This new knowledge of quantum fractals could provide the foundations for scientists to experimentally test the theory of quantum consciousness. Specifically, we found that the spread of light across a fractal is governed by different laws in the quantum case compared to the classical case. Our observations from these experiments reveal that quantum fractals actually behave in a different way to classical ones. We also conducted experiments on a square-shaped fractal called the Sierpiński carpet. In this case, the pattern we used on the quantum scale was the Sierpiński triangle, which is a shape that’s somewhere between one-dimensional and two-dimensional. When we then measured the wave function of the electrons, which describes their quantum state, we found that they too lived at the fractal dimension dictated by the physical pattern we’d made. In recent research involving a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM), my colleagues at Utrecht and I carefully arranged electrons in a fractal pattern, creating a quantum fractal. But advanced technology means we can now measure quantum fractals in the lab. We’re not yet able to measure the behaviour of quantum fractals in the brain – if they exist at all. That’s why Penrose and Hameroff’s proposal is called a theory of “quantum consciousness”. Because they’re infinitely intricate, allowing complexity to emerge from simple repeated patterns, they could be the structures that support the mysterious depths of our minds.īut if this is the case, it could only be happening on the quantum level, with tiny particles moving in fractal patterns within the brain’s neurons. It’s easy to see why fractals have been used to explain the complexity of human consciousness. This extension of Escher’s Circle Limit III shows its fractal, repeating nature. In mathematics, fractals emerge as beautiful patterns that repeat themselves infinitely, generating what is seemingly impossible: a structure that has a finite area, but an infinite perimeter. The Penrose-Hameroff theory of quantum consciousness argues that microtubules are structured in a fractal pattern which would enable quantum processes to occur.įractals are structures that are neither two-dimensional nor three-dimensional, but are instead some fractional value in between. Each neuron contains microtubules, which transport substances to different parts of the cell. Our brains are composed of cells called neurons, and their combined activity is believed to generate consciousness. If our findings can one day be compared with activity measured in the brain, we may come one step closer to validating or dismissing Penrose and Hameroff’s controversial theory. In our new paper, we’ve investigated how quantum particles could move in a complex structure like the brain – but in a lab setting. Instead of entering into this debate, I decided to join forces with colleagues from China, led by Professor Xian-Min Jin at Shanghai Jiaotong University, to test some of the principles underpinning the quantum theory of consciousness. For this reason, the quantum consciousness theory has been dismissed outright by many scientists – though others are persuaded supporters. Since our body works at room temperature, you would expect it to be governed by the classical laws of physics. At higher temperatures, classical mechanics takes over. Quantum computers, for example, currently operate at around -272☌. Quantum mechanical laws are usually only found to apply at very low temperatures. Penrose and Hameroff were met with incredulity.
This, they argue, could explain the mysterious complexity of human consciousness. They claimed that the brain’s neuronal system forms an intricate network and that the consciousness this produces should obey the rules of quantum mechanics – the theory that determines how tiny particles like electrons move around. In the 1990s, long before winning the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for his prediction of black holes, physicist Roger Penrose teamed up with anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff to propose an ambitious answer. One of the most important open questions in science is how our consciousness is established.
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