Philosophy Lecture

Join us for a lecture by Chris Rourk, patent attorney, formerly a scientific researcher at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Admission is 5$

NCCs are powerful tools for understanding how neural process are associated with the human experience of consciousness, but they do not provide an answer to all of the questions that relate to that experience. For example, why do we choose a specific action (free will), and why is there an integrated conscious experience from many different cognitive and sensory processes (the binding problem)?

Quantum biology is the study of biological processes that cannot be explained classically, and which can only be explained with quantum mechanics. It has been applied to the mitochondrial electron transport chain and to photosynthesis, among other things, and has provided useful and falsifiable hypotheses about those biological processes. However, in the realm of consciousness, quantum mechanics has failed to provide such hypotheses. A common objection from neuroscientists to the various quantum consciousness ideas that have been proposed is that quantum mechanics is not needed to explain anything related to how the brain functions, and that classical processes can fully explain its function.
This presentation will first discuss neural correlates of consciousness and then apply the quantum biology of ferritin to neural correlates of consciousness. Ferritin is an iron storage protein that has been extensively studied and found to support electron tunneling and to have other bioelectric and biomagnetic properties that can be explained using quantum mechanics. The consistent expression of those properties throughout plant and animal species has also manifested itself in the basal ganglia, a biological system that has been conserved in animals for over 500 million years. The presentation will also discuss evidence that supports the presence of a neural signaling mechanism in dopamine and norepinephrine neurons that uses electron tunneling associated with ferritin, and which can also explain why specific actions are selected and how diverse neural and sensory signals are integrated into a singular experience. Unlike well-known quantum consciousness ideas that have been rejected by numerous neuroscientists, this hypothesized signaling mechanism has predicted subsequent discoveries in neuroscience and provides explanations for biological functions.