Is consciousness to be found in quantum processes in microtubules?

[Write4U]

All that I know is that microtubules are self assembling dynamical nano-scale bipolar coils which form the cellular cytoskeleton and are the heart of the neural network in all Eukaryotic organisms and process all sensory data even if the organism has no brain.

Look up bacterial cilia and flagella. The microtubule drives the fundamental propulsion ability of single celled eukaryotic organism Paramecium.

Note the tiny hairs (cilia) which are each driven by a microtubule motor (basal body)

Structure and Functions of
Cilia and Flagella

Overview

Cilia and flagella are fine, whiplike/hairlike structures that extend from the body of a variety of cells. While they vary in terms of length and numbers in different types of cells (as well as patterns of movement), cilia and flagella are generally identical in structure and composition.

Depending on the type of cells, cilia and flagella have the following functions:
· Propelling cells - Using cilia or flagella, cells are able to move freely in their environment, especially in aquatic or moist environments.
· Sensory functions - Some cilia and flagella allow cells to sense changes in their surroundings which in turn allows the cells to respond appropriately.
· Transporting material - Some cells are able to not only trap, but also guide the transportation of given material. This may serve to engulf such material into the cell or prevent unwanted material/particles/microorganisms from invading the cell or tissue.

* The flagella of prokaryotes have a different structure compared to those of eukaryotic cells.

Cilia

With the exception of a majority of higher plants and fungi, cilia can be found on the surface of many eukaryotic cells. On these cells, cilia extend from the basal body.

Depending on the type of cells, cilia have several functions and are therefore divided into two main categories.

* Prokaryotes (bacteria) do not have cilia.


Eukaryotic Cilium Diagram by LadyofHats - Eigenes Werk, Gemeinfrei, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3145956

Learning

The question of whether Paramecia exhibit learning has been the object of a great deal of experimentation, yielding equivocal results. However, a study published in 2006 seems to show that Paramecium caudatum may be trained, through the application of a 6.5 volt electric current, to discriminate between brightness levels.[26] This experiment has been cited as a possible instance of cell memory, or epigenetic learning in organisms with no nervous system.[27] However, another study in 2017 suggested that the Paramecia can only learn to associate the bright side of its swimming medium to electric current and not the dark side.[28] The same study suggested a molecular mechanism for learning in the Paramecia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramecium#

Obviously the Paramecium has no brain, yet it can learn at a rudimentary level. I submit that the learning ability lies in the microtubule network's ability to memorize, albeit kinetic memory. In view of all the functions microtubules perform in brained organisms, there is no more suitable candidate for association with consciousness.

Abstract

Cellular memory, which allows cells to retain information from their environment, is important for a variety of cellular functions, such as adaptation to external stimuli, cell differentiation, and synaptic plasticity. Although posttranslational modifications have received much attention as a source of cellular memory, the mechanisms directing such alterations have not been fully uncovered. It may be possible to embed memory in multiple stable states in dynamical systems governing modifications.

However, several experiments on modifications of proteins suggest long-term relaxation depending on experienced external conditions, without explicit switches over multi-stable states. As an alternative to a multistability memory scheme, we propose "kinetic memory" for epigenetic cellular memory, in which memory is stored as a slow-relaxation process far from a stable fixed state.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25121967/#

And evolution did the rest.

 

[Write4U]

New stuff

Self-assembled artificial microtubules developed
Date: January 17, 2020
Source: Pohang University of Science & Technology (POSTECH)

Simple LEGO bricks can be assembled to more complicated structures, which can be further associated into a wide variety of complex architectures, from automobiles, rockets, and ships to gigantic castles and amusement parks. Such an event of multi-step assembly, so-called 'hierarchical self-assembly', also happens in living organisms.

Professor Kimoon Kim (Department of Chemistry, POSTECH) and his research team (Center for Self-assembly and Complexity, Institute for Basic Science) discovered that a cucurbituril (1)-based host-guest complex polymerized into a linear polymer chain, which was further associated with each other into a hollow microtubule via van der Waals interactions arising from their shape self-complementarity. (2) Their novel findings are introduced in Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

Microtubules exist in living cells of plants and animals and they are essential in maintaining cellular structures, migration of cells, intracellular transport and more. In other words, essential cellular functions such as cellular divisions and intracellular transport cannot be performed when problems occur in formation or dissociation of microtubules.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200117094325.htm

In addition to the known association of microtubule catastrophe and brain diseases such as Alzheimers , these new development may someday be used in curing these physically caused mental diseases and deficiencies.

