Intriguing theory. If anything comes of this direction of research, then there at least might be some hope for patients of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.
The research articles mentioned in the video:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpcb.3c07936 (open access)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1571064522000197 (open access).
I hate the YouTube clickbait style thumbnails, I’m not watching the video out of principle
Lots of stretching here. The paper uses simulations of microtubules to show quantum effects when tryptophan residues are excited by UV light. The paper only did simulations of microtubules, and those simulations did not include the bends and many many dynein molecules found on microtubules. The reason this is important is that researchers have been hitting every biomolecule with UV excitation for decades, including microtubules, and have never observed this effect.
A key finding missing from this video is that microtubules are dynamic. They are constantly disassembling and reassembling and recycling components. This occurs at very short timescales. Also, they do not bridge cell membranes. If information is passing through networks of microtubules, it is constantly disrupted and not affecting other cells. Synapses do handle cell-cell information transfer (where the role of microtubules is already well studied and not quantum in nature). Why would quantum microtubule information be limited to a single cell? Maybe it could influence coordinated assembly and disassembly at the termini, but the authors offer no evidence that there is any chemical effect of this quantum phenomenon, which would be required to change anything about how those enzymes behave.
We already know of a mechanism by which information is transported across microtubules: physical transport of signalling molecules. They are walked (quite literally, dynein is cool) along the microtubules to different sites in the cell. No quantum effects needed to explain this phenomenon.
The hubris in thinking that our consciousness has something transcending classic physics or is somehow more special than other animals’…
It’s not hubris, it’s neediness. Some people have a desperate need to be speshul, not just matter, not just a process, but something magical and ineffable and inherently intractable. They want their non-overlapping magisteria back, and they use ‘quantum’ as a little reservation it can hide on.
Most likely no:
I mean I get what you’re saying but this seems super short sighted. There is good reason to not jump to quantum effects as an explanation for anything unknown. That said, dismissing evidence that suggests that the brain makes use of quantum effects because “quantum mysticism.” It frankly seems far more likely that immensely complicated that’s had billions of years to evolve, such as a brain, would make use of available phenomena even if it’s not something we understand. Note that I’m not suggesting magicy magic quantum physics is secretly magic, simply that mechanically there’s no reason why some parts of consciousness would not make use of quantum effects.
My friend, the screenshot has blue electricity and a picture of a nebula: two things that do not use quantum effects. This is most likely sensationalized.
Again I get what you’re saying, but it’s a visual medium. You expect him to put a barcode scanner up there or some shit? The video itself makes some of the same points you do. And yeah YouTube is full of clickait, but if you’re gonna be on YouTube, do as the YouTubers do.
Edit: also, he usually does astronomy stuff. The nebula is just his normal background
Mind blown. I want to add to the conversation, but I dunno what to say. This is some out-there science that needs pursuing!
Roger Penrose was brilliant, but he got a lot of flack for his Orch-OR theorem which is being alluded to here.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction
I still don’t understand what problem his hypothesis was trying to solve though.
I really think that consciousness is just a combination of Narrow AI – that is, AI that is only good at a very specialized task. For example, we have a part of our brains specifically to process the raw data from our eyes, that’s a Narrow AI designed for that express purpose. When you combine all of the AIs that would be necessary for sight, smell, taste, touch, etc, as well as maintaining bodily functions, immune system, and other autonomic systems, you’ve essentially got an AI that can run a body.
However, at the point, that body would rely purely on instinct and only react to it’s environment. Add one more layer of Narrow AI whose purpose is to extrapolate the given information and make educated guesses and you’ve got the potential for intelligence. Because now you’re not just reacting to the environment but you’re actively thinking of how you can use all of those other Narrow AI that control your body to shape your environment, which is the basis of intelligence.