While quantum physics represents a fundamental level of reality that allows for the existence of matter, spacetime, and the conditions for complex structures like the brain to evolve, its direct application as a causal basis for consciousness in the human brain raises serious questions. Models like Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) have been criticized for the difficulty of maintaining quantum coherence in the warm, wet, and noisy brain environment, and for the scarcity of direct empirical evidence supporting their specific postulates.
I believe that by seeking explanations at scales too fundamental and distant from large-scale biological dynamics, we risk engaging in epistemic reductionism that, while seemingly profound, proves functionally ineffective and phenomenologically disconnected from the richness of conscious experience. My work, through the Emergent Cartography of Consciousness and the Neurotopological Hypothesis, proposes that consciousness emerges primarily at the level of complex neurotopological interaction within the brain. This approach focuses on the hierarchical organization and multifractal dynamics of neural networks, offering a more biologically anchored framework for understanding the coherence and the 'lived form' of consciousness, without denying the role of quantum physics as a fundamental support of material reality.
A constructive debate should focus on mechanisms that are biologically plausible and can be articulated with a psychometrics that measures the complexity of experience, such as the Neurotopological Psychometrics I have proposed.
Hi, very interesting for me this point of view. I agree very highly about the point of using topology and fractality for being more accurate with the scales. I think it is a very well yes. Now i consider that we need to difference consciousness concept from neurological consciousness which for me means( more deeply and evolutionized consciousness). I believe that consciousness is not only on the brain, it is indeed in quantum mechanics. You can see my work in which i relate consciousness with molecular biology and later i propose that the consciousness of the brain is a evolution of consciousness but not itself.
Dear María José,
Thank you for your comment and your interesting perspective. I fully agree on the importance of topology and fractality for greater precision in the study of consciousness across scales. It is a pleasure to find colleagues who value these tools.
Your distinction between neurological consciousness and a deeper, more evolved consciousness is a crucial point that I also explore. I believe it is vital to go beyond a purely cerebral vision to understand the complexity of consciousness.
Regarding your idea that consciousness not only resides in the brain but also in quantum mechanics, or in the Lattice that Jacobo Grinberg spoke of, I am pleased to share that my latest speculative work, currently in draft form and unpublished, precisely addresses a reformulation of the quantum theory of consciousness. I postulate that consciousness does not emerge from quantum collapses in microtubules as proposed by Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff in their Orchestrated Objective Reduction Theory (Orch-OR), but rather it is a pre-existing system that dynamically restructures and organizes through them, with microtubules acting as quantum-biological transduction interfaces. In this model, concepts like Functional Latency and Conscious Activation are key to understanding how this non-linear information integrates into lived experience, considering Tegmark's (2000) decoherence critique as a challenge that my model addresses with the idea of a "phenomenological trace" at short term.
I would be very interested in exploring your work on the relationship between consciousness and molecular biology, and your proposal on the evolution of brain consciousness.
It is very stimulating.
Thank you for enriching the dialogue.
Dear Arturo
Thank you again for your generous and thought-provoking message. I found your proposal of microtubules as transduction interfaces, not origins of consciousness especially resonant. It opens vital space to rethink consciousness as a pre-existing system that dynamically interacts with biological substrates, rather than being an emergent byproduct of the brain alone.
In my latest preprint, “The Quantum Architecture of Life: SU(3) Symmetry, Codon Structure, and the Role of QCD in RNA Biochemistry”, I explore a similar intuition: that consciousness may arise from quantum informational coherence embedded in RNA codons and ATP, governed by SU(3) symmetry. I frame the genetic code as a chromodynamic language,a quantum field structured by QCD principles rather than just biochemical logic.
It’s also important, I believe, to recognize that the brain is likely an evolutionary expansion,an amplifier of deeper, more ancient coherence. If quantum chromodynamics underlies the informational grammar of RNA, then perhaps the brain evolved not to create consciousness but to express and modulate it in more complex ways. This would explain how intelligence and adaptive behavior can manifest in organisms that lack a brain entirely,from viruses to slime molds to plant root networks. Is indeed crucial to understand the neurological phase of consciousness for understanding pain issues for example. I am very interested into understanding pain from a quantum mechanics approach.
