CONSCIOUSNESS

2. Neuroscience 107
collaboration between the hemispheres and in therapeutic or creative dyads produces both
presence and poetry. What was absent from Jaynes and Persinger was the role of childhood
trauma in dissociation. Yet, 19th-century pioneers in psychology had already discovered the
traumatic origins of dissociation. Recent scientific research is showing how genetic predisposition
plus trauma cause dissociation along with observable changes in the brain. EEG
and PET scans have demonstrated that distinct neural networks lie at the base of dissociative
states, with differences as striking as blindness versus sight. Neuropsychologist and attachment
theorist Allan Schore points to the role of the right hemisphere in developing a core
sense of self through the mother-infant bond and dividing it in response to childhood trauma
and later stressors. Analysts from the nineteenth through the twenty-first century have witnessed
frequent paranormal claims, such as telepathy, in mediums and dissociative patients.
Case studies point to the role of an empathic therapeutic matrix where unconscious transfers
of information occur and imaginative constructs both heal the patient and change the therapist’s
own beliefs. C20
2.8 Anesthesia
2.9 Cellular and sub-neural processes
133 The Hypersite Model of Electrofractal Consciousness and the Search for “Bright
Matter” Erhard Bieberich (Institute of Molecular Medicine,
Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, GA)
Consciousness research has focused on defining the physiological substrate of consciousness.
However, defining this substrate may not distinguish between the physiological substance
generating consciousness and the substance that is conscious. While it is reasonable
to assume that these substances are similar, conscious or “bright matter” must have additional
features that distinguish it from a non-conscious physiological substance. Bright matter
emerges as a physical substance mediating information sharing between cells and molecules.
In this study, the location of consciousness will be defined as a hypersite, a biological entity
that encompasses the physiological substrate of consciousness and the bright matter emerging
from it. The hypersite can be formed by an ensemble of molecules within a single neuron,
but may also stretch over cells such as a cortical column of neurons or a neural network.
The amount of shared information will determine the spatial extension and duration of the
hypersite, which will eventually become self-aware. In this study, we will discuss how information
can be shared in such a way that a short-lived molecular hypersite with primitive
proto-consciousness extends to an ensemble of neurons with continuous self-awareness. Instrumental
to this type of information sharing is the fractal topology of bright matter and its
programming by a neural network with equivalent topology. We will also discuss overlapping
electron orbitals in membrane lipids and microtubules as candidate substrate for bright matter
(“electrofractal consciousness”). Finally, we will discuss how bright matter can be generated
in an artificial device and how its presence can be detected. C3
134 Clarifying the Qubit - Response to recent attack against Penrose-Hameroff
ORCH OR Stuart Hameroff (Anesthesiology, Psychol., CCS,
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ)
INTRODUCTION The Penrose-Hameroff orchestrated objective reduction (Orch OR)
theory postulates quantum computation in microtubules (MTs) inside brain neurons as an
explanation for consciousness. Orch OR has been attacked by McKemmish et al (Phys Rev
E, 80:021912, 2009) who assert Orch OR in MTs is biologically unfeasible, and unsalvageable.
BACKGROUND MTs are cylindrical lattices of peanut-shaped tubulin proteins. The
basic Orch OR idea is that discrete MT tubulin states act as information bits and quantum
bits (qubits) in MT computers inside brain neurons. Orch OR suggests MT tubulin qubits
switch coherently and compute by entanglement with other tubulins, performing quantum
computations which self-collapse by Penrose objective reduction. SPECIFIC CRITICISM
OF ORCH OR McKemmish et al focus on switching between discrete tubulin bit and qubit