**10. Prophiciency of the physical approach to quantum information science in dealing with "consciousness," "freewill"and biological questions**

In Part 2, we considered the physical approach to Quantum Information Science by characterizing "information" in physical terms and found it vialable. A complete physical approach to quantum information requires a robust interface among microwave photons, long-lifetime memory, and computational qubits.

It might appear to be perplexing that this physical approach to Quantum Information Science is equally proficient in dealing with "consciousness," "freewill" and biological questions in the area known as "bioinformatics."

#### **10.1 Consciousness, quantum physics and quantum information science**

One of the first processes based on which consciousness and quantum physics come together is through the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. The central ideas of the Copenhagen interpretation were developed by a core group of quantum physics pioneers, centered around Niels Bohr's Copenhagen Institute in the 1920s.

According to this theory, the quantum wave function collapses due to a **conscious observer** making a measurement of a physical system. This is the interpretation of quantum physics that provoked the Schrödinger's cat thought-experiment, demonstrating some level of the absurdity of thinking that the same cat could be both alive and dead (i.e. two opposite states occurring at the same time and because of such phenomena as superposition and entanglement). Nevertheless, the claim that the quantum wave function collapses due to a **conscious observer** making a measurement of a physical system does completely match the evidence of what scientists observe at the quantum level.

This is one of the reasons why the research into consciousness forged ahead in Quantum Physics and Quantum Information Science and attempts in **understanding of human consciousness** in terms of some **physical theory**, in this case Quantum Mechanics, came to the fore.

#### *10.1.1 Roger Penrose*

Sir Roger Penrose is an English mathematical physicist, mathematician, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics, delved deep into at least three areas in mathematical physics: gravitational radiation, the gravitational collapse of matter in the form black holes and lastly, the modeling of the universe. He touched on many subjects, such as quantum gravity, twistor theory, a new cosmology of the cosmos. However, a scientist of such repute with the vast knowledge of fundamental areas of modern physics also saw the impact and the essential role a physical theory, such as **quantum mechanics**, plays in **the understanding of human consciousness**.

The idea of using quantum physics to explain human consciousness really caught genuine interest with Roger Penrose's 1989 book, **"The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics,"** [25]. One of Penrose's motivation to write the book was to respond to the claim of the old school of artificial intelligence researchers, who believed that the brain is capable of being modeled by "Universal Turing machine" of Alan Turing as well as the digital computers.

According to Penrose consciousness **is not** computational and **is** nonalgorithmic. It is little more than a biological computer. Hence, Penrose made a distinction between his study of consciousness from any potential exploration of consciousness in artificial intelligence. In this book, Penrose argues that the brain is far more sophisticated than what the AI researchers would have us believe. The main difference is that that the brain does not operate on a strictly binary system of on and off. Instead, the human brain works with computations that are in a

superposition of different quantum states at the same time. Moreover, to understand consciousness, one needs to revolutionize our understanding of the physical world.

In the initial part of the book Penrose provides a summary of Classical and Quantum Physics and argues that the physical modeling of the "real world" - from Newtonian mechanics over Einstein's relativity theory up to supersymmetry - is carried out in this Physics. However, simulation of the mind will only be possible if we understand how the missing piece of gravity radiation can be consistently included in the standard model of physics.

In the last two chapters of the book Penrose takes up his initial primary problem of modeling the human mind. To begin with Penrose gives a biophysical description of the brain and what is known about its centers and how it works. At this stage Penrose does not give a precise definition of consciousness because it is seemingly impossible. To illustrate this let us take the example of a brain, which seems to be able to register things, even when the person is **'unconscious,'** e.g. during the person undergoing an operation. We may indirectly characterize that the person's consciousness is linked to, for example, common sense judgment of truth, understanding, and artistic appraisal, whereas this is exactly opposite to automatic and algorithmic behavior. Penrose says:

*" … neither classical nor quantum mechanics [ … ] can ever explain the way in which we think;" but "a plausible case can be made that there is a non-algorithmic ingredient to conscious thought processes" ([25], p. 521) and noncomputability is a feature of our conscious thinking.*

Penrose thinks that current computers will never have intelligence because of they operate under algorithmic deterministic system.

This idea is partly inspired by Penrose's experience as a mathematician and rests on **Gödel's Incompleteness theorems**. Mathematicians can know the truth of a proposition by 'insight.' The Gödel Incompleteness Theorems claim that there are **propositions that cannot be proved**. This indicates that Gödel never lost sight of the importance of human mind, which has a 'non-mechanical' and a noncomputational character. "Moreover, **human beings have the ability to "see"and grasp "'truths' without proof"and have visions and intuitions in creating new knowledge and a new way of looking at things**.**"** [23]. In Mathematics there are, Gupta Amitabha [23, 26], at least two examples of "Mathematical Conjectures" which have been taken to be **True without any Proof**: (a) Goldbach's Conjecture (1742), which claims that every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes, and (b) Cantor's Continuuam Hypothesis (1878), which asserts that that there is no set whose cardinality is strictly between that of the integers and the real numbers.

