As an interpretation of quantum mechanics, QBism has also accepted cognition as a central tenet that allows the Born rule of quantum mechanics to be viewed as a ‘normative rule’ rather than a natural law. According to the Britannica Online Encyclopedia , ‘Cognition includes all conscious and unconscious processes by which knowledge is accumulated, such as perceiving, recognizing, conceiving, and reasoning’. The main types of cognitive processes are attention, language, learning, memory and thought. Neuroscience deals mainly with the brain architecture and brain phenomena like neuron firings that accompany cognitive processes. Its main tools are functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography. The influence of the body on the mind and cognition was recognized thousands of years ago in India, resulting in yoga practices coupled with meditation for mind control. Contextuality-complementarity seems to be a universal principle, but its exact meaning or the way in which we measure them varies in subtle ways between quantum physics and cognition.
As an interpretation of quantum mechanics, QBism has also accepted cognition as a central tenet that allows the Born rule of quantum mechanics to be viewed as a ‘normative rule’ rather than a natural law. According to the Britannica Online Encyclopedia , ‘Cognition includes all conscious and unconscious processes by which knowledge is accumulated, such as perceiving, recognizing, conceiving, and reasoning’. The main types of cognitive processes are attention, language, learning, memory and thought. Neuroscience deals mainly with the brain architecture and brain phenomena like neuron firings that accompany cognitive processes. Its main tools are functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography. The influence of the body on the mind and cognition was recognized thousands of years ago in India, resulting in yoga practices coupled with meditation for mind control. Contextuality-complementarity seems to be a universal principle, but its exact meaning or the way in which we measure them varies in subtle ways between quantum physics and cognition.
For the past 20 years and more, arguments about the role of quantum mechanics in consciousness and mind theory have been mounting. On the one side are traditional neuroscientists who believe that the way to understanding the brain is through looking at the nerve cells. On the other side are various physicists who suggest that the laws of quantum mechanics may have an influence on the dynamics of consciousness and the mind. At the same time however, consciousness and the mind cannot be separated from matter. They originate in the microscopic world of the human brain. There can be no definite separation between mind and matter; there is no ‘mind’ without ‘matter’, and no ‘matter’ without ‘mind’. In terms of cognitive neuroscience, we know a great deal about the working of nerve cells. For example, we understand quite well about the formation of action potential, ion exchange, energy use, axonal transport, the vesicle cycle, and formation, oscillation and breakdown in nerve transmission. But we still do not understand how experience is formed in our material brain (color, sound, smell, taste, pain, imagination, decision, dreams, love, or orgasm) and how consciousness arises in an unconscious material organ. The insufficiency of these answers no doubt arises from the insufficiency of the methods used by cognitive science.
For the past 20 years and more, arguments about the role of quantum mechanics in consciousness and mind theory have been mounting. On the one side are traditional neuroscientists who believe that the way to understanding the brain is through looking at the nerve cells. On the other side are various physicists who suggest that the laws of quantum mechanics may have an influence on the dynamics of consciousness and the mind. At the same time however, consciousness and the mind cannot be separated from matter. They originate in the microscopic world of the human brain. There can be no definite separation between mind and matter; there is no ‘mind’ without ‘matter’, and no ‘matter’ without ‘mind’. In terms of cognitive neuroscience, we know a great deal about the working of nerve cells. For example, we understand quite well about the formation of action potential, ion exchange, energy use, axonal transport, the vesicle cycle, and formation, oscillation and breakdown in nerve transmission. But we still do not understand how experience is formed in our material brain (color, sound, smell, taste, pain, imagination, decision, dreams, love, or orgasm) and how consciousness arises in an unconscious material organ. The insufficiency of these answers no doubt arises from the insufficiency of the methods used by cognitive science.
