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Kybernetes 26, 265-276, 1997.
Quantum Coherence and Conscious Experience
Mae-Wan Ho
Bioelectrodynamic Laboratory, Open University
Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, U.K.
* Abstract
* How to understand the organic whole
* The organism as a vibrant sentient whole
* Quantum coherence and body consciousness
* Quantum Coherence and the Binding Problem
* Coherent information storage and qualia of perception
* Quantum coherence and the macroscopic wave function
of the conscious being
* Acknowledgments
* References
Abstract
I propose that quantum coherence is the basis of living
organization and can also account for key features of conscious
experience -- the "unity of intentionality", our inner identity of
the singular "I", the simultaneous binding and segmentation of
features in the perceptive act, the distributed, holographic
nature of memory, and the distinctive quality of each experienced
occasion.
How to understand the organic whole
Andrew's [1] assessment that brain science is in a "primitive"
state is, to some extent, shared by Walter Freeman [2], who, in
his recent book, declares brain science "in crisis". At the same
time, there is a remarkable proliferation of Journals and books
about consciousness, which brain science has so far failed to
explain, at least in the opinion of those who have lost faith in
the conventional reductionist approach. One frequent suggestion is
the need for quantum theory, though the theory is interpreted and
used in diverse, and at times conflcting ways by different
authors.
I believe that the impasse in brain science is the same as that in
all of biology: we simply do not have a conceptual framework for
understanding how the organism functions as an integrated whole.
Brain science has been more fortunate than many other areas in its
long established multi-disciplinary practice, which is crucial for
understanding the whole. In particular, the development of
noninvasive/nondestructive imaging techniques has allowed access
to the living state, which serves to constantly remind the
reductionists among us of the ghost of the departed whole. The
images obtained from the ultra sensitive, and hence truly
noninvasive magnetic tomography [3] are captivating. Analyzing
such data presents an even greater challenge than the multichannel
eeg data obtained by Freeman and Barrie [4]. Both kinds of data
are showing up largescale spatiotemporal coherence of brain
activities that cannot be satisfactorily explained by conventional
mechanisms. The brain functions, not as a collection of
specialized brain cells, but as a coherent whole. That is surely
one good reason to seek alternative perspectives that would help
us understand the organic whole.
How the brain functions as a coherent whole is inseparable from
how the organism functions as a coherent whole. It is the same
question, stated eloquently by Joseph Needham in Order and
Life [5], and by Schrödinger inWhat is Life? [6], that has
exercised generations of biologists and physicists dissatisfied
with the mechanistic approach.
Inspired by this long line of distinguished dissidents, I began to
work towards a theory of the organism based on empirical and
theoretical findings across the disciplines [7-13]. The theory
starts from thermodynamic considerations of energy storage in a
space-time structured system under energy flow, which, by dynamic
closure, creates the conditions for quantum coherence. This
effectively frees the organism from thermodynamic constraints so
that it is poised for rapid, specific intercommunication, enabling
it to function as a coherent whole. In the ideal, the organism is
a quantum superposition of coherent activities, with instantaneous
(nonlocal) noiseless intercommunication throughout the system.
I do not think quantum theory per se will lead us through the
mechanistic deadlock to further understanding. Instead, we need a
thoroughly organicist way of thinking that transcends both
conventional thermodynamics and quantum theory [7, 12]. I have
focussed on the notion of quantum coherence and the attendant
nonlocal intercommunication as the expression of the radical
wholeness of the organism, where global and local are mutually
entangled, and every part is as much in control as it is sensitive
and responsive.
In this paper, I shall briefly summarize the arguments for quantum
coherence in the living system, then go on to explore how certain
key features of conscious experience may be understood. I suggest
that the wholeness of the organism is based on a high degree of
quantum coherence. Quantum coherence underlies the "unity of
intentionality" [2] and our inner identity of the singular "I". It
may account for binding and segmentation in the perceptive act,
the distributed, holographic nature of memory, and the distinctive
quality of each experienced occasion.
