Is consciousness to be found in quantum processes in microtubules?

[Pinball1970]

This is ridiculous. I think it's probably past time for closing this nonsense of a thread.

That would be best I think

 

[Write4U]

Microtubules is a closed subject, no longer worthy of discussion?
I'm not done yet.

Microtubules: Evolving roles and critical cellular interactions

Impact statement
The role of microtubules in cellular functioning is constantly expanding. In this review, we examine new and exciting fields of discovery for microtubule’s involvement in morphogenesis, highlight our evolving understanding of differential roles for stabilized versus dynamic subpopulations, and further understanding of microtubules as a cellular integrator.

Microtubules in the lens: A developmental role

The lens is a tissue whose structure defines its function. A transparent tissue devoid of vasculature and nerves, it serves to focus light rays onto the retina to allow for vision. While generally looked upon as a simple clear gelatinous structure, the lens is actually defined by a precise cellular arrangement within the lens epithelium and among the differentiated fiber cells as well as between these two primary cell types of the lens.73–76

It is this interaction between and among these two different cell types that allows for the generation and maintenance of a three-dimensional structure that can adapt and accommodate to allow for proper vision.77,78 This precise cytoarchitecture’s establishment and maintenance relies heavily on cytoskeletal signaling networks in conjunction with cell–cell junctions.79–83 This reliance on cell–cell interaction makes the lens an ideal system for studying the processes of development, morphogenesis, and regeneration.

more.... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6880148/

 

[James R]

Microtubules is a closed subject, no longer worthy of discussion?

You're not discussing it with anybody.

At best, you're cutting and pasting random peer-reviewed articles which might be interesting to actual biologists but not so much to most other people, who lack the relevant expertise to understand the content.

You left behind the topic of consciousness as it might or might not relate to microtubules ages ago.

And you're still interpersing these random articles you search for - basically anything that mentions the word "microtubule" somewhere in the abstract - with other random bits of nonsense about your other two pet obsessions.

Not to mention all the stuff that's not remotely relevant, even to the broad topic of microtubules.

I'm not done yet.

I think you nearly are. This is such a low quality thread. It's just filling up space. Why don't you post this stuff on a blog somewhere, if you must exercise your cut-and-paste muscles?

Clearly, you don't care whether any discussion happens.

 

[Write4U]

Clearly, you don't care whether any discussion happens.

I don't see many discussions worthy of note. Apparently you do not see my informative posts on a subject that finally is becoming a major item as worthy of discussion.

Maybe this will stir some imaginative thoughts on the subject. You've been asking for this.

JUSTIN RIDDLE, PH.D.
COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENTIST AT FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

and more to come.

 

[Write4U]

And it appears that the benzene molecule already functions as part of a language in bacterial "quorum sensing".

Humans have become effective communicators during our short time on Earth. However, our communication pales in comparison to bacteria. Quorum sensing using autoinducers allows bacteria to communicate within and between species. With the latter, they can either compete or collaborate with other species based on the autoinducer "message" they receive. With our many different languages, cultures and nuances, humans have a long way to go before our communication structure rivals bacteria.
https://asm.org/articles/2020/june/how-quorum-sensing-works

Note that each species has a unique language that cannot be understood by other bacteria.

 

[exchemist]

And it appears that the benzene molecule already functions as part of a language in bacterial "quorum sensing".



View attachment 5804

Note that each species has a unique language that cannot be understood by other bacteria.

The first diagram does not include benzene, nor does the freeze-framed video diagram. (The rings are 5 membered saturated rings containing oxygen that don't resemble benzene at all.) I can't find any mention of benzene in the linked article either. Why are you posting these diagrams together?

I would be quite surprised to find that benzene plays a role in biological systems. It is a hydrocarbon that is not water soluble. More the kind of thing you find on an oil refinery than in a bacterium, I should have thought.

 

[DaveC426913]

Not the same physically, chemically or biologically.

(Perhaps Write4U only read the advertizing page for these molecules, and didn't bother clicking through to the "How It Actually Works" fine print...)

