Microtubules the seat of Consciousness

Well yeah but, that video was actually about new and amazing findings about mitochondria.

https://robbins.baylor.edu/news/story/2023/more-powerhouse-research-focuses-mitochondria-and-their-response-exercise

Not that I understand the details, it’s more a stand back and behold.

Rebranding Mitochondria

Danielle Gerhard, PhD | Dec 4, 2023 | 4 min read

As scientists realize the multifaceted role of mitochondria, some feel that the “powerhouse of the cell” analogy is out of date.

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How about:

The brain is a galaxy of quantum memories.

Here’s an interesting development. Not that it’s time to pop the champagne bottle.

Brain Really Uses Quantum Effects, New Study Finds

And there’s that caveat at 5:10, still pretty amazing in itself.

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I have been ridiculed on another (science) site about microtubules.

Such sweet vindication.

This maybe of interest

It’s Hameroff.
Does he say anything new?

From Why We Die, by Venki Ramakrishnan:

Perhaps no other structure in the cell is so intimately connected to the energy of youth and the decline of the old. Aging mitochondria even acquire a different shape as they degrade, transitioning from elongated ovals to spherical blobs.

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Update on the quantum aspects of microtubules

I’ve been studying microtubules for 4 years .

Philosophy without scientific facts is religion!

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Yes you are right. I was talking to lausten. If I had directed it at you I would have said carry on. I’m still processing your comments.

One of the things I think I share with citizenchallengev4 is that I think there is a danger of letting science escape from a moral framework. Would you agree that is where philosophy comes in? You do need science to inform you of consequences of actions so it is kind of a two way street. What I’m trying to do is connect “consciousness” to morality. This is the wrong forum for that so we moved over to philosophy. So as I said you carry on.

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When I select text, I get a submenu that has “quote” as an option. Clicking that makes quotes like this one above here.

You can also use @ then start typing a user name, and you should get a list to choose from.

Thank you. I will try and do better in the future.

Personally, I like reasonably free-ranging discussions over a single aspect that does not necessarily inform of an underlying “common denominator” with other physical “expressions”. Where possible, the ability to compare and measure the “difference” between two or more seemingly related values.

Let me pose a question: How can you define and attach a question of morality when “Life must take life in the interest of life itself” (Hellstrom)

In a world where there is only “change”, all things will die, but their death enables new life form or pattern to emerge .

All moral questions only pertain to humans, who have the ability to “direct” our mode of behavior. We are the only species that can choose our impact on natural functional imperatives. We can choose our mode of killing life to sustain our life.

“Life is sacred” is only meaningful if you have a choice in what life to use to sustain our life. The universe is perfectly amoral.

From a natural perspective “Conservation of Energy” is the highest form of sustainable morality.

OTOH, Change describes a process of “death and rebirth”

Compare that to the energy wasted by humans in pursuit of ‘pleasure’.

Man has pumped out and consumed as much sequestered oil (CO2) in a few centuries what took nature 4 bllion years to “store”. This is not in agreement with the laws of conservation. Hence AGW!

Man does not have the ability to control nature, but we can influence the natural mathematics of maintaining “balance”, on earth.

What I find most interesting is the realization that “I, human” reside in a 3 lbs blob of neurons encaged in a skull and only being aware of my environment via secondary sensory information, transported via microtubules and synaptic junctions, a process that started spontaneously some 4 billion years ago with the formation of a biochemical polymer (RNA/DNA) that was able to duplicate itself and evolve into greater complexity over time.

According to Robert Hazen , this process can be applied to all suitable ordinary planets like earth, that start with only a few chemical reactions in a dynamic environment and evolved over time.

That process seems to me as a creative, if not moral function from a human perspective. Is creativity a form of consciousness?

I agree with Penrose in his description of what I call a naturally quantum based self-referential quasi-intelligent system.

Consciousness does not need to be exclusive to humans. All things are reactive to stimuli in some form or another. Where and when does the evolutionary process of “sensory” consciousness begin? How does life form a biome aside from pure biochemistry? I believe it is a abstract recognition of suitability, compatibility, as expressed by “attraction” and “repulsion” .

This is why CC4 mentioned Robert Hazen in the confirmed discovery that original pure biochemistry created life, but from that point on life itself started contributing to the self-organization of complex living biochemistry.

And that is how symbiotic relationships evolved between insects and plants and the process of domestication began.

Examples: are honeybees, but also herder- ants that cultivate dairy herds of aphids,


and termites that cultivate undergrounds gardens in airconditioned castles
image
If that resembles a human cathedral built by one of the oldest complex organisms
on earth.

It becomes clear that evolution via natural selection is is responsible for all successful natural patterns, merely by selecting for ability to procreate.

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We will have to continue this discussion in a philosophy forum. Right now the science is interesting enough. Maybe I can comment on it someday.

Continuing our investigation of the role microtubules play in the evolution of consciousness.

Understanding the emergence of microbial consciousness: From a perspective of the Subject–Object Model (SOM)

J. Shashi Kiran Reddy
(J. Shashi Kiran Reddy | National Institute of Advanced Studies - Academia.edu)

2017, Journal of Integrative Neuroscience

Astrobiology,
(https://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Astrobiology?swp=tc-ri-35442244)

Life Sciences,
(https://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Life_Sciences?swp=tc-ri-35442244)

Self Consciousness,
(https://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Self_Consciousness?swp=tc-ri-35442244)

Consciousness,
(https://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Consciousness?swp=tc-ri-35442244)

Anthropology of Consciousness
(https://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Anthropology_of_Consciousness?swp=tc-ri-35442244)

Publication Name: Journal of Integrative Neuroscience

Microorganisms demonstrate conscious-like intelligent behaviour, and this form of consciousness may have emerged from a quantum mediated mechanism as observed in cytoskeletal structures like the microtubules present in nerve cells which apparently have the architecture to quantum compute. This paper hypothesises the emergence of proto-consciousness in primitive cytoskeletal systems found in the microbial kingdoms of archaea, bacteria and eukarya.

To explain this, we make use of the Subject–Object Model (SOM) of consciousness which evaluates the rise of the degree of consciousness to conscious behaviour in these systems supporting the hypothesis of emergence and propagation of conscious behaviour during the pre-Cambrian part of Earth’s evolutionary history. Consciousness as proto-consciousness or sentience computed via primitive cytoskeletal structures substantiates as a driver for the intelligence observed in the microbial world during this period ranging from single-cellular to collective intelligence as a means to adapt and survive.

The growth in complexity of intelligence, cytoskeletal system and adaptive behaviours are key to evolution, and thus supports the progression of the Lamarckian theory of evolution driven by quantum mediated proto-consciousness to consciousness as described in the SOM of consciousness.

…more… https://doi.org/10.3233/JIN-170064

Abstract

The present article is limited to research studies focused on understanding the phenomenon and construction of the concept of ‘Self.’
When we look at one’s experience of the Self, as a whole, it involves various components associated with different aspects like self-identification, self-location and the sense of the existence of oneself or the sense of Self.
While exploring the Self phenomenon, many scientific studies consider only partial aspects of the experience, and hence any understanding resulting from such an evaluation makes it difficult to comment on the nature of the Self. We emphasize that while studying the Self, to understand it totally, one would need to include all the components of the Self.
In this connection, we raise the following two theses:
a) Ontologically, the Self is conceived as a sentient entity, the bearer of the “what it is like to be” type of feeling, and
b) Phenomenologically, we do not have a direct apprehension of the Self, but experience various aspects of the Self through the Senses of Existence, Identification, and Location.

Okay, interesting, now we wait for the follow up. :raising_hand_man: