To enter the world of quantum mechanics is to accept from the beginning that we are dealing with a matter that is very difficult to understand. Formulated to explain the world of the very small – subatomic particles that we neither see nor, let’s be honest, we understand well – this discipline of physics resorts to extremely convoluted mathematical formalisms that, at times, describe phenomena that do not seem to have logic. As a consequence, it is a field in which all kinds of magufadas, new age theories, alternative therapies, pseudomedicines and delusional explanations for all kinds of portents thrive whose functioning still eludes us.
For this reason, when we discover that there are neurobiologists and psychologists who try to explain human consciousness – one of the great mysteries of science – from different types of quantum interactions, it is normal for all the alarms to go off.
The last decade, in particular, has not been easy for psychology. Accused of a lack of scientific rigor and with an immeasurable number of studies that are impossible to reproduce – an indispensable condition for credibility – this discipline has suffered. And even so, an increasingly large group of researchers is convinced that we can only explain what goes through our heads if we “go down to the quantum world.”
A revolutionary approach
For these experts, the least of our thoughts, the reasoning behind a decision-making, the associations of ideas that allow us to interpret the world around us, the reflections that populate our mind and even the imagination are processes that do not fit. to the principles of classical logic, but are quantum in nature. If true, such an approach could revolutionize all science and human knowledge, from economics to sociology.
It is not the first time that a discipline outside of physics has flirted with this issue. In the 80s of the last century, the famous British cosmologist Roger Penrose – which we will talk about later – already postulated that our brain behaves like a quantum computer. Psychologists, however, do not focus so much on the possible neurophysiological bases of this phenomenon.
Jerome Busemeyer, one of the pioneers in this field from Indiana University Bloomington (USA), is exhaustive in this regard: “We do not claim that the brain is a quantum computer; In reality, what we do is use quantum processes to describe cognitive phenomena, ”he says. In other words, and as this same expert in mathematical psychology from Indiana University (USA) explained to the journal Science & Vie, when we talk about quantum psychology we are not referring to the biological functioning of neurons , but to the way in which our brain processes information to, ultimately, build thoughts.
But what is it that differentiates this novel approach from the more conventional positions? Let’s illustrate it with an example. We are in a restaurant and the waiter asks us to choose between having water or wine. According to classical psychology, our opinion on the subject is perfectly defined at all times, even if we are faced with a dilemma and we are not sure what we want to drink. Making a decision depends only on defining our preference in this regard.
However, according to quantum psychology, in our brain there is no single answer to the question, but they all occur at the same time – a superposition of states. That is, we are attracted to water and seriously tempted by wine –even if we have to drive–, to exactly the same extent; we vacillate perfectly between the two. Confused? It is not for less.
In fact, there are researchers who argue that only quantum mechanics can explain the complexity of the human mind and that only by taking it into account can certain experimental results be clarified that otherwise would not make sense. There are many trials in which our brain seems to defy classical logic, and their number increases as more experts take an interest in this field. One of them, carried out in the 90s, consists of a game of dice. In it, the players are told that they have a 50% chance of winning 200 euros and a 50% chance of losing 100. The dice are rolled and the participants are asked if they want to play again, although only some people are reports the result of your first roll.
Well, about 70% of those who had been told that they had won the first time decided to repeat. 60% of the individuals who had been told that they had lost also wanted to do it again. Only 35% of those who were not told anything did. By classical logic, this last percentage should have been the average of the first two, but it is not. For experts, these results are consistent with quantum methodology.
As the psychologist Peter Bruza, from the Queensland University of Technology (Australia) explains in the pages of Science & Vie , “the participant who does not know if he has won is in a state of overlap. It may have been imposed the first time or it may have lost. An interference term is added to the classical probabilities, which modifies your decision and fits perfectly with the experimental results [in quantum theory, the concept of interference means that particles are found in several places at the same time, up to the to the point that they can cross their own path and obstruct it] ”.
Another experiment designed by the aforementioned Busemeyer together with psychologists Timothy Pleskac and Peter Kvam points in the same direction, which is known as the moving points test. This consists of observing some points on a screen. Most move randomly and a small percentage are programmed to do the same. Volunteers are instructed to decide whether to move further to the right or left and to assess their degree of certainty; some are asked for their opinion in the middle of the test.
The result, published in the journal Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) , shows that out of nine people who participated in 25,000 trials, those who were forced to make a decision mid-trial had less confidence in their judgment than the others.