The mind–matter relationship remained in the domain of philosophers for aeons. However, the inquisitiveness of the scientific minds has always been trying to understand the science behind its various functions. The scientific temper ushered in by the Renaissance about the 15th century saw the scientists exploring this problem from a science point of view. Technological advances during the later part of the 20th century enabled neuroscientists to explore and localise functions of the brain. However, the most difficult has been understanding the origin of a conscious experience scientifically or materialistically. Despite the delineation of many functions of the brain, the origin of conscious experience, the qualia, in the material brain remains elusive, so much so it came to be called the holy grail of neuroscience. Heisenberg wrote: ‘Physics entered the domain of philosophy with the emergence of consciousness in quantum observation, which incidentally opened the door for reconciliation of science and philosophy’,[1] an event which enabled the predictions of Snow of the merging of arts and sciences.[2,3] Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics relating to very small particles – subatomic particles – electrons, photons, and everything in the submolecular realm, being the smallest units in matter. Quantum theory is the most fundamental theory of matter available at present. Some basic concepts of quantum physics need to be understood. These include “superposition”, where in subatomic particles exist either as waves or particles in a dual nature, never simultaneously. They exist as waves in more than one place at a time and once an observer observes or interferes with (such as measuring) their superposition state collapses to particle state. Quantum entanglement is the phenomenon that occurs when a group of particles which are generated, interact with or share special proximity such that they remain connected even when separated by vast distances. Consciousness is a manifestation of quantum process. Q mind or Q consciousness comprises a group of hypotheses proposing that quantum mechanical phenomena such as entanglement and superposition may play an important part in the functions of the brain and could thus explain the origin of consciousness. Several theories of quantum consciousness have been proposed. Wigner proposed the idea that quantum mechanics has something to do with the workings of the mind and proposed that the wave function collapse in the interaction with conscious observation creates consciousness.[4] Vitiello and Freeman[5] proposed quantum field theory (QFT) of brain states. This theory deals with systems and provides formal elements from which a standard description of brain activity can be inferred. According to QFT, particles are only excited states or simply manifestations of a field. Every particle has its own field that covers all of the universe, which means that, according to QFT, all of the electrons of the universe belong to the same field and could be regarded as one. Bohm formulated the QFT as a deeper theory of quantum theory plus relativity.[6] He viewed mind and matter as projections into our explicate order underlying the implicate order. Quantum brain dynamics (QBD) hypothesis explains the function of the brain within the framework of QFT.[7] It is not yet known exactly how quantum superpositions and their collapse result in the genesis of the raw feels of consciousness, the qualia. Feynman stated ‘if you think you understand quantum mechanics then you do not!’[8] Pribram proposed the holonomic brain theory (quantum holography). He invoked quantum mechanics to explain the higher-order processing by the mind. Pribram provided evidence on how much of the processes in the brain take place in a distributed fashion.[9,10] The composite model of Pribram-Bohm of holoflux hypothesis addresses observed phenomenon of non-locality both spacially and temporally. Bose and Einstein, who first predicted Bose Einstein condensate proposed that water at dendritic membrane surfaces might operate by structuring condensation,[11] supporting QBD. Penrose and Hamoreff proposed the orchestrated-objective reduction (ORCH-OR) in 1989 through 2013. According to them, the microtubules in the neurons (neurotubules), the tubulin protein polymer at the site of quantum collapse, leads to conscious experience. The quantum superposed states which develop in the tubulins remain coherent and recruit more superposed tubulins until a mass-time-energy threshold is reached. At this point, self-collapse or objective reduction occurs, which is equated to a discrete conscious event. Cascades of ORCH-OR events give rise to the stream of consciousness.[12,13] Penrose suggested that objective reduction represents neither randomness nor algorithmic processing but instead a non-computable influence in spacetime geometry from which mathematical understanding and, by later extension, consciousness derives.[14] Quantum vibrations in the microtubules proposed by Bandyopadhyay[15] have been shown to be source of conscious experience by corroborating the Penrose-Hemeroff’s ORCH-OR hypothesis.[13,16] In April 2022, the results of two related experiments at the University of Alberta and Princeton University, announced at The Science of Consciousness conference, provided further evidence to support quantum processes operating within microtubules. However, in another experiment, Gregory D. Scholes and Aarat Kalra of Princeton University used lasers to excite molecules within tubulins, causing a prolonged excitation to diffuse through microtubules further than expected, which did not occur when repeated under anaesthesia.