Stuart Hameroff

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Stuart Hameroff at a conference in 2008.

Stuart Hameroff (born July 16, 1947 ) is a doctor and professor emeritus at the University of Arizona . He is known for his theses on consciousness , which he developed together with the English physicist Roger Penrose .

life and career

Stuart Hameroff studied at the University of Pittsburgh , and then at Hahnemann University Hospital, where he graduated with an MD . Since 1975 he has been teaching and researching at the University of Arizona, where he is both Professor in the Department of Anaesthesiology and Psychology and Deputy Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies . He has been retired since 2003.

Quantum Consciousness Theses

In the 1990s, Stuart Hameroff suggested that elements of the cytoskeleton , the so-called microtubules , be used by cells to process information . He argued that especially in the nervous system, the microtubules are the basic unit of information processing and not the nerve cells themselves. He concretized this idea more and more in the following years, including the work of Roger Penrose .

Roger Penrose's hypothesis is that the brain performs functions that no finite algorithm can perform and that some thought processes are fundamentally non-algorithmic. This means that such functions cannot be modeled on a Turing machine . The missing ingredient to physically realize these non-algorithmic calculations is essentially a quantum mechanical effect, currently still unknown in detail , in particular a form of the deterministic collapse of the wave function , which he calls Objective Reduction (OR), and which is based on the interpretation he developed based on quantum gravity . Roger Penrose developed these ideas without a specific suggestion as to where these hypothetical processes are located. Stuart Hameroff added to these theories that microtubules could be the places in the brain where quantum mechanisms work. Both together formalized their idea as the Orchestrated Objective Reduction Model of Consciousness.

criticism

Stuart Hameroff's ideas have been heavily criticized by neuroscientists such as Christof Koch , as well as by physicists such as Lawrence Krauss and Max Tegmark and philosophers such as Thomas Metzinger , Rick Grush and Patricia Churchland . Stuart Hameroff responded to some of these criticisms, but there is no physical evidence that quantum states play any role in information processing in the brain.

However, he also receives support for his theory from various natural scientists, for example from the physicists Hans-Peter Dürr and Amit Goswami and the chemist Rolf Froböse .

Effect on the public

Hameroff spoke in the documentary What the Bleep do we (k) now !? (2004). He is also the producer, developer, and scientific advisor on the film Mindville .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ University of Arizona online résumé
  2. ↑ The website of the Center for Consciousness Studies
  3. ^ Hameroff, Stuart (1987) Ultimate Computing, Elsevier ISBN 978-0444702838
  4. ^ Penrose, Roger (1989) The Emperor's New Mind Oxford University Press
  5. ^ Penrose, Roger (1994) Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness Oxford University Press
  6. ↑ S. Hameroff: Quantum Computation in Brain Microtubules? The Penrose-Hameroff 'Orch OR' Model of Consciousness In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. Volume 356, Number 1743, August 1998, pp. 1869-1896
  7. ↑ SR Hameroff: `` Funda-Mentality ': is the conscious mind subtly linked to a basic level of the universe? In: Trends in cognitive sciences. Volume 2, Number 4, April 1998, pp. 119-124, PMID 21227102 .
  8. ^ A b S. Hameroff, R. Penrose: Consciousness in the universe: a review of the 'Orch OR' theory. In: Physics of life reviews. Volume 11, number 1, March 2014, pp. 39-78, doi : 10.1016 / j.plrev.2013.08.002 , PMID 24070914 (review).
  9. ^ S. Hameroff: How quantum brain biology can rescue conscious free will. In: Frontiers in integrative neuroscience. Volume 6, 2012, p. 93, doi : 10.3389 / fnint.2012.00093 , PMID 23091452 , PMC 3470100 (free full text).
  10. ↑ M. Tegmark: Importance of quantum decoherence in brain processes. In: Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics. Volume 61, Number 4 Pt B, April 2000, pp. 4194-4206, PMID 11088215 .
  11. ↑ Grush, Rick & Churchland, Patricia (1995) "Gap's in Penrose's Toilings," Journal of Consciousness Studies , 2 (1), pp. 10-29
  12. ↑ S. Hagan, SR Hameroff, JA Tuszyński: Quantum computation in brain microtubules: decoherence and biological feasibility. In: Physical review. E, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics. Volume 65, number 6 Pt 1, June 2002, p. 061901, doi : 10.1103 / PhysRevE.65.061901 , PMID 12188753 .
  13. ↑ [1] , last seen on May 3, 2020.
  14. ↑ The soul also exists after death , last seen on May 3, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Hameroff, Stuart
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American doctor and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1947