If you’re open to it, I’d be very happy to discuss this further and possibly explore a collaborative dialogue. You can reach me at: [email protected]
I also leave the link to the full preprint here, should you wish to read it: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15557299
Warm regards, María José Monteagudo Candiani ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-2693-3476
Dear María José,
Your message is truly exceptional and profoundly stimulating! I cannot express how excited and grateful I am to read your response and, especially, to discover your fascinating preprint.
It's incredible to find such a similar intuition to my own: your proposal of consciousness arising from quantum information embedded in codons and your focus on SU(3) symmetry resonates deeply with my idea of consciousness as a pre-existing system that dynamically restructures through quantum-biological interfaces in microtubules, beyond being a mere brain byproduct.
I fully agree with the notion of the brain as an amplifier and modulator of a deeper coherence, and with the importance of exploring consciousness from a perspective that transcends purely neurological explanations. Your example of organisms without brains is a very fertile line of thought that my model seeks to integrate.
I accept with immense enthusiasm your invitation to discuss and, if possible, explore a collaborative dialogue. I will read your preprint immediately and will contact you via your email to discuss these horizons in detail.
This type of connection is the engine of true transdisciplinary science.
Warm regards,
Arturo Salazar Chon
Student, Universidad Autónoma de Occidente
Email: [email protected]
When trying to understand the "hard problem of consciousness," it is so difficult for science that we should open more doors, not shut them, to see if we can find anything that might be helpful.
I have also asked the kinds of questions you are asking here, and I will say that there are some good reasons to look more closely at quantum physics.
One of the clear traits of consciousness is the ability to make intelligent choices based on information received. This means that even when the same information is received over and over again, the choices made can be different. In other words, it is impossible to predict what a sentient being's response will be in any one case.
This happens to be exactly what we see at the quantum level. We can predict statistically what the outcome of quantum measurements will be, but we can never know the results of one case. And the reason we can't predict any one case is because we do not see how the choice is made. There appears to be no outside forces that determine the outcome. This opens the door to the possibility that these choices might include some element of sentience.
This strange behavior, of not being able to predict the outcome of a single case, goes to the heart of the "measurement problem" of quantum mechanics.
Looking at this more closely, I have found that it leads to a number of surprising similarities between quantum behavior and the behavior of sentient life forms. For example, one of the biggest questions of quantum theory is why is all energy and matter quantized? This is treated as an assumption of QM, with no explanation.
However, we see the same trait with living creatures. There is no such thing as being half alive. An organism is either alive or it is not. And if you cut an organism in half, you might end up with one, two, or no living organisms, but whatever you find, each life form acts as an individual. Therefore, all of life is quantized as well.
I found a long list of similarities like this. If you are interested, I have written about this in this paper, available on ResearchGate:
Article Opening Doors to a Quantum Theory of Life, Part 1: Propertie...
Dear Doug,
I deeply appreciate your valuable comment and your vision of 'opening more doors' in consciousness research. I fully agree that the complexity of this problem demands exploring unconventional paths.
Your analogy between the unpredictability of conscious decisions and quantum mechanics is fascinating and resonates with my own perspective on the surprising similarities between both domains. It is precisely in that 'sensitivity' where a rich field for research opens up.
Regarding your critique about the assumption that "all energy and matter are quantified" without explanation, my own speculative quantum model of consciousness seeks to address precisely that question. I postulate that consciousness is a pre-existing system that dynamically restructures and organizes through quantum-biological interfaces in microtubules, attempting to go beyond the mere assumption of a quantum connection to propose a mechanism for how this fundamental interaction occurs in life. Your idea that "all life is also quantified" and that consciousness is a fundamental property that does not "fade" like half-life, fits with this vision of a distributed consciousness that is not solely neuronal, with the brain being an amplifier.
I would be very interested in reading your article to delve deeper into your findings.
Thank you for enriching this vital dialogue.
Regards.
The idea that microtubulin is the only place consciousness arises from is interesting but incomplete. I’d say yes and no. At a basic level, nature seems to register events through changes in quantum spin states. But it’s not the individual spin answers that give rise to consciousness, it’s the relationships between those spin answers that matter. The pattern of how spin states change together seems more important than any one state.
