Is consciousness to be found in quantum processes in microtubules?

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience' started by Write4U, Sep 8, 2018.

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  1. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    THE MICROTUBULES ARE THE FLAGELLAR MACHINERY!
    https://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bioslabs/studies/invertebrates/microtubules.html
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2019
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  3. globali Registered Senior Member

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    This is still about 100.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 (10^-26) times bigger than the Planck scale.

    There is absolutely no evidence that quantum phenomena have MACROSCOPIC effects in biological systems.
    A good debunking for the psiedoscientific woo that readers can start with:
    https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quantum_consciousness
     
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  5. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Your "multitude of scientific sources" seem to consist of quotations from Hameroff himself, or else lots of basic biology stuff about how microtubules are interesting and important.

    Nobody disputes the latter. What I personally question is how one justifies the leap from microtubules being important, to their somehow being the secret of consciousness and maybe of life itself. Just tossing in some hand waving about quantum physics doesn't even really address that question.
     
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  7. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    And quantum happens only at Planck scale? Can you prove that?
    That's what we are beginning to look at. Of course there is no evidence yet. No one has ever looked before.

    I deleted the last part because it was wholly uncalled for. This is a serious area of inquiry. it may provide a cure for Alzheimer's and perhaps a host of other brain diseases that depend on stable functions of microtubules in brain cells.

    What makes you think that consciousness resides at Planck scale. Do you have proof of that? Is a holograph formed at Planck scale?

    I am amazed that I am called a crank for displaying interest in serious research, yet all critique is based on no knowledge or research at all.

    Just knee-jerk banalities. It's really tiresome. Show me some research that contradicts what is being researched today, not old incomplete knowledge from 15-20 years ago.
     
  8. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    There are a billion active microtubules in the body, each a nano-scale bi-directional electro-chemical computer. It is no great leap to visualize a functional "hive mind" which acquires its own consciousness.

    This is not the same as an AI computer. Microtubules process chemicals in addition to electrical signals. Chemical interactions are experiential in nature. After all, sentient living things evolved from non-conscious electro-chemical processes, no?

    If you want to stick with magical solutions, fine. I am interested in finding practical solutions. You are the one practicing woo, not I. I am researching and gathering as much information as I can and draw my own conclusions without the gratuitous derogatory critiques from uninformed minds (on this particular subject).
    Obviously you are not reading any of my posts and links. There are currently dozens if not hundreds of researchers doing work, not only on microtubules themselves, but also on the proposition of a ORCH-OR brain function (hive-mind), which might lead to experiential sensations (consciousness) in the subject.

    A single celled paramecium has sensation. That is because it has microtubules and cilia. Do you believe we are less sentient (conscious) than a paramecium.

    This is new science........!
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2019
  9. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Perhaps you may want to consider the scale of chemical quanta, instead of EM quanta.

    p.s. I believe microtubules are sensitive to certain wavelengths.

    A sampling.
    1. Tubulin mRNA stability is sensitive to change in microtubule ...

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      journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371...
      The localization, mass, and dynamics of microtubules are important in many processes. Cells may actively monitor the state of their microtubules and respond to perturbation, but how this occurs outside mitosis is poorly understood. We used gene-expression analysis in quiescent cells to analyze ...

    2. LSPR Biosensing Approach for the Detection of Microtubule ...

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      www.pubfacts.com/detail/30909588/LSPR-Biosensing...
      The model predicts that the extinction maximum wavelength is sensitive to a change in the local refractive index induced by microtubule nucleation within a few tens of nanometers from the nanoparticle surface, but insensitive to a change in the refractive index outside this region caused by microtubule elongation.

    3. Microtubule - Wikipedia

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      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtubule
      Microtubule polymers are extremely sensitive to various environmental effects. Very low levels of free calcium can destabilize microtubules and this prevented early researchers from studying the polymer in vitro. Cold temperatures also cause rapid depolymerization of microtubules. In contrast, heavy water promotes microtubule polymer stability.

    4. Molecular understanding of label-free second harmonic imaging ...

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      www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11463-8
      The use of label-free SH imaging of microtubules remains limited, as sensitive detection is required and the true molecular origin and main determinants required to generate SH from microtubules ...

