Is Consciousness Connected to the Fine Structure of the Universe?

On March 27th I interviewed Dr. Stuart Hameroff of the Center for Consciousness Studies of the University of Arizona. Here is an edited transcript of that interview.

DEEPAK: It's my pleasure today to interview Dr. Stuart Hameroff who is a Professor Emeritus at the Department of Anesthesiology and Psychology and the Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona. Dr. Hameroff is best known for his research on quantum consciousness, an alternative to the accepted view that consciousness emerges from complex computation. Dr. Hameroff in conjunction with noted Oxford physicist Sir Roger Penrose, who was Stephen Hawking's thesis advisor, has proposed that consciousness arises at the quantum level with infrastructures inside neurons known as microtubules. It is a great pleasure to interview you, Dr. Hameroff.

STUART: Thank you Deepak for this interview. It's a pleasure to be here. I must say I have admired your work for many years also. So this is great that I have a chance to talk with you.

Continue reading the full article at: WashingtonPost

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Comments

[Matthew Kosak]

06:30 PM on 05/10/2010

It is an interesting article, but I'm "uncertain" of its scientific merit. It is difficult to follow, especially where Dr. Hameroff goes offline and attempts to hypothesize a "spirit" in the brain, or body, in terms of some unexplainable quantum theory. It seems like we are using a "black box" i.e. quantum physics model to replace something else we are attempting to understand, in this case what human consciousness is. The article possibly succeeds in making the problem even more difficult, by shifting to uncertain quantum world, which possibly sustains the illusion of actual forward progress. Despite the weighty names thrown around, this complex shell game leaves me unconvinced. Usually the simplest explanation is correct. And usually there must be some data to support a radical new theory. It should be noted, that in this article there isn't a single reference to an experiment in a peer reviewed journal that supports this concept. And I was very interested to see this, so my expecations were raised very high, possibly without reason. So for now, I'm going with neuronal models and more conventional theories.

[Perc Sasha]

03:36 AM on 04/09/2010

I have one question for Mister Chopra: what's the importance of the researchs in CERN /Geneva,Swiss/ for boson/or Higgs boson/ and also at Batavia,ILL, for your investigation in the nature and the constitution of the consciousness?Are there some possibility for the science to tell us more about the concept of Nothingness?/sorry,second question/.Thanks.

[Kenan]

11:40 AM on 04/07/2010

Duh! I knew that! :-)

[WilliamPilgrim]

09:51 PM on 04/06/2010

Well I guess that settles that...

[peterg76]

07:09 PM on 04/06/2010

"Is consciousness connected to the fine structure of the universe?"

No.

[deermudra]

10:13 AM on 04/14/2010

Says you :P