's existence
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    news.com.au
    October 31, 2012 12:20PM

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Patrick Swayze

Maybe Patrick Swayze was onto something when he walked off to heaven at the end of 'Ghost'.

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A PAIR of world-renowned quantum scientists say they can prove the existence of the soul.

American Dr Stuart Hameroff and British physicist Sir Roger Penrose developed a quantum theory of consciousness asserting that our souls are contained inside structures called microtubules which live within our brain cells.

Their idea stems from the notion of the brain as a biological computer, "with 100 billion neurons and their axonal firings and synaptic connections acting as information networks".

Dr Hameroff, Professor Emeritus at the Departments of Anesthesiology and Psychology and Director of the Centre of Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, and Sir Roger have been working on the theory since 1996.

They argue that our experience of consciousness is the result of quantum gravity effects inside these microtubules - a process they call orchestrated objective reduction (Orch-OR).

In a near-death experience the microtubules lose their quantum state, but the information within them is not destroyed. Or in layman's terms, the soul does not die but returns to the universe.

Dr Hameroff explained the theory at length in the Morgan Freeman-narrated documentary Through the Wormhole, which was recently aired in the US by the Science Channel.

The quantum soul theory is now trending worldwide, thanks to stories published this week by The Huffington Post and the Daily Mail, which have generated thousands of readers comments and social media shares.

"Let's say the heart stops beating, the blood stops flowing, the microtubules lose their quantum state," Dr Hameroff said.

"The quantum information within the microtubules is not destroyed, it can't be destroyed, it just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large.

'If the patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says "I had a near death experience".'

In the event of the patient's death, it was "possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body indefinitely - as a soul".

Dr Hameroff believes new findings about the role quantum physics plays in biological processes, such as the navigation of birds, adds weight to the theory.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/quantu ... z2B0zFlWOc

..........interestingly he is using Godel in the same way i did. i used it in conjunction with Russells paradox to destroy science. In the end i came up with agnostic logical positivism as a conclusion and have spent the last 12 years trying to answer it with various success.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Hameroff

Stuart Hameroff
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Stuart Hameroff
Born    16 July 1947 (age 65)
Buffalo, New York, USA
Residence    Tucson, Arizona, USA
Citizenship    United States
Nationality    American
Fields    Anesthesiologist
Institutions    University of Arizona
Alma mater    University of Pittsburgh (B.S.)
Hahnemann University Hospital (M.D.)
Known for    Consciousness studies
Influences    Roger Penrose

Stuart Hameroff (Born on July 16, 1952, Buffalo, New York) is an anesthesiologist and professor at the University of Arizona known for his studies of consciousness.
Contents

    1 Career
    2 Theories
    3 Notes
    4 References
    5 Further reading
    6 External links

Career

Hameroff received his BS degree from the University of Pittsburgh and his MD degree from Hahnemann University Hospital, where he studied before it became part of the Drexel University College of Medicine. He took an internship at the Tucson Medical Center in 1973. From 1975 onwards, he has spent the whole of his career at the University of Arizona, becoming professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Psychology and associate director for the Center for Consciousness Studies, both in 1999, and finally Emeritus professor for Anesthesiology and Psychology in 2003.
Theories

At the very beginning of Dr. Hameroff's career, while he was at Hahnemann, cancer-related research work piqued his interest in the part played by microtubules in cell division, and led him to speculate that they were controlled by some form of computing. It also suggested to him that part of the solution of the problem of consciousness might lie in understanding the operations of microtubules in brain cells, operations at the molecular and supramolecular level[1].

The operations of microtubules are remarkably complex and their role pervasive in cellular operations; these facts led to the speculation that computation sufficient for consciousness might somehow be occurring there. These ideas are discussed in Hameroff's first book Ultimate Computing (1987)[2]. The main substance of this book dealt with the scope for information processing in biological tissue and especially in microtubules and other parts of the cytoskeleton. Hameroff argued that these subneuronal cytoskeleton components could be the basic units of processing rather than the neurons themselves. The book was primarily concerned with information processing, with consciousness secondary at this stage.

Separately from Hameroff, Roger Penrose had published his first book on consciousness, The Emperor's New Mind[3]. On the basis of Godel's incompleteness theorems, he argued that the brain could perform functions that no computer or system of algorithms could. From this it could follow that consciousness itself might be fundamentally non-algorithmic, and incapable of being modelled as a classical Turing machine type of computer. By contrast, the idea that it could be explained mechanistically was prevalent in the field of Artificial Intelligence at that time.