    5. Are microtubules the 'nerves' of the cell?

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      www.basic.northwestern.edu/g-buehler/nerves.htm
      In response to exogenous signals the centrosome may send destabilizing signals along its radial array of microtubules. Neither microtubules nor the drug (nocodazole) are sensitive to infrared light. If the light pulses destabilized the microtubules it had to be an indirect effect caused by some other cellular component which is light sensitive and connected to the microtubules.

    6. Cell Biology 07: Microtubules and Cell Division - CureFFI.org

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      www.cureffi.org/2013/03/30/cell-biology-07-microtubules...
      Cell Biology 07: Microtubules and Cell Division. Mar 30, 2013 • ericminikel • bios-e-16. These are notes from lecture 7 of Harvard Extension’s Cell Biology course. Lecture 6 introduced microtubules, and this lecture will discuss their role in cell division. Here is an introductory video:

    7. Acetylation of microtubules influences their sensitivity to ...

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      www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2891103
      Here we investigated whether the sensitivity of microtubules to severing by katanin is regulated by acetylation of the microtubules. During interphase, fibroblasts display long microtubules with discrete regions rich in acetylated tubulin. Overexpression of katanin for short periods of time produced ...

    8. Microtubules - The Cell - NCBI Bookshelf

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      www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9932
      In axons, the microtubules are all oriented with their plus ends away from the cell body, similar to the general orientation of microtubules in other cell types. The minus ends of most of the microtubules in axons, however, are not anchored in the centrosome ; instead, both the plus and minus ends of these microtubules terminate in the cytoplasm of the axon.
     
  10. globali Registered Senior Member

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    I am not familiar with quantum mechanics but isn't uncertainty required in order for quantum consciousness to make sense at the macroscopic level?



    Serious research is based on evidence, which you said it does not exist yet. Show us data and we will discuss them. Hypothetical or investigative areas should not be taken as a fact.

    ps. we know what microtubules are
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2019
  11. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Superposition is not exclusive to Planck scale functions.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superposition_principle
    I have offered a small library of available information in this new field. If this escaped your attention, I am not to blame.
    Not everybody does. It is why I started this thread and provided copious examples under investigation.

    My posits are probative. I make a statement and hope to find confirmation or falsification. If neither is available yet, I withold judgement. I would not presume to declare scientific certainty, without further data.

    OTOH, outright rejection of a proposition without falsification data is just as intolerable as proposing unproven woo.
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2019
  12. pluto2 Banned Valued Senior Member

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    I don't mean to hijack this thread but scientists are selfish when they claim that pain after injury is extremely unpleasant because of the cells in the brain.

    The evidence shows that pain's extreme unpleasantness after injury is not caused by the brain at all (ok maybe some of it but definitely not most of it) but by something else that many scientists are way too selfish to say that they don't understand yet.

    I think that money interests corrupts scientists because when there is money in academia then scientists behave more selfishly and unethically.
     
  13. globali Registered Senior Member

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    Yes but don't forget that what you are saying here is that:

    a)Quantum effects govern macroscopic phenomena in microtubules.
    b)Microtubules have consciousness
    c)Quantum phenomena cause consciousness
    d)Quantum phenomena cause consciousness through microtubules
    All at once.

    Those are too many assumptions that each one of them is debatable. Can you blame me for being skeptical and unwilling to follow these leaps at once without convincing evidence??
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2019
  14. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    All contributions are welcome.
    Internal pain is experienced through a mechanism called "interoception". Do watch this really interesting lecture by Anil Seth. This lecture explains the function, which is a subconscious brain function, used only for control of internal organ functions.
    External sensory pain is a conscious experience and this is the brain region which is rendered unconscious when a person is under anesthesia.


    and this;
    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1471-4159.2005.03551.x

    I like to believe scientists are some of the few honest people in any endeavor. And there is always falsification before any proposition is officially accepted as theory.

    So far any opposing posits of microtubular functions, citing "impossible environmental conditions", have been debunked and the hypothesis stands, unproven but also unfalsified.
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2019
  15. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    OK,
    a) depends on the size and composition of the quanta.
    b) no such claim has been made. The claim is that microtubules are organic computers, but may be organic quantum computers, using elctro-chemical qubits.
    c) this is contributed by Roger Penrose. He envisions a quantum shift as an experiential event, a physical "BING".
    I haven't read much by Penrose, except his respected standing in the scientific community as a kind of knowledge baseline.
    d) this is what ORCH-OR attemps to establish. A form of hive consciousness
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction
    Not at all. I am just as skeptical as the next person interested in good science. IMO, the importance of the knowledge warrants thorough investigation. There is one "common denominator". All eukaryotic organisms and a few old prokaryotic organisms possess microtubules and they are able to function efficiently in all organisms that possess them. Watch some of the animated illustrations which clearly show computational aspects to the work being performed.

