When I’m gone, all I desire is to be remembered fondly by those who’s lives I touched.
Yea well, I have looked into that myself (1000+ pages) and I firmly believe that microtubules are the seat of consciousness. But I also know that when microtubules undergo “catastrophe” they cease to function as data transport systems and the mind loses consciousness and that is all there is. No consciousness, no self, no experience, no nothing.
Microtubule catastrophe and rescue.
- M. Gardner, M. Zanic, J. Howard
- Published 1 February 2013
- Biology, Medicine
- Current opinion in cell biology
Microtubules are long cylindrical polymers composed of tubulin subunits. In cells, microtubules play an essential role in architecture and motility. For example, microtubules give shape to cells, serve as intracellular transport tracks, and act as key elements in important cellular structures such as axonemes and mitotic spindles
To accomplish these varied functions, networks of microtubules in cells are very dynamic, continuously remodeling through stochastic length fluctuations at the ends of individual microtubules. The dynamic behavior at the end of an individual microtubule is termed ‘dynamic instability’.
This behavior manifests itself by periods of persistent microtubule growth interrupted by occasional switching to rapid shrinkage (called microtubule ‘catastrophe’), and then by switching back from shrinkage to growth (called microtubule ‘rescue’).
In this review, we summarize recent findings which provide new insights into the mechanisms of microtubule catastrophe and rescue, and discuss the impact of these findings in regards to the role of microtubule dynamics inside of cells.
Microtubule catastrophe and rescue. | Semantic Scholar
This is evidenced by the slow onset of Alzheimer’s from “microtubule catastrophe”.
Ask Hameroff about that. That disease is his area of expertise.
When a person dies, the brain and its trillions of microtubules all dies with it and the “self” just disappears.
You may want to listen to Anil Seth and how the brain actually constructs “controlled hallucinations” and when we die there is nothing to be afraid of. NOTHING AT ALL!
When you die, microtubules no longer undergo “rescue” and all information stops flowing into the brain, which then experiences brain-death.
Your use of the term “airbag” prevents me from even checking your site. It doesn’t stir my imagination.
No it’s not. . . . .
OK, tell me about it.
You may want to watch this lecture by Hameroff (anesthesiologist), where he explains how microtubule catastrophe is responsible for Alzheimer’s disease.
Forget about the panpsychism and concentrate on what Tegmark calls ; the “hard facts” (rather than asking the “hard question”).
Instead of consciousness, I believe that the universe is quasi-intelligent, but consciousness only manifests in biological organisms due to their dynamic microtubules that actually process information .
Microtubules are a hard fact and they are present in the body and brain by the millions.
It stands to reason that a data processing network of such magnitude may well produce an emergent awareness of the data being processed and result in the onset of consciousness ranging from the simplest single celled organisms to the brains of Einstein and Shakespeare.
Note that all living things possess microtubules . They are a common denominator of all living organisms. To me this is persuasive evidence that evolutionary processes of this self-organizing data processor may well be responsible for the increasing sensory awareness and eventual self-awareness as compared to the environment.
[George Hammond ]
…write4u doesn’t know what he’s talking about. In body cells microtubules shorten and lengthen and even “treadmill” but the microtubules in neurons are “capped” and are permanently lifetime stable and never undergo “catastrophe”. Alzheimer’s disease is a microtubule affliction but it is caused by a much more minor type of microtubule disturbance.
…Of course, when you die the microtubules as with all other parts of the body eventually disintegrate but this has NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on “life after death” (LAD) because LAD only requires microseconds to totally occur in real time. What you all don’t seem to understand is that those few microseconds are Relativistically time dilated by a factor of up to 10-trillion because the signal is being carried by ultraviolet light in the water inside the microtubules and ultraviolet light is 10-trillion times higher frequency than ordinary neuronal firing wch is only 100 cps. Thus a three-year afterlife in subjective time only takes a matter of microseconds of real time. I’m not kidding when I tell you as a graduate physicist who has been studying this for decades (I’m 6 months shy of 80 today) that the odds are better than 1 in 3 that there actually is life after death!
Uh huh. You two should get a room.
[George Hammond]
… Excuse me, but it appears that you two are the only ones sparring in a room somewhere! I haven’t posted anything to this thread for a year when I suddenly got a notice that you two are posting to this 11 month old thread.
… I am a lifetime scholar with advanced degrees in physics and published in the peer-reviewed academic literature.
… If you have something coherent and on-topic to say I’m sure the CFI membership would be interested, but idiotic grade school impoliteness can only raise the ire of the moderators.
… Unlike you, write4u has posted interesting, factual and on-topic content. We would greatly appreciate it if you would follow suit.
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Your being a ‘lifetime scholar with advanced degrees [Which? What’s an MS?] in physics and published in the peer-reviewed academic literature’ has what to do with this woo?
Well I’m glad you agree with me after all.
Microtubular catastrophe in the brain is a result of ageing and therefore associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Microtubule Catastrophe and Rescue
A microtubule “catastrophe” event manifests itself by the sudden switch of a growing microtubule into a rapidly shortening state. The widely accepted view of microtubule catastrophe is that it involves a single random event, such as the sudden loss of a protective end structure [1–3]. This single-step mechanism implies that a microtubule has the same probability of undergoing catastrophe at any given point in time, irrespective of how long it has been growing already.
In this model, the `catastrophe frequency’, which is the number of observed catastrophes divided by the total period of microtubule growth, remains constant over time, and the distribution of microtubule lifetimes and lengths is predicted to follow a decaying exponential distribution…more Microtubule Catastrophe and Rescue - PMC
CAUSES OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE]
What Happens to the Brain in Alzheimer’s Disease?
