How Can the Visual Quantum Information be Transferred to The Brain Intact, Collapsing There and Causing Consciousness?

Abstract

The main problem which this paper tries to address is whether collapse of the wave function describing the state of a quantum mechanical system occurs, or, rather can occur in the brain of the observer or not. One of the first (relatively) detailed "collapse models" following the original abstract suggestion by von Neumann that collapse occurs in the brain of the observer and is related to consciousness, is the Orch OR model of Penrose and Hameroff. This model was first criticized by Tegmark on the ground that due to decoherence, quantum processing cannot occur in the human brain. This criticism was countered by saying that due to structural shielding, microtubules inside the neurons can be protected against the wet and warm environment inside the brain. Thaheld, however, in a number of papers argued that quantum visual information carried by the photons from the environment cannot reach the brain intact. In other words, the quantum states of the photons would collapse inside the human eye and only classical information would finally reach the brain and hence no collapse and quantum processing in the brain can take place. In this paper we advance a hypothesis that there is the possibility for the quantum states of photons to be transmitted to the brain in a quantum-like manner. Our approach is based on the quantum teleportation mechanism which includes both classical and quantum aspects of information transfer, but the process itself is wholly quantum mechanical.

Photons Do Collapse In the Retina Not in the Brain Cortex: Evidence from Visual Illusions

“…Several researchers (Hameroff, 1998;Hilaire et al, 2002;Gao, 2003;Salari et al, 2008;Rahnama et al, 2009) suppose that the informational input to the sensory organs is directly converted into quantum coherent states, thus missing the biological importance of pre-cortical processing and create hypotheses that conflict the clinical data. The experiments with implanting electrodes directly into the brain cortex (Section 2.5) suggest that the brain cortex is the residence for conscious experience.…”

“…The last proposal of "quantum" visual perception to be discussed is proposed by Tuszynski's group (cf. Salari et al, 2008;Rahnama et al, 2009) and involves quantum teleportation of photons. The authors propose that the visual photons are quantum teleported to the brain cortex and they collapse in the cortex instead inside the retina.…”

“…Critical moment misunderstood and neglected by Tuszynski's group (cf. Salari et al, 2008;Rahnama et al, 2009) is the fact that if one wants to teleport photons of visible he needs entangled photon pair, also of visible light. In other words, one cannot use quantum entangled microtubules to teleport a photon (see Appendix for detailed mathematics).…”

“…Moreover, the very same writers have little or no knowledge of neuroscience and as a consequence their "quantum mind" proposals are already wrong at the moment of their conception. In this article we will introduce the reader to the basic neural principles underlying the visual perception, and then we will show that three putative quantum versions of visual perception proposed by (1) Hameroff's group (Hameroff, 1998;Saint Hilaire et al, 2002), (2) Gao (Gao, 2003;2004a;2004b; and (3) Tuszynski's group (Salari et al, 2008;Rahnama et al, 2009) are not even wrong. 2 The mistakes in the discussed works are numerous, so we will not claim to have been exhaustive in our critique.…”

“…And third, newly born model of visual perception involving quantum teleportation mechanism is proposed by Tuszynski's group (cf. Salari et al, 2008;Rahnama et al, 2009). The authors propose that the visual photons are quantum teleported to the brain cortex and they collapse there instead inside the retina.…”