Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (35 page)

Systems theory and field theories are also making their way into biology and pharmacology mainly because scientists are starting to realize that it is impossible to determine the behavior of an intact and living organism on the basis of its isolated components. A living organism is home to constant information exchange between all of its constituent parts. This is why a living organism is more than just the sum of its parts. In a recent publication in
Nature,
chemist and scientific director of systems biology research Jan van de Greef described his pioneering ideas about systems theory in general, and about systems biology, systems pathology, and systems pharmacology in particular.
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Does Quantum Physics Apply to Living Systems?

Quantum theory has been corroborated by countless experiments and refuted by none. It has become a key part of the description of the world around us, but the question remains: Does quantum theory also apply to living systems? Quantum physicists differ on the matter. Schrödinger considered quantum physics to be incomplete, a view shared by Einstein and de Broglie. Schrödinger believed that there ought to be a comprehensive scientific explanation for life and that quantum physics ought to provide the complete biological foundation with which to fathom life’s chemical and physical aspects. Current quantum mechanics does not yet allow this; hence his opinion that the discipline is incomplete.

In contrast to Schrödinger, Bohr viewed life as complementary to what can be verified or proven by quantum physics, which only describes processes in “dead” matter. This is his version of the “Copenhagen interpretation” of quantum physics. In Bohr’s view, life is “unknowable,” and quantum physics can never provide a scientific explanation for life processes because they involve nonstatistical processes of a “higher” order (that is, they defy statistical computation). Bohm too was of the opinion that reality in its deepest sense is unknowable.
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In living matter, the transition from nonlocal space to the physical world, that is, space-time, is a nonstatistical (chaotic) and nonperiodic (unpredictable) process because this transition is actually possible with only small numbers of atoms or even a single atom. Contemporary quantum physics only describes statistical processes in “dead” matter because the transition from nonlocal space to our physical and measurable world is essentially a statistical, lower-order process. Based on everything I have read, I am (intuitively) drawn to Bohr’s interpretation.

Another problem for quantum physics in living systems is the fact that quantum physics applies only to coherent and closed systems. A living system, with heat loss and respiration, exchanges information with its surroundings and thus triggers decoherence (the leaking of information), that is, a loss of coherent and harmonious processes. According to some interpretations, this rules out the possibility of quantum physical processes. However, interference, and hence coherence, has been demonstrated in huge soccer ball–like molecules at 650 degrees Celsius, while in 2000
Nature
published two articles about quantum superposition in macroscopic states in a superconducting quantum interference device (“squid”), which featured billions of paired-up electrons in a coherent state. These findings have a practical as well as a philosophical significance.
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Quantum Theory, Self-Organization, and Consciousness

Despite the aforementioned objections, some scientists, among them quantum physicists, believe in quantum coherence in all living systems at both a cellular and a subcellular level. This could be explained by the self-organizing capacity of living matter, in which unstructured, inert, and chaotic matter from the immediate surroundings is absorbed into a dynamic structure of ordered coherence, as described by Nobel laureate and physical chemist Ilya Prigogine. The physicist Herbert Fröhlich made a convincing case for such processes in living matter, even at body temperature. He described how molecules and cells start to vibrate and form a coherent whole with identical frequencies so that in an ordered state they can be compared to a Bose-Einstein condensate, a system in which the many constituent parts do not just
behave
like a whole but actually
become
a whole. The constituent parts thus lose their identity. This only happens when all properties and all information merge into a coherent whole. One might compare it to the many voices in a choir becoming one harmonic whole, one voice, or an orchestra sounding like one. For many years scientists have been locked in debate about whether the principles of such condensates also apply to macroscopic and living systems.
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A living system consists of various subsystems, which actively cohere but which also exhibit various levels of order and disorder, and which can be regular and irregular, stable and unstable at the same time. The end result is organized chaos, constituting what is known as a self-organizing system, with patterns or structures arising from interaction with the outside world without being directly caused by these external factors. A good example of self-organization is a vortex in flowing water, in which the shape of the vortex is influenced by the rate of flow and the volume of water, but the vortex itself is a spontaneous and self-regulating event. Based on the theoretical possibility of living matter’s self-organizing capacity, some scientists have sought a quantum-mechanical explanation for the relationship between consciousness and the brain.

Drawing on the principle of coherent systems created through self-organization, neurobiologist Herms Romijn proposed that the constantly changing electric and magnetic fields of neuronal networks (photons or possibly virtual photons), which can be regarded as a biological quantum-coherence phenomenon thanks to their self-organizing aspect, may be the “carriers” or the “product” of consciousness and its memories. His model is akin to neurosurgeon Karl Pribram’s idea that memories cannot be stored in small groups of neurons, but only in the coherent patterns formed by the electromagnetic fields of neural networks. In Pribram’s view, the brain functions like a hologram. This hologram is capable of storing the human memory’s vast quantity of information. He developed his idea in response to the remarkable experiments conducted by Karl Lashley, who already proved in 1920 that memories are not stored in any single part of the brain, but throughout the brain as a whole. These experiments on rats showed that it did not matter which parts and how much of the rats’ brains were removed, the animals were still capable of carrying out the complex tasks that they had been taught before the brain operations. The only problem was that at the time nobody could conceive of an explanatory mechanism for memory storage based on a “whole in each part” principle. A vast amount of evidence suggests that our brain draws on the holographic principle to perform its tasks, because Pribram also demonstrated that when he removed 90 percent of the visual cerebral cortex or 98 percent of the optic nerve of a cat the feline was still capable of performing complex visual tasks. These experiments suggested that both memory and visual perception can only be accounted for on the basis of the holographic principle. The same was recently demonstrated for acoustic phenomena (our hearing).
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Given the current insights afforded by quantum physics and the theory that consciousness and memories are stored in nonlocal space as wave functions, we should speak no longer of holographic organization but rather, like Romijn, of nonlocal information storage in which memory is nonlocally and instantaneously accessible. If this is the case, visual and auditory information processing also occurs along nonlocal rather than holographic principles. This might explain the possibility of perception during an out-of-body experience as well as a life review with detailed memories and images during an NDE in a dimension without time and distance.

