Leading physicist Roger Penrose asserts that there is an essential component to consciousness which our present scientific scope does not address. "This missing ingredient would be needed in order that the central issues of human mentality could ever be accommodated within a coherent scientific world-view. I shall maintain that this ingredient is itself something that is not beyond science - although, no doubt, it is an appropriately expanded scientific world-view that we shall need (Penrose 7)." In essence, a new branch of science must be created/discovered.
Penrose continues, "I would maintain that there is yet no physical, biological, or computational theory that comes very close to explaining our consciousness and consequent intelligence; but that should not deter us from striving to search for one (Penrose 8)."
"Biologists seem to be generally of the opinion that there is no necessity to be forced out of a classical framework (of physics) when discussing the large-scale implications of those primitive quantum ingredients (Penrose 348)." Basically, Penrose believes that there is a major correlation between quantum physics theory and consciousness.
Current estimations show that we have 1011, or one hundred billion, operational neurons, each capable of sending about a thousand signals per second, which equates to the ability of the brain to theoretically achieve one hundred trillion basic operations per second.
Whilst neurons are accepted as the elementary component of the nervous system and the brain, it is actually the microtubules within the neurons which are believed to control the brain. A microtubule - a constituent of the cytoskeleton of a cell - is a hollow tube that normally consists of thirteen tubulin dimers.
"If, on the other hand, we consider the tubulin dimer as the basic computational unit, then we must bear in mind that there are some one million dimers per neuron, the elementary operations now being performed some one hundred thousand times faster, giving us a total of around 1027 operations per second (Penrose 366)." Let me reiterate this astounding calculation: at the brain’s highest possible level of operation, an octillion operations per second can be performed!
While working towards discovering the capabilities of the human brain, Penrose believes strongly in what he calls "quantum coherence." "If it is microtubules that control the activity of the brain, then there must be something within the action of microtubules that is different from mere computation (Penrose 367)." Before delving into branches of physics which are far enough over my head for me to be standing in the Marinaras Trench, Penrose states that, "Such non-computational action must be the result of some reasonably large-scale quantum-coherent phenomenon, coupled in some way with microscopic behaviour (Penrose 367)."
The Creative Loop
plutonic) (charonic