 

[Write4U]

What do I have to do to make you read the scientific articles I submit in support of my posts?

I would be quite surprised to find that benzene plays a role in biological systems. It is a hydrocarbon that is not water soluble. More the kind of thing you find on an oil refinery than in a bacterium, I should have thought

Apparently it is the stable non-polarity and the non-soluble properties of benzene that is used by microtubules in some form.
Note: Benzene and Olive oil are related and instrumental in "resonance clouds"as identified by Hameroff and Riddle (above).

Consciousness, Cognition and the Neuronal Cytoskeleton – A New Paradigm Needed in Neuroscience

Evidence shows self-similar patterns of conductive resonances repeating in terahertz, gigahertz, megahertz, kilohertz and hertz frequency ranges in microtubules. These conductive resonances apparently originate in terahertz quantum dipole oscillations and optical interactions among pi electron resonance clouds of aromatic amino acid rings of tryptophan, phenylalanine and tyrosine within each tubulin, the component subunit of microtubules, and the brain’s most abundant protein.

Evidence from cultured neuronal networks also now shows that gigahertz and megahertz oscillations in dendritic-somatic microtubules regulate specific firings of distal axonal branches, causally modulating membrane and synaptic activities. The brain should be viewed as a scale-invariant hierarchy, with quantum and classical processes critical to consciousness and cognition originating in microtubules inside neurons.

more.... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9245524/#

On the origin of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene in extra virgin olive oil
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7785357/

Not the same physcially, chemically or biologically

Right, they are all derivatives of benzene, no?

https://www.compoundchem.com/2014/09/01/benzene-derivatives-in-organic-chemistry/

 

[exchemist]

View attachment 5806 View attachment 5807

Not the same physically, chemically or biologically.

(Perhaps Write4U only read the advertizing page for these molecules, and didn't bother clicking through to the "How It Actually Works" fine print...)

Furan would have 2 double bonds in the ring. What you have shown is dihydrofuran, i.e. with one double bond saturated with extra hydrogen atoms.

The rings in his picture on the video are substituted tetrahydrofuranones, as they have no double bonds and a ketone (carbonyl) group at one position. They are also cyclic esters, known as lactones, the one in question being γ-butyolactone, as it has a 4 carbon chain with the -O- atom on the carbon furthest from the acid (carbonyl) end).

So 2 ways to describe the group, but yeah, bugger all to do with benzene.

 

[exchemist]

What do I have to do to make you read the scientific articles I submit in support of my posts?

Apparently it is the stable non-polarity and the non-soluble properties of benzene that is used by microtubules in some form.
Note: Benzene and Olive oil are related and instrumental in "resonance clouds"as identified by Hameroff and Riddle (above).

Consciousness, Cognition and the Neuronal Cytoskeleton – A New Paradigm Needed in Neuroscience


more.... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9245524/#

On the origin of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene in extra virgin olive oil
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7785357/

Right, they are all derivatives of benzene, no?

https://www.compoundchem.com/2014/09/01/benzene-derivatives-in-organic-chemistry/

I read the link. Neither it nor the extracts you are quoting make any reference to benzene.

They refer to aromatic amino acid rings in tryptophan, tyrosine and phenylalanine. That is quite a different matter.

From this, and the chart you have now produced of benzene derivatives, it seems you are confusing benzene with compounds that include a benzene ring. Benzene is benzene. These other compounds are not benzene. They have in general quite different properties (though toluene is somewhat similar).

(Olive oil obviously has fuck-all to do with any of this.)

 

[Write4U]

They refer to aromatic amino acid rings in tryptophan, tyrosine and phenylalanine. That is quite a different matter.

And also in microtubules.

From this, and the chart you have now produced of benzene derivatives, it seems you are confusing benzene with compounds that include a benzene ring. Benzene is benzene. These other compounds are not benzene. They have in general quite different properties (though toluene is somewhat similar).

Yes, the benzene ring is the basis for the hydrophobic properties that make quantum activities possible.
Question: Are all benzene derivatives hydrophobic?

