@ timb
Electronic artificial computers use binary coding at micro level. Why should the brain not be an electro-chemical organic computer based on processing of qubits of coded values at micro scale? If we consider the entire neural network then micro processes become macro processes. How does a beehive acquire a hive mind? Hameroff, as a expert in anesthesia clearly demonstrates the only biological machinery of the macrotubule, which is common to all living things, is an efficient information processing platform.
If we assume that consciousness is an result of evolutionary processes, it woud follow that it was a refinement of simple sensory reactive behavior, such already can be found in single celled organisms.
If it is an evolved ability it has to be organic in nature. If that true, microtubules are the only data processing organelles that could qualify as a platform for a form of hive mind to emerge from the neural network. IMO, the notion that the neural network gives rise to an emergent consciousness is already mainstream thinking. We were not able to observe it at nano-scales, until fairly recently.
In fact it is Hameroff who read Penrose’s book on quantum processes and came up with the idea that microtubules were the obvious candidate.
I believe that the MT network offers a range of evolutionary refinements and more than likely form the platform for higher consciousness.
As you said, we know we are conscious, it’s a “hard fact”. There must be an organic mechanism that makes this hard fact possible…