    If you will take the time to do some research you will find that those initial objections have already been answered, except for (d), admittedly the most delicate part of the proposition.
    Emotional experience.
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2019
  16. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Well, AFAIK, this debunking has been debunked. Just because someone say that they have debunked something does not mean that they know more than the scientist who is making the claim in the first place.

    Was a time when scientists were drawn and quartered for making a scientific proposition. Hypatia is but one example of a bona fide scientist being branded as a witch performing witchcraft and being cut to pieces.
    Galileo was another. Not only did he have to recant his hypothesis, he was forbidden to even speak of it.

    Censorship is sometimes also driven by self-preservation and financial considerations, no?
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2019
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Yes but organellas are not responsible for cell division, microtubules are, they can make perfect copies of cells in accordance with DNA instructions, MITOSIS.

    Microtubules are the functional division mechanism of an entire cell and everything that's in it. There is nothing else like it. Microtubules are the fundamental pattern forming machines of all biology that is able to evolve into more complex patterns.
     
  18. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    BINGO!
     
  19. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Microtubules are organelles. Organelles are organized functional structures inside a eukaryotic cell, analogous to organs in the larger multicellular organism. Besides microtubules, they include the nucleus (with its nuclear membrane), DNA (sometimes wound around histone proteins into chromatin and organized into chromosomes), all sorts of chemically selective pores and pumps (proteins that control what chemicals enter and leave the cell, sometimes pumping them across chemical gradients), cytoplasm (which isn't just a featureless fluid, but rather a seething mass of molecules), ribosomes (they receive the mRNA and catalyze protein synthesis), filaments (of various sorts, not just microtubules but several sorts of protein chains and ropes that sometimes don't have a lumen), and many more organelles like mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, lysosomes, vacuoles, chloroplasts and centrioles. (They all have their own stories.) Specialized call types will sometimes have specialized organelles. All of the organelles have some function and many are vital, the cell can't survive without them.

    Basic overview of organelles

    https://open.oregonstate.education/aandp/chapter/3-2-the-cytoplasm-and-cellular-organelles/

    More detail

    http://medcell.med.yale.edu/lectures/cellular_organization.php

    Details on microtubules and microfilaments, which are similar but very different. (Different proteins, different structure, different functions in many cases.)

    https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/microtubules-and-filaments-14052932/

    I don't think that the microtubules (or perhaps actin filaments more accurately) are making copies of cells. Cell division is a more complicated process and they are only playing one role. They are more like little intracellular muscles that pull the copied DNA strands apart. The copying itself is a complicated process overseen by (protein) enzymes like DNA polymerase.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_replication

    Or part of it. There's more going on than microtubules.

    Way too grandiose and rather inaccurate, in my opinion. Lots of fascinating things are happening inside cells, and microtubules are only one part of it.

    If you get yourself too obsessively focused on microtubules, you will just blind yourself to the amazing complexity of cell biology.

    ... and we still aren't really any closer to tying it together with consciousness. That just looks like a gratuitous speculation to me.
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2019
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  20. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Thank you.
    i.e. quorum sensing is a form of hivemind.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorum_sensing

    Microtubules pass these requirements, plus much more. Moreover, a threshold function suggests a form of quantum processing.
    microtubules process such values
    Microtubules are responsible for building and maintaining the cytoskeleton and its functions.
    A function of the microtubule.
    Neural networks are the transport networks of active microtubules throughout the body. I elieve its also called "neural scaffolding".

    The Cell: A Molecular Approach. 2nd edition.
    Structure, Assembly, and Dynamic Instability of Microtubules
    The Centrosome and Microtubule Organization
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9932/
     
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    No they are not. Microtubules are polymers consisting of two tubulins. One of its functions is the transport of organelles.

    Organelle Transport and Intracellular Organization
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9833/
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtubule
     
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2019
  22. globali Registered Senior Member

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    Note also that the only uncontroversial intelligence we know so far does not have much to do with microtubules. Just mentioning it.
     
  23. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I understand, but perhaps we've been looking in wrong corner for answers.

    I believe that a proven biological computer warrants further looking into. It is obvious I'm not alone.

     
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