[17,18] Beck and Eccles considered quantum mechanics at the synaptic level. If Orchestrated objective reduction (ORCH-OR) theory is applicable, a similar phenomenon in the microtubules at the presynaptic level, the axon terminal could be invoked for the genesis of consciousness.[19] A recent study by scientists at Trinity College, Dublin, in October 2022,[20] suggests that quantum processes underlie the cognitive and conscious brain functions. The brain–mind operational architectonics is the boundary between and integration point of quantum physics and eastern metaphysics and that it may inspire building a richer and more inclusive paradigm of the brain–mind relation, where quantum physics and eastern metaphysics are inherently intertwined. A body of empirical evidence[21-24] supports these possibilities, strengthening the proposal that the mind–brain relationship may be partially quantum. Quantum information theory clarifies the distinction between the unobservable mind and the observable brain and supports a solid physical foundation for consciousness research. With all these theories trying to explain and understand the theoretical/hypothetical framework for consciousness to explain the subjective experience of consciousness, the experts of this field feel it is still a long way to bridge the gap between current neurobiological and physical–mathematical concepts with their associated quantum–mind theories. Though there is still a long way to go for explaining conscious experience scientifically, when ever this happens, it will become one of the benchmarks in science. Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest. Use of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technology for manuscript preparation The authors confirm that there was no use of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technology for assisting in the preparation of the manuscript and no images were manipulated using AI.
The quantum mind or quantum consciousness group of hypotheses propose that classical mechanics cannot explain consciousness. Quantum theory is used to insert models of cognition that target to be more innovative than models based on traditional classical probability theory, which includes cognitive modeling phenomena in science. At the moment we can say that there is no clearly defined neurophysiological mechanisms of creation of the quantum-like representation of information in the brain, but we can mention the hypothesis of matching the information processing in the brain with quantum information and probability with contextuality as the key word. Using limited cognitive resources, incompatibility provides humans the means for answering an unlimited number of questions, thus promoting parsimony and cognitive economy.
The quantum mind or quantum consciousness group of hypotheses propose that classical mechanics cannot explain consciousness. Quantum theory is used to insert models of cognition that target to be more innovative than models based on traditional classical probability theory, which includes cognitive modeling phenomena in science. At the moment we can say that there is no clearly defined neurophysiological mechanisms of creation of the quantum-like representation of information in the brain, but we can mention the hypothesis of matching the information processing in the brain with quantum information and probability with contextuality as the key word. Using limited cognitive resources, incompatibility provides humans the means for answering an unlimited number of questions, thus promoting parsimony and cognitive economy.
The cognitive frame in which most neuropsychological research on the neural basis of behavior is conducted contains the assumption that brain mechanisms per se fully suffice to explain all psychologically described phenomena. This assumption stems from the idea that the brain is made up entirely of material particles and fields, and that all causal mechanisms must therefore be formulated solely in terms of properties of these elements. One consequence of this stance is that psychological terms having intrinsic mentalistic and/or experiential content (terms such as "feeling," "knowing," and "effort") have not been included as primary causal factors in neuropsychological research: insofar as properties are not described in material terms they are deemed irrelevant to the causal mechanisms underlying brain function. However, the origin of this demand that experiential realities be excluded from the causal base is a theory of nature that has been known for more that three quarters of a century to be fundamentally incorrect. It is explained here why it is consequently scientifically unwarranted to assume that material factors alone can in principle explain all causal mechanisms relevant to neuroscience. More importantly, it is explained how a key quantum effect can be introduced into brain dynamics in a simple and practical way that provides a rationally coherent, causally formulated, physics-based way of understanding and using the psychological and physical data derived from the growing set of studies of the capacity of directed attention and mental effort to systematically alter brain function.