The organism as a vibrant sentient whole
Organisms overcome the immediate constraints of thermodynamics in
their capacity to store mobilizable energy, which circulates
through a cascade of cyclic processes within the system before it
is dissipated [11-13]. The dynamic closure of circulating energy
constitutes a life cycle. Within the life cycle, coupled cylic
processes span the entire gamut of space-times from the local and
fast (or slow) to the global and slow (or fast). This enables
energy to be readily shared throughout the system, from local to
global and vice versa, which is why we can have energy at will.
But how is energy mobilization so well-coordinated? That is partly
a direct consequence of the energy stored, which renders the whole
systemexcitable, or highly sensitive to specific weak signals.
Weak signals originating anywhere within or outside the system
will propagate throughout the system and become amplified, often
into macroscopic action. Intercommunication can proceed very
rapidly, in particular, on account of the liquid crystalline
structure of the cells and the connective tissues [14].
Connective tissues make up the bulk of all multicellular animals.
They are flexible, highly responsive, yetordered phases which are
connected, via transmembrane proteins to the intracellular
matrices of individual cells [15, 16]. The extracellular and
intracellular matrices together constitute an excitable continuum
for rapid intercommunication permeating the entire organism,
enabling it to function as a coherent whole [13]. The existence of
this liquid crystalline continuum has been directly demonstrated
in all live organisms by a noninvasive optical imaging technique
recently discovered in my laboratory [17-19]. It constitutes a
"body consciousness" that precedes the nervous system in
evolution [16]; and I suggest, it still works in tandem with, and
independently of the nervous system (see next Section). This body
consciousness is the basis ofsentience, the pre-requisite for
conscious experience that involves the participation of the
intercommunicating whole of the energy storage domain. In the
limit of the coherence time and coherence volume of energy
storage, intercommunication is instantaneous and nonlocal. Because
energy is stored over all modes, the organism possesses a complete
range of coherence times and coherence volumes [7].
The life cycle, with its complex of coupled cyclic processes,
forms a heterogeneous, multidimensional and entangled space-time
which structures experience. In the ideal, it is a quantum
superposition of coherent space-time modes, constituting a pure
state that maximizes both local freedom and global
cohesion [7, 12, 13] in accordance with the factorizability of the
quantum coherent state [20]. Quantum coherence gives rise to
correlations between subsystems which resolves neatly into
products of the self-correlations so that the sub-systems behave
as though they are independent of one another. One can also
picture the organism as a coherent quantum electrodynamical field
of many modes, with an uncertainty relationship between energy and
phase [21],
DnDf e h
So, when phase is defined, energy is indeterminate, and vice
versa. That may be of fundamental importance to the flexibility
and adaptability of the living system.
In quantum optics and quantum electrodynamic theory the coherent
state is asymptotically stable [22]. Hence, the pure coherent
state is an ideal attractor or end state towards which the system
tends to return on being perturbed [23]. There is abundant
evidence of macroscopic activities with collective phases in the
spectrum of biological rhythms, many of which tend towards
integral phase relationships with one another [7, 24]. There are
also examples of collective activities that may involve phase
correlations over entire populations [25, 26]. As the coherence
times of living processes span more than 20 orders of magnitude
from 10-14s for resonant energy transfer to 107s for circannual
cycles, a pure coherent state for the entire system would be a
many-mode quantum electrodynamical field with a collective phase
over all modes. It may be attainable only under very exceptional
circumstances, as during an aesthetic or religious experience when
the "pure duration" (see later) of the here and now becomes
completely delocalized in the realm of no-time and no-space [7].
Nevertheless, quantum coherence can exist to different degrees or
orders [20]; and
I suggest that the wholeness of the organism is based on a high
degree of quantum coherence. It constitutes Freeman's "unity of
intentionality" [2] -- the pre-requisite to conscious experience.
Quantum coherence and body consciousness
From the perspective of the whole organism, the brain's primary
function may be the mediation of coherent coupling of all
subsystems, so the more highly differentiated or complex the
system, the bigger the brain required. Substantial parts of the
brain are indeed involved in integrating inputs from all over the
body, and over long time scales. But not all the processing that
goes on in the brain is involved in the coherent coordination of
subsystems, for this coordination seems instantaneous by all
accounts.
