Question
Does quantum mechanics play an important part in our brain functions?
Given the fact that any biochemical reaction at some level is utilizing quantum mechanical effects and the brain works using biochemistry, it seems the brain is being powered by quantum mechanics. How would that work?
All Answers (23)
This quote is directly from my recent book CHAMPIONING YOUR WELL-BEING published by Balboa Press:
"... quantum biology is much more than a scientific discipline, it is a legacy that belongs to us all. As we acknowledge that legacy, we come to recognize that quantum biology may also serve as a looking glass, which when looked through, further reveals the magic and the drama hidden from view by classical biology. We all get to play!"
"... use [this] equation [to] summarizes most of it quite well. The notations i is used for image and o for object.
i(x,y,z,t)=∫∫∫∫ o(x’,y’,z’,t’) r(x,y,z,t,x’,y’,z’,t’) dx’dy’dz’dt’
Notice the functional dependance of the response, r"
The images that we form, i, are not only visual, but also auditory, gustatory, olfactory, kinesthetic, sensual, judgements, evaluations and other imprints -- all of which can be understood through quantum mechanics.
I hope this helps, Mehrdad.http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/championing-your-well-being-thomas-padikal/1113769191?ean=9781452562063Championing Your Well-Being: Lessons and Practices of the Most Unwavering Quantum Biology Practitioners and Intuits
Available in: NOOK Book (eBook), Paperback, Hardcover. While quantum biology is fraught with the strangeness of quantum mechanics and the complexities of biology, this introductory book is made comprehensible-and a fascinating read-by transforming it into
@ Thomas Padikal
Thank you Thomas. It was great.
I think the answer is No. I cannot think of an impingement of microphysics (by some orders of magnitude) into the realm of biological information systems burnt in the toughest selection process we know - the evolution. A physicist said: 'A good knowledge of quarks does not help in predicting the weather'. So I would say, quantum physics albeit an elementary phenomenon of matter cannot 'jump' just like that into the information systems. According to Norbert Wiener, information is a dimension of its own, it is not matter, it is information. There is basically no difference whether information uses synapses or transmitters (biological systems) or transistors or semiconductors (technical systems, computers) information is information ... I know Stuart Hameroff from the Lucerne Symposia. So the term Quantum Consciousness is a thing that does not exist. A spouky phenomenon Einstein would call it: The quanta do not have consciousness and consciousness has nothing to do with Max Planck's quanta. You must not mix pears and apples. And information systems are a world of their own. Best wishes Yours Lüder Deecke, Vienna- @ Luder Deecke.
Thank You Luder.
I would never say NO to my and others imaginations! even if they seem some how not existing! (I always try to live inside the reality!!! If I understand what is reality actually) But it is always very helpful to hear total opposite ideas. It really helps. Thank you a lot. 
Absolutely, yes.
Read Evan Harris Walker's 'The Physics of Consciousness' for a primer - level exposition (I particularly like its quantum calculation of how long a cup of coffee will keep you awake)- The essence of the way quantum information works in the brain is in the way synapses "fire". Because of quantum effects, the "firing" does not necessarily involve the facing receptor but may involve either another synapse's receptor (not directly facing the donor synapse), or may involve simultaneously a group of synapses, thereby leading to manifold firing configurations.
This leads to a host of consequences which multiply almost infinitely the brain's capacity to process information, and even to store information. This phenomenon has been well established in the relevant literature and is made possible by the spatial spread of the participator particles' quantum wavefunctions. - Dear Mehrdad! Thank you. More of this can be found in a book that recently appeared in the USA. Authors: Hans Helmut Kornhuber and Lüder Deecke Title: The will and its brain: an appraisal of reasoned free will. Publisher University Press of America (UPA) Lanham, Maryland. ISBN 978-0-7618-5862-1 Available with the book stores, with amazon or directly with UPA Best regards. Yours Lüder Deecke
- Matus, reality is that the brain is the ultimate quantum machine. If it were not - if it were, say, a purely 'classical' biochemical machine - the number of possible brain states would then be so severely constrained that we'd most likely be worse than retarded - we'd be little more than automatons.
- @ Matus Dubecky & Joachim Pimiskern
Thank you very much. - Having read the threads, I recommend "CHAMPIONING YOUR WELL-BEING" published by Balboa Press and available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other retailers. It lays a Quantum Biological foundation for non practitioners. I am a practicing quantum biologist in vivo.
Brain is a highly complex, inhomogeneous space where information is being processed. It is obviously true that quantum entanglement in this n-dimensional space (like the Hilbert space) makes the brain dynamics 'non-linear'. Solution of information in the form of wave-function in any non-linear dynamical picture (appropriate one could be 'interaction picture') may answer many unknowns of brain functionalities.