According to anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff and mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose, microtubules (the tiny structural components of the skeleton of cells that are involved in many cellular processes) inside neurons may initiate information processes via self-organizing patterns that trigger coherent states, and these might explain our ability to experience consciousness. Their suggestion is based in part on the still-speculative theory of quantum gravity, which is the field of theoretical physics that tries to reconcile or unify the theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity. In her book
The Quantum Self,
quantum physicist Danah Zohar also posits biological quantum coherence as an organizing principle, which could explain a “quantum relationship” between consciousness and the body.
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Quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger also describes the mind with its thoughts as a quantum process because it is impossible to experience a half-thought, a half-feeling, or a half-yes or half-no, only a complete thought, a complete feeling, and a definite yes or no. The information, the answers our mind receives to our questions, also constitutes a binary system: yes or no, one or zero, on or off.
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Our consciousness is therefore not a continuum but is split into “quanta” or components, even if we experience it as a continuum. This is something we encounter in everyday life when we watch a film; we see a moving image, even though the film actually consists of twenty-five static projections per second. Rapid processes are perceived as a continuum when perception is slower than the speed of events. The same applies to events at the subatomic level.

Quantum physicist Stapp combines the ideas of psychologist William James, quantum physicist Heisenberg, and mathematician von Neumann into a comprehensive theory drawing together classical physics, quantum physics, quantum chemistry, neuroscience, psychopathological experiments, and various fields of psychology. He writes, “The connection between consciousness and the brain is primarily a problem in physics and addressable by physics—but only the correct physics. The causal irrelevance of our thoughts within the classical physics constitutes a serious deficiency of that theory.”
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He calls quantum laws fundamental “psycho-physical” laws, and with this he explains the causal effect of consciousness on neural processes. According to Stapp, a decision made in the mind of a researcher can have no direct effect on the physical system under investigation (for example, whether the light behaves like a particle or a wave), but because it has an effect on the researcher’s neural processes it ultimately also determines the outcome of the research. This explains the mind’s effect on the outcome of a study, that is, on creating this outcome or creating reality as we see it. If we carry out a series of successive measurements in a quantum system, the effect of the observation appears to freeze, and the ever-changing system appears to come to a halt (the quantum Zeno effect). Stapp compares this to the mind’s effect on the brain: if somebody repeatedly, that is to say with undivided attention, concentrates on an idea or concept, it will bring about a permanent change in brain function. William James called this mindfulness a “holding-attention-in-place” action of volition. In Stapp’s view the empirical fact of neuroplasticity, the permanent change in brain function through mindfulness that was discussed earlier, could be an indication of the brain’s quantum function. The crux of Stapp’s approach is that his quantum description of the brain is essentially holistic: it describes overall brain function rather than a model of the brain based on computer science. And by using the principle of the quantum Zeno effect, Stapp also avoids the criticism that the brain is a macroscopic, warm system, which inherently causes decoherence (the leaking of information) and thereby rules out quantum processes. As von Neumann states, “Consciousness creates reality.” Observation is not a passive registration in our consciousness but is rather an active creation by our consciousness. This model by Stapp and von Neumann also retains the possibility of free will. Given the results of the prospective NDE studies, I find the approach of Stapp and von Neumann extremely appealing.
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The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.

—S
IR
J
AMES
J
EANS

As we have read in this chapter, some well-known quantum physicists believe that each observation is determined by our consciousness. Reality, as we experience it, is not a fixed, objective given but is shaped by our consciousness. Similarly, each interpretation of quantum physics is determined by our consciousness. Quantum physics admits a great many interpretations, especially in relation to the theory’s application to macroscopic phenomena, living nature, and the role of our consciousness. Everything in quantum physics is still in flux. In fact, sometimes I get the impression that there are almost as many interpretations of quantum theory as there are physicists who specialize in the field. And what’s more, during the course of their working lives, most of these physicists also change their mind about the ideas that they once wholeheartedly endorsed.

Not everyone will be able to accept the ideas, concepts, and interpretations of quantum physics, partly out of ignorance and partly because of the many crucial but still unanswered questions. It remains to be seen if and how quantum physics can contribute to finding answers to questions such as: Is quantum physics “complete” (Bohr) or “incomplete” (Schrödinger, Einstein, de Broglie)? Or what exactly are the “dark” matter and “dark” energy that appear to constitute 96 percent of our universe? Other important questions include: What is the origin of life? What is the origin of consciousness? Or is science by definition incapable of answering the latter two questions? I personally believe that quantum theory cannot answer these fundamental questions about the origins of life and consciousness. But I do believe that the foundations of quantum physics, as currently accepted by the majority of quantum physicists, such as nonlocality, wave-particle complementarity, entanglement, and a nonlocal space with probability waves, are crucial to our understanding of the mind-brain relationship. Additionally, the quantum physics idea that the mind determines if and how we experience reality is, in my view, extremely important, but it does not yet enjoy the support of a majority of quantum physicists.