Thus, during an olfactory experience, slow oscillations in the
olfactory bulb are in phase with the movement of the lungs [4].
Similarly, the coordinated movement of the four limbs in
locomotion is accompanied by patterns of activity in the motor
centers of the brain which are in phase with those of the
limbs [27]. That is a remarkable achievement which physiologists
and neuroscientists alike have taken too much for granted. The
reason macroscopic organs such as the four limbs can be
coordinated is that each is individually a coherent whole, so that
a definite phase relationship can be maintained among them. The
hand-eye coordination required for the accomplished pianist is
extremely impressive, but depends on the same inherent coherence
of the subsystems which, I suggest, enables instantaneous
intercommunication to occur. There simply isn't time enough, from
one musical phrase to the next, for inputs to be sent to the
brain, there to be integrated, and coordinated outputs to be sent
back to the hands (c.f. Hebb [28]).
I raised the posssibility, above, that a "body consciousness"
works in tandem with, but independently of the "brain
consciousness" constituting the nervous system. I suggest that
instantaneous coordination of body functions is mediated, not by
the nervous system, but by the body consciousness inhering in the
liquid crystalline continuum of the body. Ho and Knight [29]
following Oschman [16], review evidence suggesting that this
liquid crystalline continuum is responsible for the direct current
(DC) electrodynamical field, permeating the entire body of all
animals, that Becker [30] and others have detected. Becker has
further demonstrated that the DC field has a mode of
semi-conduction that is much faster than nervous conduction.
During a perceptive event, local changes in the DC field can be
measured half a second before sensory signals arrive in the brain,
suggesting that the activities in the brain may be pre-conditioned
by the local DC field.
Up to 70% of the proteins in the connective tissues consist of
collagens that exhibit constant patterns of alignment, as
characteristic of liquid crystals. Collagens have distinctive
mechanical and dielectric properties that render them very
sensitive to mechanical pressures, changes in pH, inorganic ions
and electromagnetic fields [29]. In particular, a cylinder of
bound water surrounds the triple-helical molecule, giving rise to
an ordered array of bound water on the surface of the collagen
network that supports rapid "jump conduction" of protons. Proteins
in liquid crystals have coherent residual motions, and will
readily transmit weak signals by proton conduction, or as coherent
waves [31]. Thus, extremely weak electromagnetic signals or
mechanical disturbances will be sufficient to set off a flow of
protons that will propagate throughout the body, making it ideal
for intercommunication in the manner of a proton-neural
network [32].
The liquid crystalline nature of the continuum also enables it to
function as a distributed memory store. The proportion of bound
versus free water on the surfaces of proteins are known to be
altered by conformation changes of the proteins. Proteins undergo
a hierarchy of conformational changes on a range of time scales as
well as different energies. Conformers are clustered in groups
that are nearly isoenergetic, with very low energetic barriers
between them [33]. They can thus be triggered to undergo global
conformational changes that will, in turn, alter the structure of
bound water. As the bound water forms a global network in
association with the collagen, it will have a certain degree of
stability, or resistance to change. The corollary is that it will
retain tissue memory of previous experiences. The memory may
consist partly of dynamic circuits, the sum total of which
constituting the DC body field. Thus, consciousness is distributed
throughout the entire body, brain consciousness being embedded in
body consciousness. Brain and body consciousness mutually inform
and condition each other. The unity of intentionality is a
complete coherence of brain and body.
Quantum Coherence and the Binding Problem
So it is that we perceive ourselves as a singular "I" intuitively,
despite the extremely diverse multiplicity of tissues, cells and
molecules consituting our being (c.f. Schrödinger [6]). Quantum
coherence entails a plurality that is singular, a multiplicity
that is a unity. The "self" is the domain of coherence [7], a pure
state or pure duration that permeates the whole of our being, much
as Bergson [34] has described.
It is because we perceive ourselves as a singular whole that we
perceive the real world as colour, sound, texture and smell, as a
unity all at once. Sounds presented in linear sequences are
recognized as speech or music, much as objects in motion are
recognized as such, rather than as disconnected configurations of
light and shadow. How is this unity structured so that not only
can we recognize whole objects, but distinguish different objects
in our perceptual field? That is the problem of binding and
reciprocally, of segmentation [35].