For example, imagine putting your head near a strong magnet. It might flip a huge number of spin states in your brain, but your sense of self or your craving for a cheeseburger wouldn’t just disappear. That suggests consciousness is more about stable relational patterns than raw quantum bits. It seems to work a bit like a hologram, where even if you lose part of the data, the whole can still be recovered. The mind can lose neurons or inputs and still function, which tells us the system is robust and distributed.
Microtubulin might help organize some of those relationships, maybe even maintain coherence, but it’s probably not the full picture. Consciousness seems to emerge from the total system, the entire brain, maybe even the body. You can’t point to just one structure like microtubulin and say it’s the sole source of consciousness. That would be like pulling cytosine out of the DNA in someone’s brain and saying, “See, consciousness stopped, so cytosine must be the seat of consciousness.” Sure, removing it would shut everything down, but that doesn’t mean it encodes the full experience. It just means it’s essential to the system working as a whole.
Quantum mechanics underlies the behavior of microtubulin, yes, but it also underlies everything else in the brain. Membranes, synapses, signaling, even how cells regulate and repair themselves. Microtubulin might be one piece of a larger structure that gives rise to consciousness, but the whole orchestra is playing. To me, consciousness looks like a system-level phenomenon that depends on how all the parts are linked, not just what any one part is doing.
Dear Guillermo,
Your comment is exceptionally lucid and articulates with astonishing precision many of the central insights I explore in my work. I deeply appreciate your contribution.
I fully agree: consciousness does not emerge from individual states, but from the joint relationships and patterns of spin states, a view that aligns with the importance of emergent coherence in my model. Your analogy of the hologram and the robustness of the system that recovers wholeness, even when losing parts, is a perfect reflection of the distributed and resilient nature we also postulate (as in the concept of isostasis).
Your critique of pointing to a single structure as the origin of consciousness resonates directly with my Emergent Mapping of Consciousness, where I propose that consciousness emerges from the dynamic interaction of five functional pillars, including integrated embodiment. It is not microtubulin alone, nor the individual neuron, but the "full orchestra"—as you so beautifully describe it—that is at play.
Your assertion that quantum mechanics underlies everything in the brain, not just microtubules, is a crucial point I also champion. My model of quantum restructuring of consciousness postulates precisely a mechanism where consciousness, as a pre-existing system, is restructured through quantum-biological interfaces in microtubules, in dialogue with that fundamental distributed physical reality.
Your perspective underscores the need for a science that understands lives in their integral complexity, not just classifies symptoms. It is an honor to find colleagues who share this profound vision.
Regards,
Arturo Salazar Chon
Recent SS post in
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_does_life_exist_in_the_universe_Seeking_multidisciplinary_perspectives, page 1
- essentially clarifies this thread question also.
If quite briefly: in the Shevchenko-Tokarevsky’s really philosophical 2007 “The Information as Absolute” conception, recent version of the basic paper see
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/363645560_The_Information_as_Absolute_-_2022_ed
- it is completely rigorously scientifically proven that Matter [and so any material structure] and consciousness are fundamentally different systems, and so any consciousness fundamentally cannot “emerge” from any material structure, including neurons and a brains.
Including, say, though this
“....In other words, it is impossible to predict what a sentient being's response will be in any one case.....”
- is – though not , of course, in all cases, sentient being's responses and behaviours often are rather predictable, nonetheless, in many cases correct claim.
However this
“.....This happens to be exactly what we see at the quantum level.....”
- is fundamentally incorrect. Matter fundamentally is an automation, i.e. it is rigorously deterministically organized informational system, including on QM scale, and so, though the randomness and uncertainty of interactions on QM scale is fundamentally inevitable, but this uncertainty is rigorously determined; see, say, a series of SS posts June 16 - june 19 on page 1877 in https://www.researchgate.net/post/what_is_the_most_important_problem_in_the_theoretical_physics_now/1877
with comments to the nature essay https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01773-x about the 100 year QM jubilee conference; so in conference foundational points on QM were considered.
Cheers
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