 

[Write4U]

A little confirmation of the current interest in consciousness as a scientific discipline.

 

[Dennis Tate]

A little confirmation of the current interest in consciousness as a scientific discipline.

I grabbed your post and reposted it over into the near death experience discussion because this video has me asking several questions
from that lecture that seem to fit with NDE accounts?

http://www.sciforums.com/threads/near-death-experiences.164139/page-9#post-3670174


Why do people who come back from a near death experience report an increase in all of their senses?
They report heightened sight, hearing, smell, and feelings of both pleasure and pain.
Those in the twenty some percent of people who report the out of body experience during a NDE
report even an ability to take in astounding amounts of information, much more so than while they were in the body.

I really like the lecturers idea that "Consciousness is fundamental!"

 

[Write4U]

I really like the lecturers idea that "Consciousness is fundamental!

Wait until you read Penrose.......

He proposes that a form of consciousness happens at quantum levels.

He advances the idea that quantum change is a "Bing" event

 

[Dennis Tate]

Wait until you read Penrose.......

Wow!!!!

I just did a simple search and this came up!


http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170215-the-strange-link-between-the-human-mind-and-quantum-physics

• The Big Questions
  
• Psychology

The strange link between the human mind and quantum physics



Nobody understands what consciousness is or how it works. Nobody understands quantum mechanics either. Could that be more than coincidence?

• By Philip Ball

16 February 2017
"I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem."

The American physicist Richard Feynman said this about the notorious puzzles and paradoxes of quantum mechanics, the theory physicists use to describe the tiniest objects in the Universe. But he might as well have been talking about the equally knotty problem of consciousness.

Some scientists think we already understand what consciousness is, or that it is a mere illusion. But many others feel we have not grasped where consciousness comes from at all.

The perennial puzzle of consciousness has even led some researchers to invoke quantum physics to explain it. That notion has always been met with skepticism, which is not surprising: it does not sound wise to explain one mystery with another. But such ideas are not obviously absurd, and neither are they arbitrary.

For one thing, the mind seemed, to the great discomfort of physicists, to force its way into early quantum theory. What's more, quantum computers are predicted to be capable of accomplishing things ordinary computers cannot, which reminds us of how our brains can achieve things that are still beyond artificial intelligence. "Quantum consciousness" is widely derided as mystical woo, but it just will not go away.

Quantum mechanics is the best theory we have for describing the world at the nuts-and-bolts level of atoms and subatomic particles. Perhaps the most renowned of its mysteries is the fact that the outcome of a quantum experiment can change depending on whether or not we choose to measure some property of the particles involved.

When this "observer effect" was first noticed by the early pioneers of quantum theory, they were deeply troubled. It seemed to undermine the basic assumption behind all science: that there is an objective world out there, irrespective of us. If the way the world behaves depends on how – or if – we look at it, what can "reality" really mean?

.......

.....

Penrose developed this idea further with American physician Stuart Hameroff. In his 1994 book Shadows of the Mind, he suggested that the structures involved in this quantum cognition might be protein strands called microtubules. These are found in most of our cells, including the neurons in our brains. Penrose and Hameroff argue that vibrations of microtubules can adopt a quantum superposition.

 

[Write4U]

Is your brain really a computer, or is it a quantum orchestra tuned to the universe?

Microtubule madness

Microtubules are cylindrical polymers of the protein ‘tubulin’, major components of the structural cytoskeleton inside cells, and the brain’s most prevalent protein. Their computer-like lattice structure, self-organizing capabilities and vibrational resonances have suggested to various scientists that microtubules might process information. Pondering purposeful behavior of single cell organisms without synaptic connections, the famed neuroscientist Charles Sherrington observed in 1951 ‘of nerve there is no trace, but the cytoskeleton might serve’, calling microtubules ‘the cell’s nervous system’.

https://www.interaliamag.org/articl...it-a-quantum-orchestra-tuned-to-the-universe/

 

[Write4U]

Wow!!!!