Detailed investigations over the past decades have revealed that
there are many cells which respond to isolated features such as
edges or bars in the visual cortex, but no special cells have been
found to respond to higher categories [1], such as squares or
cubes for example. There is simply no "grandmother cell" that
integrates the separate features. So how are the separate features
bound into a whole? And how is it that we can bind features
correctly so that they belong to the same object in the real
world? For example, how do we see correctly, a red rose in a
yellow vase and not a yellow rose in a red vase? It turns out that
timing is of the essence.
Freeman [2] and his coworkers carried out simultaneous recordings
with an array of 64 electrodes covering a large area of the rabbit
cortex, and found oscillations that are coherent over the entire
array. These tend to vary continually or abruptly, but when they
change, they do so in the same way over the whole area. The
amplitudes will differ, but the pattern of discharges is
simultaneous and uniform. He concludes, "This spatial coherence
indicates that the oscillation is a macroscopic property of the
whole area, that all the neurons in the neuropil share it, and
that the same frequency holds at each instant everywhere."(p. 57).
Gray et al [36] recorded simultaneously from pairs of neuronal
units whose outputs might be subject to binding. These are in the
same or different cerebral hemispheres and responded to the same
or different sensory modalities. They found that throughout the
wide range of situations, the characteristic feature of paired
discharges that are suitable for subsequent binding is a high
degree of coincidence in time. It seems that the nervous system
produces "simultaneity as an aid to subsequent binding."
Singer [37] has also found evidence of simultaneous oscillations
in separate areas of the cortex, accurately synchronized in phase
as well as frequency. He suggests that the oscillations are
synchronized from some common source, but Freeman's group, using a
large array of electrodes (see above) failed to identify any
obvious source. As Andrew [1] points out, the accuracy of phase
agreement is far too perfect for the synchronizing to spread by
normal neural transmission, and he favours some kind of optical
signal transmitted by water trapped in microtubules acting as
optical fibres [38, 39].
If, however, the system is coherent to begin with, then a genuine
nonlocal simultaneity may be involved. The present precision of
recording is insufficient to distinguish between instantaneous
simultaneity and propagation at the speed of light. As is
well-known, there is no time-like separation within the coherence
volume, and no space-like separation within the coherence time, so
apparent "communication" is instantaneous, and synchrony can be
established with no actual delay. This simultaneity may be
mediated and gated by the DC body field mentioned above. That can
easily be tested by repeating the measurements carried out by
Becker [30].
The clue to both binding and segmentation is in the accuracy of
phase agreement of the spatially separated brain activities. That
implies the nervous system (or the body field) can accurately
detect phase, and is also able to control phase coherence. I have
already alluded to the importance of phase information in
coordinating limb movements during locomotion and other aspects of
physiological functioning, so it is not surprising that the
nervous system should be able to accurately detect phase. The
degree of precision may be estimated by considering our ability to
locate the source of a sound by stereophony. Some experimental
findings show that the arrival times of sound pulses at the two
ears can be discriminated with an accuracy of a very few
microseconds [1]. For detecting a note in middle C, the phase
difference in a microsecond is 4.4 x 10-4. Accurate phase
detection is characteristic of a system operating under quantum
coherence. Could it be that phase detection is indeed a key
feature of conscious experience?
Marcer [40, 41] has proposed a "quantum holographic" model of
consciousness in which perception involves the conversion of an
interference pattern (between a coherent wave-field generated by
the perceiver and the wave-field reflected off the perceived) to
an object image that is coincident with the object itself. This is
accomplished by a process known as phase conjugation, whereby the
wave reflected from the object is returned (by the perceiver)
along its path to form an image where the object is situated. The
perceiving being is into the act of perceiving, as Freeman [2]
observes. Endogenously generated coherent waves or activities,
therefore, function as precise gating, on the basis of phase
information, to bind and segment features as appropriate. In the
act of perceiving, the organism also perceives itself situated in
the environment, through active phase conjugation. As Gibson [42]
remarks, perception and proprioception are one and the same.
