Scientists have long suspected that there is something fishy with higher mental activity, that it can rely not only on ordinary biochemistry, but also on quantum phenomena. Intuition, spontaneous decision-making, and other obscure mental processes leave room for speculation about the quantum nature of human consciousness. New work by Chinese scientists shows that the neural tissue of the human brain is compatible with quantum phenomena.
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Researchers from Shanghai University published an article in the journal Physical Review E in which they studied the possibility of quantum chemical reactions occurring in nerve cells of the human brain. Let us emphasize that scientists have not discovered or recorded quantum processes in the brain. They only determined the physical feasibility of quantum phenomena in living nervous tissue.
As the scientists explain: “Consciousness in the brain depends on the synchronized activity of millions of neurons, but the mechanism responsible for organizing such synchronization remains elusive. In this study, we use cavity quantum electrodynamics to study the generation of entangled double photons through cascading emission in the spectrum of C-H bond vibrations in the tails of lipid molecules.”
The carbon-hydrogen bonds that the researchers are talking about are located in the insulating sheath of axons (in the “tails” of neurons that transmit nerve impulses to other neurons). This myelin sheath can be presented in the form of a conventional hollow cylinder. The cylinder can serve as a resonator that can amplify infrared photons generated in neurons. With this, scientists justify the possibility of transition from the quantum microlevel (from molecules and atoms) to the macrolevel of living cells and cellular processes (biochemistry).
Image source: Physical Review E
Improvised resonators in the form of myelin sheaths are capable of not only amplifying, but also entangling pairs of photons – giving them the same wave function. The plasma and biochemical reactions occurring in the brain then carry the bound photons throughout the brain, which can create a mechanism for global synchronization of thought processes. This is not yet the discovery of this elusive mechanism, but it is a concept that fully explains its operation. Having unraveled the mystery of consciousness, a person will step on the path to its immortality. A frightening and endlessly attractive prospect. Quite in the spirit of quantum phenomena.