In Alzheimer’s disease, however, abnormal chemical changes cause tau to detach from microtubules and stick to other tau molecules, forming threads that eventually join to form tangles inside neurons. These tangles block the neuron’s transport system, which harms the synaptic communication between neurons.Nov 18, 2021
tubulin
Since tubulin adds onto the end of the microtubule in the GTP-bound state, a cap of GTP-bound tubulin is proposed to exist at the tip of the microtubule, protecting it from disassembly. When hydrolysis catches up to the tip of the microtubule, it begins a rapid depolymerization and shrinkage.
# Microtubule structure and dynamic instability. Microtubules are long, dynamic, cylindrical polymers with a diameter of 15–25 nm. Each microtubule is composed by 13 protofilaments of α/β-tubulin heterodimers, which assemble forming a tubular structure (a). At microtubule plus ends, GTP-bound β-tubulin caps growing filaments, attracting further GTP-bound α/β-tubulin heterodimers. Upon binding of a new heterodimer, β-tubulin GTP on the filament undergoes hydrolysis at the ‘exchangeable’ site (E-site), ensuring the GTP cap remains on the first heterodimer (b) [27, 36]. The cyclic incorporation and loss of GTP β-tubulin, stochastically alternates growing (rescue) stable and depolymerising states (catastrophe). The ‘non-exchangeable’ site (N-site) is occupied by the intradimeric, α-tubulin-bound GTP, and ensures structural stability [35, 36]. Crystal structure of tubulin from PDB
That is a very interesting proposition, but can you cite a single instance that indicates “life” of any kind continues after “death”.
The terms are not exactly compatible in definition. Why would you believe that there is a 1 in 3 chance death is not the end of life?
Moreover on what evidence to make an estimate of 1 in 3 chance. Isn’t it something like 100 % either way or can you be 30% alive a 60 % dead? That seems like a strange scientific equation to me.
Ironically, a post like this will “raise the ire” of the moderators.
Sincerely, a moderator.
I don’t evaluate the quality of the physics, as long you don’t spout pseudo science that is harmful. Straying off topic is pretty standard. Posting on old threads, happens. Let me know if something actually violates a rule.
Allow me to add a slight modification
I “liked” his comment and recognized it as response to Martin’s typically flippant baiting. No matter what the moderator thinks or chooses to overlook.
Not that I buy everything George said, the afterlife thing was beyond comprehending.
Still he made some interesting points, and from the little I know about it, valid observations regarding microtubules. It would be nice to see that part of the discussion develop.
His previous comment was fine, then he claimed his degree and his age as if they were evidence. Not a violation, but not logic either
Maybe just, tit for tat.
Okay, your turn, you say you’ve studied this. Your turn…
Such as running through that one more time.
Have any references to offer, that might explain some of that?
I mean do a few milliseconds justify being called Life After Death?
Our human body and it’s brain and neurons are way complex, expecting everything to shut down at the same instance seems unrealistic at best.
Our consciousness is produced by our bodies, what would ‘consciousness’ do with an After Life that doesn’t include the body through which it receives all of it information and commands?
Heck who would my consciousness be serving as my body rots away?
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[George Hammond]
…Okay write4u, you have essentially asked if I could cite a single instance where (human) life continues after death… and here is the closest indication of that known to modern science (2009).
…Palliative care hospitals due to the increased use of EEG monitoring
on dying patients, have accidentally discovered that there is a startling
and unexplained 2 minute surge of a conscious-level EEG signal
approximately a minute after clinical death (Chawla 2009) ! See Chawla’s
startling deathbed EEG charts here:
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/jpm.2009.0159
The entire medical community, scientists of all description,
and enormous numbers of religious people are furiously
debating the meaning of it in the literature and on the Internet.
So far they have discovered that it is a highly synchronized
gamma wave EEG signal and not an artifact. The religious
people say it is the soul leaving the body, and even the
World’s leading authority on microtubule research has said
“maybe it is, we don’t know" (Stuart Hameroff 2015).
…This isn;t “proof” that my theory is correct, but it sure is
“exactly” what we would expect if it is !!
No, any electrochemical system that shuts down may experience a “surge”. That is not proof of anything.
Just look at being under anesthesia. “You” are no longer there, even as you brain continues with homeostasis.
If you checked out the Anil Seth video, you will agree that you cease to exist while under anesthesia. And it is not even like being asleep. When you come back from anesthesia , you could have been out for 5 min, 5 hr, 5 yrs, 50 years. The part of the brain that constitutes “You” was totally absent.
This is why Seth concludes his lecture with "when the end comes, there is nothing to be afraid of, “nothing at all”.
When your microtubules cease to function they begin to break down and deteriorate . After 10 minutes there is not brain activity of any kind. What was you is gone.
Only the body may remain relatively intact , especially when it is frozen, but eventually your biome will disintegrate and begin to devour itself.
Don’t forget that your biome is about 10% human and 90% bacterial.
Check this wonderful lecture by Bonnie Bassler.
I sent the link to my brother, who is a professor and a scientist, specialized in geriatric psychiatry, internationally referenced.
He sent this answer :
Microtubules are structures present in all cells (including neurons) of which they form the “backbone”
[(Microtubule - Wikipedia)
And yes, microtubules are involved in certain cellular diseases (including Alzheimer’s disease, which is a degeneration of neurons).
But there is no evidence that microtubules are the origin of consciousness (neither during life nor after death).
When neurons die, consciousness disappears (“the mind is what the brain does”).
[write4u]
No, any electrochemical system that shuts down may experience a “surge”. That is not proof of anything.
[George Hammond aka Kurvature66]
I’ll prefer Stewart Hameroff’s opinion over yours, and his opinion is “Maybe it is, we don’t know.” So Stewart Hameroff who far out ranks you in Science says it “could be” evidence of Life After Death, which is intuitively obvious to even a casual observer !