I just did a simple search and this came up!


http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170215-the-strange-link-between-the-human-mind-and-quantum-physics

• The Big Questions
  
• Psychology

The strange link between the human mind and quantum physics



Nobody understands what consciousness is or how it works. Nobody understands quantum mechanics either. Could that be more than coincidence?

.....

It gets better!

p.s. From your link

Wheeler even entertained the thought that the presence of living beings, which are capable of "noticing", has transformed what was previously a multitude of possible quantum pasts into one concrete history. In this sense, Wheeler said, we become participants in the evolution of the Universe since its very beginning. In his words, we live in a "participatory universe.

We live in a "participatory universe". I like that!

 

[Dennis Tate]

It gets better!

p.s. From your link

We live in a "participatory universe". I like that!

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just wow!!!!!!!!!!

Wheeler even entertained the thought that the presence of living beings, which are capable of "noticing", has transformed what was previously a multitude of possible quantum pasts into one concrete history. In this sense, Wheeler said, we become participants in the evolution of the Universe since its very beginning. In his words, we live in a "participatory universe.

I PLEAD GUILTY......... THE IMPLICATIONS OF THAT PARAGRAPH somewhat SCARE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (OK.... sort of................................. but the level of curiosity as to what that means may well have a magnitude even beyond the degree of fear that that idea generates????????)

 

[Write4U]

In reference to consciousness,

11.29.2015
Cellular Intelligence
Are Microtubules the Brain of the Neuron

Microtubules may be the brains of the cell, particularly neurons—operating like a computerized Lego set. They are large complex scaffolding molecules that work closely with the two other rapidly changing structural molecules, actin and intermediate filaments, to provide structure for the entire cell including the spatial placement of organelles.

In neurons, microtubules respond instantly to mental events and constantly build and take down elaborate structures for the rapidly changing axons and dendrites of the synapses. Some think that microtubules are quantum computers and the seat of consciousness. Their lifestyle is quite remarkable.

A previous post described elaborate functions along the neuron’s axon including special tagging of cargoes that are transported by distinct motors with complex ancillary molecules for each type of transport.......more.

https://jonlieffmd.com/blog/are-microtubules-the-brain-of-the-neuron#

Note that the mitotic spindle which controls the exact splitting and of 3.2 billion genomes in cell division, consists of microtubules.

 

[Dennis Tate]

In reference to consciousness,

11.29.2015
Cellular Intelligence
Are Microtubules the Brain of the Neuron https://jonlieffmd.com/blog/are-microtubules-the-brain-of-the-neuron#

Note that the mitotic spindle which controls the exact splitting and of 3.2 billion genomes in cell division, consists of microtubules.

Over and over and over again as I research some aspect of parapsychology or what most would term "pseudoscience" I end up running into some variation of strings or Super Strings........ and / or Waves?! "Microtubules" remind me at least somewhat of the strings or super strings that I have ran into. For example....some near death experiencers report that their bodies are connected to their consciousness by something like a "silver cord" that seems to behave somewhat like a high speed internet connection?????

 

[Write4U]

Over and over and over again as I research some aspect of parapsychology or what most would term "pseudoscience" I end up running into some variation of strings or Super Strings........ and / or Waves?! "Microtubules" remind me at least somewhat of the strings or super strings that I have ran into. For example....some near death experiencers report that their bodies are connected to their consciousness by something like a "silver cord" that seems to behave somewhat like a high speed internet connection?????

Personally I look at this in a more materialistic way, but it appears that Roger Penrose believes that fundamentally everything rest on quantum mechanics.

 

[Write4U]

Role of microtubules in heart function :

An organized network called the cytoskeleton helps cells maintain their shape and organization. Microtubules (MTs) are a major component of this cellular support structure. MTs can transmit mechanical signals and, like rods or struts, resist compression in contracting heart cells. How they perform these roles has been unclear. A team led by Dr. Benjamin Prosser at the University of Pennsylvania set out to determine the role that MTs play in heart function. Their work was supported in part by NIH’s National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), and National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). Results were published online on April 22, 2016, in Science.