Consciousness, Cognition and the Neuronal Cytoskeleton – A New Paradigm Needed in Neuroscience.
Stuart Hameroff 1,2,3*

At the turn of the 20th century, Hans Meyer (1899) and Charles Ernst Overton (1901) tested a group of gases for anesthetic action, cataloged their respective potencies in rendering animals unresponsive and apparently unconscious, and then sought a physical parameter which might correlate with anesthetic potency.

Working independently, Meyer and Overton concluded that, over many orders of magnitude, with a dozen or more gases, there was a strong correlation between anesthetic potency and solubility in non-polar, oil-like “hydrophobic” (water-aversive) regions closely resembling benzene and olive oil, a relationship which became known as the “Meyer-Overton correlation.” The particular anesthetic-soluble regions were later characterized by a low Hildebrand solubility coefficient lambda (15.2–19.3 SI Units), again closely resembling benzene and olive oil (Hameroff, 2006).

Note; I did not say that microtubules contain olive oil. Please don't project your own interpretation of what I am saying.
Correct me, don't ridicule me.

 

[exchemist]

And also in microtubules.
Yes, the benzene ring is the basis for the hydrophobic properties that make quantum activities possible.
Question: Are all benzene derivatives hydrophobic?

Consciousness, Cognition and the Neuronal Cytoskeleton – A New Paradigm Needed in Neuroscience.
Stuart Hameroff 1,2,3*


Note; I did not say that microtubules contain olive oil. Please don't project your own interpretation of what I am saying.
Correct me, don't ridicule me.

No the benzene ring is not the basis for hydrophobic properties. Some compounds with a benzene ring are quite water-soluble, e.g. phenol.

The Hameroff article you quote seems very garbled. Meyer and Overton used relative solubility in water and olive oil as a simple and convenient way to determine relative hydrophilic and hydrophobic characteristics of anaesthetics in the mid c.19th. That is the sole relevance of olive oil to this topic. The link you cited was about olive oil picking up benzene from the environment, so utterly irrelevant.

In fact the modern theory of anaesthetics suggests hydrophobic species may work by dissolving in the bilipid layer of cell membranes and thereby interrupting the conduction between nerve cells. Nothing to do with microtubules: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_general_anaesthetic_action

I never suggested you think microtubules contain olive oil, by the way.

You ridicule yourself with no help from me. Sadly.

 

[Write4U]

The link you cited was about olive oil picking up benzene from the environment, so utterly irrelevant.

Yes, an "organic" process, demonstrating that living organisms may be able to use the hydrophobic properties in an organic quantum system, such as the microtubule networks in every Eukaryotic organism on earth.

You ridicule yourself with no help from me. Sadly.

No, you said it was irrelevant and that is not true. You may want to critique your own posits.

Remember your earlier opposition to the concept of ORCH OR, based on the "wet" environment, which was the original critique. It seems that question has been answered, no?

 

[James R]

Yes, the benzene ring is the basis for the hydrophobic properties that make quantum activities possible.

That's pure nonsense.

Are you honestly asserting that "quantum activities" are impossible for things that are hydrophilic? Or are you just blathering at random again?

 

[exchemist]

Yes, an "organic" process, demonstrating that living organisms may be able to use the hydrophobic properties in an organic quantum system, such as the microtubule networks in every Eukaryotic organism on earth.

No, you said it was irrelevant and that is not true. You may want to critique your own posits.

Remember your earlier opposition to the concept of ORCH OR, based on the "wet" environment, which was the original critique. It seems that question has been answered, no?

Indeed, and the answer on Orch OR remains as in post 5 (that's five, i.e on page one) of this daft, rambling thread. I'll just remind you what I posted:

There is no evidence that microtubules are tiny quantum computers.

