From Quantum Photosynthesis to the Sentient Brain

Abstract

Energy harvesting by photosynthesis in "brainless" plants and green algae is identified as the root non-trivially quantum process powering neural correlates of consciousness in humans and other "brainy" animals. Thermofield attributes of solar energy flow through the biosphere's food chain are suggested as a "bottom up" mediator between quantum-coherent aspects of photosynthesis and emergent dynamical architectonics of transmembrane electrical potentials in neurons. This quantum-ecological approach to energetics of brain function as part of an open dissipative world system offers a segue, experimentally grounded by empirical evidence for photosynthetic coherence, into qualitatively gauged links between quantum tunneling and the Hard Problem of consciousness. (Globus, 2003;Hagan et al., 2002;Hameroff and Penrose, 1996; Jibu and Yasue, 1995;Penrose, 1989;Penrose, 1994;Umezawa, 1993;Vitiello, 2001) that experiments will someday prove the existence of functionally nontrivial in vivo Bose Einstein coherent processes firmly linked to the sentient brain (Palermo Declaration, 2013;Tarlaci and Pregnolato, 2015). However, so far no unequivocal demonstration has been forthcoming Corresponding author: Donald Mender Address: Lecturer in Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, USA. e-mail  onald.mender@yale.edu Relevant conflicts of interest/financial disclosures: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Received: September 27, 2015; Accepted: November 1, 2015 (Mender, 2013a;. In this regard quantum olfaction, quantum avian compasses, quantum genetic coding, quantum enzyme folding, sustainably orchestrated quantum tubulin superpositions, and ordered water to date all remain merely theoretically tantalizing proposals with at best debatable and in many cases no experimental support. At present one must consider the real possibility that experiments may never (Mender, 2013a;Tegmark, 2000) generate the kind of ironclad examples of overt quantum neurodynamical coherence imagined as a future vindication of existing quantum brain theories.However, there is currently available one functionally significant example of nontrivial quantum coherence that is experimentally on fairly firm ground in what seems at first glance to be a systematically non-neural domain of biology, i.e. photon energy harvesting by the photosynthetic Z-process (Engel et al., 2007) in

Isoqualitative Gauge Curvature at Multiple Scales: A Response to the Agnosticism of Quantum Cognitivism and Quantum Interaction

“…That is, in the theoretical realm, quantum cognitive adaptation of the "distortion" gauge mediated by q-bosons may serve to morph compatible sets of observables into the incompatible observables of quantum physics (Mender, 2013a). This morphing conveniently comports with second quantization's applicability to changes of state, in that the pertinent quantized qualities of perception and cognition may naturalistically be assumed to change via processes of habituation and dishabituation (Mender, 2015). Moreover, through an abstract geometry whose curvature is extrinsic to physical processes, the psychophysical distortion gauge happily can avoid the metaphysical pitfall of violating the causal completeness of physics, at least at a locally apparent scale (Mender, 2013a).…”

“…Particular architectonically varied spatiotemporal conformations of electrochemical ion gradients across neuronal membranes have been linked empirically with the nexus between mind and brain, engaging the "easy problem" of correlating neural and cognitive patterns. However, that kind of linkage, bypassing the "hard problem of consiousness," has not in itself offered any deep explanation of the mind-brain nexus in principle (Chalmers, 1995;1996;Mender, 2015). From Darwinian concepts it is possible to surmise positive coevolutionary feedback loops between, on one hand, fractal architectonics and fractal dynamical phase spaces, promoting inward diffusion of ambient oxygen required for aerobically fueled neural membrane potentials, and, on the other hand, emergence of conscious nervous systems "on the way to" the human brain.…”

“…In fact, these latter sorts of cognitive "observables," akin to phenomenalist notions of "qualia" said to comprise conscious experience, were abstracted from human consciousness into schematized analogies with the classical dynamical observables of prequantum physics as early as the 19th century by the German psychophysicists Weber and Fechner (Mender, 2015).…”

“…Einstein as the intuitive-scientific thought experimenter par excellence further refined classical dynamics. Quantum innovators took formal approaches to their current level of abstraction far beyond raw physical intuition (Mender, 2015).…”

“…Early homo sapiens while hunting and gathering had to trek from point A to point B (distance) employing muscular exertion (energy) to haul self and cargo (inertia linked to momentum) while steering clear of vertiginous (spinning) falls. With the coming of post-medieval physics, metrical distance mathematically abstracted the intuitive feeling of corporeal translation in space; momentum mathematically abstracted the feeling of bodily inertia whose shifts are mediated by vestibular signals to the brain; energy mathematically abstracted the feeling of muscular labor; angular momentum mathematically abstracted the feeling of vertigo; clock measurements of time mathematically abstracted the subjective feeling of temporal flow (Mender, 2015).…”