Within the perceptive realm of the organism, there will always be
an image of the self as the focus of "prehensive
unification" [43], to which all features in the environment are
related. Marcer's quantum holographic model of self-consciousness
would involve an image of the self coincident with the organism
itself, so "self" and "other" are simultaneously defined. What is
the source of the coherent wave-field generated by the perceiver?
Could it be the body field itself? Or the body field as modulated
by the nervous system? Again, this could be subject to empirical
investigation.
One thing seems clear. Quantum coherent systems can bind and
segment simultaneously and nonlocally by virtue of their
factorizability (see above), which is how living processes are
organized. Circulation, metabolism, muscular and nervous
acitivities all go on simultaneously and independently, yet
nevertheless cohering into a whole. A multitude of bound and
segmented simultaneities are created in the act of experiencing,
which define the here and now. These simultaneities are nonlocal
and heterogeneous. They contain further simultaneities within and
become entangled as they cascade through a quasi-continuum of
space-times. The here and now is, therefore, not a flat
instantaneity, nor a travelling razor blade dividing past from
future [c.f. Gibson 42]. Instead, it is the grain of experiencing
-- a labyrinth of commuting and non-commuting simultaneities
within simultaneities out of which hesitations we weave our
futures.
Coherent information storage and qualia of perception
The conscious being initiates and gates experience and determines
the content of the experience, so it is that two people can
experience the same music simultaneously, one with the highest
rapture, and the other, the utmost indifference. According to
Gibson [42], objects in the environment provide "affordances"
which are selected by the subject in the act of perceiving. The
information goes into "resonant circuits in the brain" from which
"effectivities" flow, ultimately as "object-oriented actions"
complementary to the affordances. Thus, the quality of each
perception is coloured by all that has gone before [2], the brain
does more than coordinate subsystems of the body, it forms images
(or, at any rate, takes part in forming images), and stores them
for future reference.
The stored information, or memory system, is generally found to be
distributed over the entire brain, perhaps in the form of
"reverberations" or circuits that "mediate" responses to stimuli
and initiate actions. Thus, in contrast to the rapidity with which
simultaneity can be established in different parts of the brain,
half a second is required for the subject's brain to become
"aware" (as evidenced by its electrical activities) that something
has happened, although the subject automatically back-dates it to
make up for the delay (see earlier). Freeman's view is that the
delay is the time needed for "propagation of a global state
transition through a forebrain to update the state of the
intentional structure by learning."(p. 83). In other words, that
is the time taken to reorganize the whole system.
There does appear to be a circulating activity in a network
consisting of different brain structures, and transmitted between
various regions in a highly organized fashion. These circulating
activities, modified by sensory inputs, are thought to be
responsible for `short-term' memory, which becomes long-term
memory by causing structural chemical changes [44]. However, it
would be a mistake to suppose that memory is thereby `fixed' once
and for all. Molecules in the brain, as in all of the rest of the
body, are subject to metabolic turnover. So, it is more realistic
to suppose that so-called `long-term' memory is subject to the
same dynamic modification and reconstitution as short-term memory,
and that short-term and long term are simply the ends of a
continuum that extends from the most microscopic "here and now" to
the individual's entire life-span and beyond. It is this dynamic
information store, distributed over a whole gamut of timescales
that underlies the distinctive quality of each experience, for the
experiencing being is constantly being renewed and updated.
Thus, Freeman [2] and his coworkers found that rabbits trained to
distinguish odours have patterns of brain activities for each
odour that are never twice the same in any one session for any
animal. And each animal has its own repertoire of patterns which
evolve in successive trials. Far from being disconsolate, the
experiments have given Freeman new insights into the unity of
intentionality in that every perception is influenced by all that
has gone before. Constant stimulus-response relationships are not
mediated by correspondingly constant cause and effect associations
of brain activities. In contrast to the microscopic patterns
carried by a few sensory neurons which differ consistently with
each smell, the macroscopic spatial patterns in the olfactory bulb
are distributed over the entire bulb for every odour, and "did not
relate to the stimulus directly but instead to the meaning of the
stimulus."(p. 59) So, when reward was switched between two odours,
the patterns of activities changed for both odours, as also did
the control patterns without odour in background air. The patterns
changed whenever a new odour was added to the repertoire. There is
no mosaic of compartments in the olfactory memory in the bulb. It
is a seamless information store.