- Again I can only say that information is information and not matter (Norbert Wiener). And again I say that it does not make a diffrence whether this information is running over transistors / semiconductors or via neurons and synapses. Information is information, it is floating on matter... superimposed on matter may be a better word. So I do not see how it can be subject of 'quantum entanglement' and whether words such as linear or non-liearities are of any importance. I simply do not see how quantum physics should 'impinge' into the brain. But I am a physician not a physicist. Lüder Deecke. Vienna
- Information becomes a noise without a way to decode it. Remember for example the complexity of "reading information" process with DNA in a living cell; here the chemical environment should be considered as "the way to decode". Maybe for this reason, the physics uses "energy" and "matter" categories but doesn't use "information". With the full respect to Norbert Wiener, information cannot be separated from its material carrier and does not represent any new entity.
The information flow over transistors and over neurons is cardinally different in the aspect of allowed errors, or, more exactly, in reproducibility of results. To illustrate the difference, try to exactly reproduce your single thought during few seconds; then try to switch off and on your computer twice.
If we deny the brain a quantum computer property, then we should be ready to quantitatively predict the brain activity via either a fully deterministic scheme like classical mechanics or a statistical treatment like statistical thermodynamics. It seems incompatible with any of "free will" and "a god" concepts. 
May I suggest our publications listed in my profile?- Very interesting papers Elio. Together with, amongst others, Roger Penrose's and Evan Harris Walker's works , it amounts to a considerable body of study.
- Let me suggest reading my paper "On the possibility that we think in a quantum probabilistic manner" . In my opinion it is important to outline the role of quantum tunneling in synaptic conjunction as Walker , Eccles and Beck previously evidenced .. Walker results, in particular, give also important agreement between experimental and theoretical data. Researchers often outline the impossibility of a quantum mechanical role in brain dynamics since a macroscopic system and the impossibility in principle to survive for quantum mechanical superposition of states. In the last few years many articles have been published on entanglement swapping, mostly for applications in computers. The conventional type of entanglement swapping is shown in Figure 1. See the important link::
http://www.chronos.msu.ru/RREPORTS/inter_quantum.pdf
Figure 1 – Entanglement swapping between two entangled pairs of particles. (After
reference 7).
The theory shows that if a measurement is made simultaneously on element (B) and (D) of the entangled pairs (A) (B) and (C) (D), the entanglement on pairs (A) (B) and (C) (D) collapses, but the elements (A) and (C) become entangled although they have never been in contact before.
Figure 2 – Entanglement swapping between two entangled gamma and two
electrons.
In the case reported here, Figure 2 schematically shows two entangled gamma (0)
and (1), interacting simultaneously with two electrons (2) and (3) in a crystal. It will
cause the entanglement of the electrons (2) and (3) and the entanglement collapse between (0) and (1). These entangled electrons are then captured in the crystal traps and may stay as such in the traps for months or years at ambient temperature.. I strongly suggest to read the literature attached to the mentioned paper .
Finally. Also the noise may have an important role and , as you know, brain dynamics is dominated from a large noise component. Also the current tendency in literature is to acknowledge ubiquitous quantum structures. - I do not see the problem in a so simple manner. Biochemistry, also if regulated from processes that after all are connected to quantum mechanics , is not sufficient by itself as basic statement to support a role of quantum mechanics in brain dynamics.
In my opinion such arguments seem to recall a kind of reductionism that appears difficult to be still accepted. Brain is a macroscopic system but mind and consciousness coexist . The problem moves in the direction of an holistic approach.
A question thus arises. Have we the physics to approachh a so complex question?
Quantum mechanics certainly has a role !!!! Not for that particular biochemical process that is regulated from this physical theory but because quantum mechanics has conceptual foundations and formal elaborations that give support , a very strong support, to the holistic vision of a coexisting matter-mind entities . Quantum mechanics has three basic and fundamental features: quantization, intrinsic and irreducible indetermination, quantum interference. Von Neumann in 1936 showed that logic may be derived from quantum mechanics. We have shown that such demonstration may be inverted. Quantum mechanics may be derived from logic.We have logical origins of quantum mechanics. Matter and cognition thus coexist in such system. There are stages of our reality in which we no more may consider matter per se , independently from the cognition that we have about it. This is a basic feature about the logical origin of quantum mechanics. This theory delineates a structure of quantum reality in which cognition and matter coexist as in God Giano two faces. This is the reason because quantum mechanics is so important in brain studies.By it we delineate quantum reality structures in which we finally appreciate both coexisting cognition (mind-consciousness)-matter.This is a turning point in understanding our mind existing entities and their representation. - @ Elio Conte Thank you very much.
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