The notion is mere speculation. The Orch-R concept of Penrose and Hameroff has made a number of false predictions and is fairly thoroughly discredited. I quote from the Wiki article on "Quantum Mind":

" Hameroff provided a hypothesis that microtubules would be suitable hosts for quantum behavior.[20] Microtubules are composed of tubulinprotein dimer subunits. The dimers each have hydrophobic pockets that are 8 nm apart and that may contain delocalized pi electrons. Tubulins have other smaller non-polar regions that contain pi electron-rich indole rings separated by only about 2 nm. Hameroff proposed that these electrons are close enough to become entangled.[21] Hameroff originally suggested the tubulin-subunit electrons would form a Bose–Einstein condensate, but this was discredited.[22] He then proposed a Frohlich condensate, a hypothetical coherent oscillation of dipolar molecules. However, this too was experimentally discredited.[23]

However, Orch-OR made numerous false biological predictions, and is not an accepted model of brain physiology.[24] In other words, there is a missing link between physics and neuroscience,[25] for instance, the proposed predominance of 'A' lattice microtubules, more suitable for information processing, was falsified by Kikkawa et al.,[26][27] who showed all in vivo microtubules have a 'B' lattice and a seam. The proposed existence of gap junctions between neurons and glial cells was also falsified.[28] Orch-OR predicted that microtubule coherence reaches the synapses via dendritic lamellar bodies (DLBs), however De Zeeuw et al.proved this impossible,[29] by showing that DLBs are located micrometers away from gap junctions.[30]

In January 2014, Hameroff and Penrose claimed that the discovery of quantum vibrations in microtubules by Anirban Bandyopadhyay of the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan in March 2013[31] corroborates the Orch-OR theory.[15][32]

Although these theories are stated in a scientific framework, it is difficult to separate them from the personal opinions of the scientist. The opinions are often based on intuition or subjective ideas about the nature of consciousness."

It's not doing very well, is it?

Your latest link to a 2022 paper from Hameroff (Penrose being now 92 having withdrawn from all this) indicates Hameroff is still flogging this dead horse. From the look of the paper he is losing it,rather. It's poorly written and muddled. From his Wiki entry, it begins to look as if Hameroff has fallen into the trap of believing his own bullshit and is sliding into woo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Hameroff

Posting a link about benzene being taken up from the environment during olive oil processing is silly. This does not show some special "quantum" process. Olive oil is largely composed of molecules with long hydrocarbon chains which are good solvents for a hydrocarbon like benzene, that's all. You have seized on olive oil for no better reason than that it happens to be what these guys in the c.19th used when investigating anaesthesia. It's just a random solvent for hydrophobic species.

These latest posts are just a further demonstration, as if we needed it, that you have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[James R]

Apparently you do not see my informative posts on a subject that finally is becoming a major item as worthy of discussion.

I'm not seeing much in the way of major fussing over microtubules, from the scientific community. I think maybe you overestimate the importance of your pet subjects.

Maybe this will stir some imaginative thoughts on the subject. You've been asking for this.

JUSTIN RIDDLE, PH.D.
COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENTIST AT FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

Which particular part of that 38 minute video are you suggesting that I watch, and for what purpose?

Is it just to spark my imagination, like yours has been sparked by imaginings of all the wonderful things you believe microtubules could do?

 

[Write4U]

That's pure nonsense.
Are you honestly asserting that "quantum activities" are impossible for things that are hydrophilic? Or are you just blathering at random again?

Apparently the brain was once considered to be too hydrophilic for quantum coherence. That proposition has been debunked by Hameroff, et al, finding that the benzene ring .

Effects of the principal hydroxy-metabolites of benzene on microtubule polymerization

Abstract
The principal hydroxy-metabolites of benzene - phenol, catechol and hydroquinone - possess characteristics and produce toxicity similar to those reported for certain inhibitors of microtubule polymerization.

In this study we examined the effects of phenol, catechol and hydroquinone on purified microtubule polymerization and the decay of tubulin-colchicine binding activity. Hydroquinone, but not catechol or phenol, inhibited microtubule polymerization and accelerated the decay of tubulin-colchicine binding activity.

The latter effect was shown to be dependent on the concentration of GTP. Hydroquinone did not directly complex with GTP or ATP but bound to the high molecular weight fraction of tubulin. concentration ratios of hydroquinone to tubulin resulting in altered activity were low, suggesting a specific interaction, presumably at the tubulin-GTP binding site. The acceleration of tubulin-colchicine binding activity decay was completely prevented under anaerobic conditions, indicative of an oxidative mechanism.

These studies suggest that hydroquinone, which auto-oxidizes, may interfere with microtubule function, nucleotide binding or both and that this mechanism may be involved in eliciting the wide range of cytoskeletal-related abnormalities observed in cells exposed to benzene in vivo or its metabolites in vitro.

more ...... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7447702/

 

[Write4U]

Indeed, and the answer on Orch OR remains as in post 5 (that's five, i.e on page one) of this daft, rambling thread. I'll just remind you what I posted:
There is no evidence that microtubules are tiny quantum computers.

The notion is mere speculation. The Orch-R concept of Penrose and Hameroff has made a number of false predictions and is fairly thoroughly discredited. I quote from the Wiki article on "Quantum Mind": " Hameroff provided a hypothesis that microtubules would be suitable hosts for quantum behavior.[20] Microtubules are composed of tubulin protein dimer subunits. The dimers each have hydrophobic pockets that are 8 nm apart and that may contain delocalized pi electrons. Tubulins have other smaller non-polar regions that contain pi electron-rich indole rings separated by only about 2 nm. Hameroff proposed that these electrons are close enough to become entangled.[21] Hameroff originally suggested the tubulin-subunit electrons would form a Bose–Einstein condensate, but this was discredited.[22] He then proposed a Frohlich condensate, a hypothetical coherent oscillation of dipolar molecules. However, this too was experimentally discredited.[23]

Yes, and that was what year? Oh, 2018 that we discussed it, long after the claimsandcounter claims were made.

However, Orch-OR made numerous false biological predictions, and is not an accepted model of brain physiology.[24] In other words, there is a missing link between physics and neuroscience,[25] for instance, the proposed predominance of 'A' lattice microtubules, more suitable for information processing, was falsified by Kikkawa et al.,[26][27] who showed all in vivo microtubules have a 'B' lattice and a seam.

From the link.

Overall our data indicates that microtubules have a predominantly B lattice, but that A lattice bonds between tubulin subunits are found at the seam. The cytoplasmic microtubules in mouse nerve cells also have predominantly B lattice structure and A lattice bonds at the seam. These observations have important implications for the interaction of microtubules with MAPs and with motor proteins, and for example, suggest that kinesin motors may follow a single protofilament track.

???

The proposed existence of gap junctions between neurons and glial cells was also falsified.[28] Orch-OR predicted that microtubule coherence reaches the synapses via dendritic lamellar bodies (DLBs), however De Zeeuw et al.proved this impossible,[29] by showing that DLBs are located micrometers away from gap junctions.[30]

What is the role of dendrites in synaptic transmission?

After initiation, action potentials travel down axons to cause release of neurotransmitter. Dendrite – The receiving part of the neuron. Dendrites receive synaptic inputs from axons, with the sum total of dendritic inputs determining whether the neuron will fire an action potential. https://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain-basics/brain/brain-physiology/action-potentials-and-synapses#

According to Hameroff, all those objections have been answered satisfactorily.

In January 2014, Hameroff and Penrose claimed that the discovery of quantum vibrations in microtubules by Anirban Bandyopadhyay of the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan in March 2013[31] corroborates the Orch-OR theory.[15][32]

Although these theories are stated in a scientific framework, it is difficult to separate them from the personal opinions of the scientist. The opinions are often based on intuition or subjective ideas about the nature of consciousness."

All proposals relating to consciousness by all scientists, are based on intuition or subjective ideas. No one has the answer!

It's not doing very well, is it?

We discussed this years ago. The science has come a long way since then.

Your latest link to a 2022 paper from Hameroff (Penrose being now 92 having withdrawn from all this) indicates Hameroff is still flogging this dead horse.

