Toward a Science of Consciousness 2012

Plenary 

STUART HAMEROFF

Stuart Hameroff MD
Professor, Anesthesiology and Psychology

Director, Center for Consciousness Studies

The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona

Quantum Consciousness Workshop TSC 2012
Stuart Hameroff MD and others
www.quantumconsciousness.arizona.edu

Stuart Hameroff MD is Professor of Anesthesiology and Psychology, and Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Hameroff became interested in intelligent behavior of microtubules, protein lattices which organize activities within living cells. Hameroff and colleagues developed theories of microtubules as self-organizing molecular computers.        In the 1990s Hameroff teamed with Sir Roger Penrose on the controversial Penrose-Hameroff "Orch OR" model of consciousness based on quantum computing in brain neuronal microtubules, a notion bolstered by recent evidence. In Orch OR, Penrose physics connects brain microtubules to the most basic level of the universe - fundamental spacetime geometry at the Planck scale.

At that level, Penrose had also proposed Platonic information could guide, or influence conscious choices and perceptions. Viewing consciousness as such a process in the fabric of the universe, Hameroff suggests, provides plausible scientific explanations for spirituality - inter-connectedness through entanglement, accessible Planck scale wisdom, and potential afterlife and reincarnation.