All the evidence points to a dynamic maintenance and recreation of
memory over all time scales. There is a transfer of information to
ever longer and longer time scales exactly in the way that energy
gets transferred in cascades of processes of increasingly larger
space-times [7]. In the transfer of memory, different memories
also become entangled in the reconstituion of the whole, thus
continually redefining a unique here and now. One never ceases to
write and overwrite one's biography -- it is a tissue of
reconstructions. There is no sharp distinction between the here
and now and what has gone before. `Past' simultaneities over-arch
the `now' and extend beyond while further simultaneities are
seeded within the `now'.
Strong evidence that memory storage is delocalized, at least over
the whole brain, is the finding that it is able to survive large
brain lesions. This has already led a number of people to suggest
that memory storage is holographic, in the same way that
perception is holographic, so that the whole can be reconstructed
from even a small part, albeit with less detail. As Langfield [45]
points out, holography enables complex information to be retrieved
simply by generating a regular wave without any informational
content. Of course, the same regular or coherent wave is
instrumental in creating and coding the complex information in the
first place. Likely candidates for coherent reference waves are
considered to include alpha waves and waves generated by the
hippocampus. Langfield has proposed a model in which memory is
encoded by coherent waves from the hippocampus interacting with
sensory inputs and undergoing a phase change. These modulated
"object" waves are then recombined with the reference waves to
form an interference pattern in the pyrimidal cells of the
hippocampus, from which a "reconstructed wavefront" is projected
to other parts of the brain to generate the circulating patterns
of activity that constitute "short-term memory". This short-term
memory is thought to be consolidated during sleep, whereas the
alpha rhythms occurring during states of relaxation are believed
to play a special role in memory retrieval.
Holographic memory storage is orders of magnitude more efficient
than any model that makes use of "representations" because
holographic memory employs actual physical simulations of
processes [40, 41] and do not require lengthy sequences of
arbitrary coding and decoding of isolated bits. Marcer suggests
that the brain stores experienced holographic spatio-temporal
patterns and compares stored with new patterns directly,
recognition and learning being reinforced in "adaptive resonance",
thus also making for much faster processing. As mentioned before,
the liquid crystalline continuum supporting the body field may
also take part in memory storage, although this possibility has
never been seriously considered. Laszlo [47] goes even further to
suggest that much of memory may be stored in an ambient,
collective holographic memory field delocalized from the
individual; and that memories are only accessed by the brain from
the ambient field.
Quantum coherence and the macroscopic wave function
of the conscious being
If quantum coherence is characteristic of the organism as
conscious being, as I have argued here, then the conscious being
will possesss something like a macroscopic wave-function. This
wave function is ever evolving, entangling its environment,
transforming and creating itself anew [7]. I agree with Bohm and
Hiley's [46] ontological interpretation of quantum theory to the
extent that there is no collapse of the wave function. In their
model, the wave function, with quantum potential playing the role
of active information to guide the trajectories of particles,
simply changes after interaction to become a new one. The
possibility remains that there is no resolution of the wave
functions of the quantum objects after interacting. So one may
remain entangled and indeed, delocalized over past experiences
(i.e., in Lazlo's ambient field [46]). Some interactions may have
time scales that are extremely long, so that the wave function of
interacting parties may take a correspondingly long time to become
resolved, and largescale nonlocal connectivity may be maintained.
What would our wave function look like? Perhaps it is an intricate
supramolecular orbital of multidimensional standing waves of
complex quantum amplitudes. It would be rather like a beautiful,
exotic flower, flickering in and out of many dimensions
simultaneously. That would constitute our quantum holographic
self, created from the entanglements of past experiences, the
memory of all we have suffered and celebrated, the totality of our
anxieties and fears, our hopes and dreams.
Acknowledgments
I thank Peter Marcer, David Knight, Walter Freeman and Brian
Goodwin for stimulating discussions.
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