Microtubules in a heart cell at rest (top) and compressed during contraction (bottom).Dr. Ben Prosser, University of Pennsylvania

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih...tubules-role-heart-cell-contraction-revealed#

 

[LeeDa]

Im a goddamn Rocket/Warkid Scientist/Soundtest and i dunno.

 

[Beer w/Straw]

Im a goddamn Rocket/Warkid Scientist/Soundtest and i dunno.

I don't understand what you mean.

 

[Write4U]

Im a goddamn Rocket/Warkid Scientist/Soundtest and i dunno.

Can you explain how that "science" pertains to the OP?

 

[Dennis Tate]

Im a goddamn Rocket/Warkid Scientist/Soundtest and i dunno.

In my opinion it is actually a sign of genuine insight and intelligence that you can admit to that............ this whole thing is far, far, far, far, far beyond mere "rocket science!?"

Can you explain how that "science" pertains to the OP?

This may perhaps help:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...ew-theory-of-everything-is-the-same-old-crap/

M-theory suffers from the same flaws that string theories did. First is the problem of empirical accessibility. Membranes, like strings, are supposedly very, very tiny—as small compared with a proton as a proton is compared with the solar system. This is the so-called Planck scale, 10^–33 centimeters. Gaining the kind of experimental confirmation of membranes or strings that we have for, say, quarks would require a particle accelerator 1,000 light-years around, scaling up from our current technology. Our entire solar system is only one light-day around, and the Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful accelerator, is 27 kilometers in circumference.

Hawking recognized long ago that a final theory—because it would probably involve particles at the Planck scale—might never be experimentally confirmable. "It is not likely that we shall have accelerators powerful enough" to test a unified theory "within the foreseeable future—or indeed, ever," he said in his 1980 speech at Cambridge. He nonetheless hoped that in lieu of empirical evidence physicists would discover a theory so logically inevitable that it excluded all alternatives.

Quite the opposite has happened. M-theory, theorists now realize, comes in an almost infinite number of versions, which "predict" an almost infinite number of possible universes. Critics call this the "Alice's restaurant problem," a reference to the refrain of the old Arlo Guthrie folk song: "You can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant." Of course, a theory that predicts everything really doesn't predict anything, and hence isn't a theory at all. Proponents, including Hawking, have tried to turn this bug into a feature, proclaiming that all the universes "predicted" by M-theory actually exist. "Our universe seems to be one of many," Hawking and Mlodinow assert

I don't understand what you mean.

I am hoping that his or her meaning is somewhat explained by what I just quoted????

 

[Dennis Tate]

Role of microtubules in heart function :

Microtubules in a heart cell at rest (top) and compressed during contraction (bottom).Dr. Ben Prosser, University of Pennsylvania

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih...tubules-role-heart-cell-contraction-revealed#

In consideration of the role of "microtubules" in heart function......
would you say that there could be a correlation between the way that microtubules work in the human heart........

with what appears to be the human heart putting out more electromagnetic energy than is put out even by our brains?????

https://www.heartmath.org/research/science-of-the-heart/energetic-communication/

Science of the HeartNew!
Exploring the Role of the Heart in Human Performance

An Overview of Research Conducted by the HeartMath Institute

Furthermore, the magnetic field produced by the heart is more than 100 times greater in strength than the field generated by the brain

Was my statement above incorrect? Is it "electromagnetic energy" that the heart is putting out.... .or is it "magnetic energy?"

 

[Beer w/Straw]

I am hoping that his or her meaning is somewhat explained by what I just quoted????

I would sooner accuse them of deliberately trying to be misleading by reading other posts in different threads.

In other words: troll.

 

[Dennis Tate]

I would sooner accuse them of deliberately trying to be misleading by reading other posts in different threads.

In other words: troll.

Based on this other discussion by LeeDa I would guess that he or she is sincere and not a troll?

http://www.sciforums.com/threads/changing-the-world.132806/

"Changing the world" on the General Philosophy forum