1. Quantum health and intracellular information technology
Stuart Hameroff M.D.
Professor, Anesthesiology and Psychology
Director, Center for Consciousness Studies
The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona

2. But how do living systems differ from nonliving systems?
Health is the optimal state of a living system
But how do living systems differ from nonliving systems?
What is life?

3. 19th century scientists believed life force fields connected all living beings: vitalism, animism or élan vital

4. But reductionist science showed biomolecular origins for life

5. Vitalists were purged from science and medicine

6. Life is order from disorder (negative entropy) from entropy
Varela, Maturana, Margulis:
Life is order from disorder
(negative entropy) from entropy

7. Life defies the
second law of thermodynamics:
Order
(negative entropy) tends toward
Disorder
(entropy)

9. 9

14. 14

22. Memory –Long term potentiation (LTP)

23. Hameroff, Craddock & Tuszynski, 2010

24. Hameroff, Craddock & Tuszynski, 2010

25. Hameroff, Craddock & Tuszynski, 2010 – ‘Memory bytes’ - A molecular code for intra-cellular information processing

30. Reality is described by two distinct sets of laws.
Our everyday “classical” world follows predictable behaviors
At small scales (and sometimes at large scales!) bizarre laws of
quantum mechanics reign
Quantum
Classical

31. Quantum particles can
Exist in multiple possibilities: “superposition”
2) Remain connected over distance: “nonlocal entanglement”
3) Condense into one entity: “quantum coherence”
4) Quantum/classical transition (collapse) somehow
involves consciousness (“observer effect”)

32. Sir Roger Penrose – Consciousness is a process
on the edge between quantum and classical worlds,
connected to the most basic level of the universe

33. Penrose-Hameroff ‘Orch OR’
theory of consciousness

35. Recent evidence shows ballistic/superconductivity at 8 MHz in microtubules (Bandyophadyay)

36. Quantum World Classical World
Co-existing possibilities Definite
Interconnected/entangled Isolated
(?) Universal mind Material
(?) Spiritual Material
Hope Doubt

37. Quantum vitalism?

38. EnlightenNext Magazine, spring 2010

39. Conclusions
Microtubules are the information superhighway
inside cells, and should be targets for
pharmacological and optical encoding and regulation
Life and consciousness are quantum processes
subtly connected to the fine structure of the universe
Spiritual beliefs are scientifically plausible