Show me where Penrosehaswirgdrawn from ORCH OR .

From the look of the paper he is losing it,rather. It's poorly written and muddled. From his Wiki entry, it begins to look as if Hameroff has fallen into the trap of believing his own bullshit and is sliding into woo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Hameroff

"It begins to look" says nothing definitive.
From the link you provided;

Hameroff's first book Ultimate Computing (1987) argues that microtubes allow for computation sufficient to explain consciousness.[2] The main substance of this book dealt with the scope for information processing in biological tissue and especially in microtubules and other parts of the cytoskeleton. Hameroff argued that these subneuronal cytoskeleton components could be the basic units of processing rather than the neurons themselves. The book was primarily concerned with information processing, with consciousness a secondary consideration.

The term "computing" covers a lot of interpretations about the way information is being processed and how in toto it may result in an emergent self-aware consciousness is the question, no?

But the focus is on the non-neural microtubules in the cytoplasm and cytoskeleton that also communicate and compute. Microtubules are a form of biological computers. This type of processing is exactly what Penrose was looking for.

Posting a link about benzene being taken up from the environment during olive oil processing is silly. This does not show some special "quantum" process. Olive oil is largely composed of molecules with long hydrocarbon chains which are good solvents for a hydrocarbon like benzene, that's all. You have seized on olive oil for no better reason than that it happens to be what these guys in the c.19th used when investigating anaesthesia. It's just a random solvent for hydrophobic species.

It is the non-polar hydrophobic properties of the benzene ring that solved the question about a warm wet environment. Debunking debunked.

Non-polar anesthetic binding sites in tubulin (and other proteins) are comprised largely of “pi” electron resonance clouds of benzene-like organic rings in aromatic amino acids tryptophan, phenylalanine and tyrosine. The basis for organic chemistry, “pi” electron resonance clouds are delocalized quantum objects, non-polar, but polarizable, and can induce and couple quantum dipoles, participate in quantum optical effects, and oscillate coherently in terahertz frequency ranges (Lundholm et al., 2015). more.... https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnmol.2022.869935/full

(quantum optical effects = blindsight?)

These latest posts are just a further demonstration, as if we needed it, that you have no idea what you are talking about.

And you have made an in-depth study of microtubules and what they do? I don't think so. You seem to be way behind the latest discoveries of microtubule functions.

 

[exchemist]

Yes , and that was
what year?
From the link.
???

What is the role of dendrites in synaptic transmission?

According to Hameroff, all those objections have been answered satisfactorily.
All proposals relating to consciousness by all scientists, are based on intuition or subjective ideas. No one has the answer!
We discussed this years ago. The science has come a long way since then.
Show me where Penrosehaswirgdrawn from ORCH OR . "It begins to look" says nothing definitive.
From the link you provided; The term "computing" covers a lot of interpretations about the way information is being processed and how in toto it may result in an emergent self-aware consciousness is the question, no?

But the focus is on the non-neural microtubules in the cytoplasm and cytoskeleton that also communicate and compute. Microtubules are a form of biological computers. This type of processing is exactly what Penrose was looking for.

It is the non-polar hydrophobic properties of the benzene ring that solved the question about a warm wet environment. Debunking debunked.

(quantum optical effects = blindsight?)
And you have made an in-depth study of microtubules and what they do? I don't think so. You seem to be way behind the latest discoveries of microtubule functions.

There has been nothing that gives credible support to the Orch-OR hypothesis since I posted that.

When did Penrose last publish anything about this? Not in the last decade, that's for sure. It's just Hameroff, on his own, now.

 

[exchemist]

Apparently the brain was once considered to be too hydrophilic for quantum coherence. That proposition has been debunked by Hameroff, et al, finding that the benzene ring .

Effects of the principal hydroxy-metabolites of benzene on microtubule polymerization

more ...... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7447702/

The quoted link has nothing to do with your statement, which seems in any case to be cut off mid-sentence.

It's about the way benzene's metabolites poison the operation of cells. Nothing to do with consciousness and nothing involving any special"quantum" effects.