In the last two chapters, the main concern has been as to what philosophers call the "mind–body problem". Penrose discusses the computational procedures and the noncomputational activity he assigned to the processes of consciousness, and second, he takes recourse to yet-to-be-discovered quantum-level effects to explain consciousness.

The first book of Penrose has a follow-up book, Penrose Roger [27] *Shadows of the Mind*: *A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness* In this book Penrose gives examples of scientists who, by a spark of inspiration came up with a superb result, while they were not `working' on the subject following algorithmic rules. Penrose's Gödelian argument shows that humans minds are non-computable and he attempts to infer a number of claims involving consciousness and physics and ascribes consciousness to the actual physical makeup of the brain.

According to quantum mechanics, a particle can have states in which it occupies several positions at once. When we treat a system according to quantum mechanics, we have to allow for these so-called **superpositions** of alternatives. This was taken up by Penrose and he argues that these ingredients formed the basis of his follow-up book, *Shadows of the Mind*. Penrose draws from research into the molecular structures in the brain and finds suggestions of quantum-level activity that may be influencing the processing of information in the brain. Penrose found some ten thousand tubulin dimers, formed together into sheaths called **microtubules**, collections of which make up the cytoskeletons that can be thought of as the neuron's nervous system.

Penrose's collaborator, a psychologist, Stuart Hameroff also suggested that there is some biological analog of quantum computing in the brain that involves **microtubules** within the neurons. This idea is further developed into the so called **Orchestrated objective reduction (Orch-OR) theory**. The biological theory of mind, viz. Orch OR postulates that **consciousness originates at the quantum level inside neurons**. Instead, the conventional view is based on the idea that consciousness is a product of connections between neurons. This traditional view of consciousness relies on a mechanism of quantum process, called objective reduction.

Penrose–Hameroff theory of evolution that has made our brain the way it is and the advantage it brings to the creatures able of conscious thinking is that

*" … neither classical nor quantum mechanics [ … ] can ever explain the way in which we think" but "a plausible case can be made that there is a non-algorithmic ingredient to conscious thought processes" ([27], p. 521), which is explained by the Orch-OR theory.*

#### **10.2 'Free will' and quantum information science**

The significance of 'free will' in quantum tests, to find a quantum perspective on "free will" leads to the issue of **conscious "free will,"** although consciousness as a causal agency or the brain mechanisms causing consciousness are unknown, and the scientific basis for consciousness, and "self," and a mechanism by which conscious agency may act in the brain to exert causal effects in the world is also unknown.

However, brain's electrical activity correlating with conscious perception of a stimulus, apparently shows that it can occur *after* we respond to that stimulus, seemingly consciously. Based on this, some scientific and philosophical traditions conclude that we act non-consciously and have subsequent false memories of conscious action. This is the reason why they cast consciousness as a epiphenomenal and illusory phenomena (e.g., Daniel C. Dennett [28], *Consciousness Explained*; Wiener Norbert [20]).

Today, there is little doubt that our *volitional ability* represents the highest form of control of any mechanism or organism. After observing fantastically complex abilities of animals, such as awareness, cognition, learning, and motor control, some researchers came to the conclusion that they are the products of the mechanistic operation of their brains. It is claimed that these "mental" abilities emerge from the specific interaction between neurons, molecules, and atoms. In order to justify this, ample evidences have been gathered by evolutionary biologists, developmental psychologists and computer scientists. In addition to this, there are indications that these interactions are entirely subject to the known laws of physics and chemistry. It has almost been accepted by modern scientists and has become an established truth that, in time, machines will have all the competence and functionalities of animals.

I spite of these developments, a group of practitioners of science and technology strongly believe that while all the wonderful abilities of some animals, including consciousness and goal-directed behavior, are indeed the result of mechanistic

### *Some Foundational Issues in Quantum Information Science DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98769*

processes, there is no way human consciousness and choice (and possibly that of some of the higher animals) can simply be the result of an essentially Newtonian physics.

If scientists are able to **genetically modify** chimpanzees so that they are endowed with such human abilities as human language ability, intelligence, and freewill, then these developments and augmentations would completely remove the fiction of the immaterial human mind and the soul. As a matter of fact these experiments need not be carried out at all, since we already have enough data in the form of healthy babies and also brain-damaged adults. They operate pretty much at the level of the higher animals. However, this similarity may not provide an irrefutable argument, yet they strongly suggest that additional neuronal circuits and connections are responsible and required for our extra capabilities. Research by the developmental and pathological psychologists and correlation between DNA and cognitive ability also provide overwhelming and convincing evidence in favor of a **naturalistic account** of consciousness and freewill

### *10.2.1 Quantum indeterminacy and free will*

The idea of **quantum indeterminacy** (the fact that a quantum system can never predict an outcome with certainty, but only as a probability from among the various possible states) have been put forth by some proponents of quantum consciousness. This view amounts to claiming that quantum consciousness resolves the problem of whether or not humans actually have free will. The argument for this is as follows: if human consciousness is *governed by quantum physical processes*, then it is not deterministic, and humans, therefore, have free will.