Penrose saw the principles of quantum theory as providing an alternative process through which consciousness could arise. He further argued that this non-algorithmic process in the brain required a new form of the quantum wave reduction, later given the name objective reduction (OR), which could link the brain to the fundamental spacetime geometry. At this stage, he had no precise ideas as to how such a quantum process might be instantiated in the brain. Moreover, Penrose's ideas were widely criticized by neuroscientists, logicians and philosophers, notably Grush and Churchland (Grush and Churchland, 1995) [4].

Hameroff was inspired by Penrose's book to contact Penrose regarding his own theories about the mechanism of anesthesia, and how it specifically targets consciousness via action on neural microtubules. The two met in 1992, and Hameroff suggested that the microtubules were a good candidate site for a quantum mechanism in the brain. Penrose was interested in the mathematical features of the microtubule lattice, and over the next two years the two collaborated in formulating the orchestrated objective reduction (Orch-OR) model of consciousness [1]. Following this collaboration, Penrose published his second consciousness book, Shadows of the Mind[5].

This more developed version of their ideas was also widely attacked, and notably by the physicist Max Tegmark, who calculated that quantum states in microtubules would survive for only 10−13 seconds, too brief to be of any significance for neural processes (Tegmark, 2000)[6]. Hameroff and the physicists Scott Hagan and Jack Tuszynski (Hagan, Hameroff & Tuszynski, 2002)[7] replied to Tegmark arguing that microtubules could be shielded against the environment of the brain. To date, there is no experimental confirmation of these proposed methods of shielding, but Hameroff has proposed tests that could falsify the theory[8].

Over the years since 1994, Hameroff has been active in promoting the Orch-OR model of consciousness through his web site [1], conferences and lectures. He was the lead organizer of the first Tucson consciousness meeting in 1994 that brought together approximately 300 people interested in consciousness studies (e.g., David Chalmers, Christof Koch, Bernard Baars, Roger Penrose, Benjamin Libet). This conference is widely regarded as a landmark event within the field of consciousness studies, and by bringing researchers from various disciplines together led to various useful synergies, resulting indirectly, for instance, in the formation of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, and more directly in the creation of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, of which Hameroff is now the director. The Center for Consciousness Studies hosts meetings on the study of consciousness every two years, as well as sponsoring seminars on consciousness theory.

Hameroff appeared as himself in the documentary film What tнe ♯$*! Do ωΣ (k)πow!? (2004). He also participated in the first Beyond Belief conference, where his theories were sharply criticized by Lawrence Krauss, among others.[1]

Hameroff serves as producer, writer and scientific advisor to an independent feature film called Mindville. Mindville is a feature-length motion picture that combines live action with animation and effects to present a journey into the mysteries of human consciousness.
Notes

    ^ "TSN: Session 4". Thesciencenetwork.org. Retrieved 2012-08-13.

References

    Hameroff, S.(1987) Ultimate Computing Elsevier
    Penrose, R.(1989) The Emperor's New Mind Oxford University Press
    Grush, R. & Churchland, P. (1995) "Gap's in Penrose's Toilings," Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2(1), pp. 10–29
    Penrose, R.(1994) Shadows of the Mind Oxford University Press
    Tegmark, M. (2000) "Importance of quantum coherence in brain processes," Physical Reviews E, 61, pp. 4194–4206
    Hagan, S., Hameroff, S. & Tuszynski, J.(2002) "Quantum computation in brain microtubules? Decoherence and biological feasibility," Physical Reviews E, 65, 061901.
    Hameroff, S. (2006) "Consciousness, neurobiology and quantum mechanics," In: The Emerging Physics of Consciousness, (Ed.) Tuszynski, J.

Further reading

    Stuart Hameroff with Conrad Schneiker, Ultimate Computing: Biomolecular Consciousness and Nanotechnology, Elsevier-North Holland, 1987. This work predates the quantum Orch-OR hypothesis; still of interest. Online at author's site
    Hameroff, Kaszniak, Scott, (eds), Toward a Science of Consciousness, MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-08249-7, LoC OP411.T68 1996. papers from the first Tucson conference on study of consciousness. Further volumes in the series exist.
    Roger Penrose, Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness, Oxford, ISBN 0-19-853978-9, LoC Q335.P416 1994. This discusses the Orch-OR theory.

[baxterdavid]

So you atheist defend scientist cause they "proved" how the world began and now they prove souls and you are all mind bedazzled who to defend now ? ahhaah silly atheist sheep's