For those responsible for the test, this data shows that our opinions are not always in a well-defined state –as established by the classical model–, but that they are in superposition and that they are reduced to a single one during the decision-making process. In this way, when this takes place in the middle of the experiment, the response is transformed, which affects the final result.
Overlapping states of mind
According to the quantum model, those who have not been forced to choose somewhere in between tend to make decisions more clearly; that is, the aforementioned intermediate choice interferes with the subsequent judgment. For experts, the essay also shows that we live in overlapping states of mind.
But, in addition to overlapping, can our thoughts intertwine, just like particles in the quantum world? To study whether this peculiarity manifests itself in our minds, the so-called mushroom test was devised. In essence, this consists of answering three seemingly simple questions: Is a mushroom a fruit? Is it a vegetable? or is it a fruit or a vegetable?
Results obtained in the 1980s by psychologist James Hampton revealed that no one considered the mushroom to be a fruit. One in two respondents, however, answered that it was a vegetable, but 90% indicated that “it was a fruit or a vegetable.” In other words, the vast majority considered that it should be one of those two things, a result that, according to Diederik Aerts, theoretical physicist at the Free University of Brussels (Belgium), reveals that our thoughts can become intertwined: in the face of ambiguity, the category “ fruits or vegetables ”is not reduced to the sum of its two subcategories.
What is probably the oldest experiment in which quantum mechanics has been attempted is based on the so-called Necker cube. The Swiss crystallographer and geographer Louis Albert Necker showed this optical illusion in 1832. As its name indicates, it is a cube, drawn with linear lines, but in a very peculiar way: the observer can determine that its front side is the upper side. right, but also the lower left side. It is an ambiguous figure that, according to quantum psychologists, it is possible to interpret alternately in one way or another, a sample of what is known as bistable perception.
This concept, proposed by Harald Atmanspacher, from the Federal Polytechnic School of Zurich (Switzerland) and Thomas Filk, from the University of Freiburg (Germany), basically points out that perception is an oscillation between two unstable states, a well-dynamic system. known to quantum physicists. According to these scientists, it is even possible to deduce the speed at which each state of the cube is captured – thirty milliseconds – and the period in which perception oscillates – three seconds.
Another phenomenon that seems to have quantum foundations is our sense of humor, a subject in which very complex cognitive processes occur for which it is also very difficult to create models. In fact, it is one of the most flexible capacities of the human mind. However, according to an experiment carried out by Liane Gabora and Kirsty Kitto, from the Universities of British Columbia, in Canada, and Technological one from Queensland, in Australia, respectively, the foundations of humor are held in mathematical formulas of quantum theory.
Take, for example, this phrase in English: “Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like bananas ”. In Castilian, it is translated like this: “Time flies like an arrow; the fruit fly likes bananas ”. This saying, famous for English-speaking psychologists who study our wit, perfectly represents an intrinsic characteristic of humor: the aforementioned ambiguity.
The point is that the words flies and like have two different meanings. Flies can mean ‘fly’ and ‘fly’; It is also possible to understand like as ‘like’ and as ‘as’. Therefore, they conflict in the mind of the reader, a phenomenon that, according to experts, is the key to humor.
Separately, the previous two sentences are not funny. They only acquire the characteristics of a joke when the meaning of the first collides with that of the second. In this case, the brain first assimilates that time flies (flies) like (like) an arrow. Then, when reading the second sentence, he falls into a wrong reading, until he suddenly assimilates that fruit flies like bananas.
For the authors of this study, the conflict necessary for humor to emerge forces the brain to contemplate both meanings of the second sentence at the same time. That is, it must be in a state of quantum superposition.
In the same way that a superposition between particles collapses when it is measured and the object in question acquires a single position, the fact of understanding a joke is due to the fact that the brain chooses one of the possible interpretations of the phrase, which solves the conflict.
This kind of dual thinking is compatible with the mathematical formalisms of the physics of the very small, but could our thinking organ really be a true quantum computer? What are the neural bases that would allow it to function as one of those devices?
It has been more than thirty years since Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff presented their quantum theory of consciousness. For Penrose and his colleague, a psychologist at the University of Arizona (USA), tiny units of the cell cytoskeleton known as microtubules would act as channels for the transfer of quantum information. They would, therefore, be responsible for human consciousness manifesting.
Despite the complex calculations developed by Penrose to support this hypothesis, it lacks credible evidence to support it, and the scientific community has considered it highly speculative.
However, over the last decades, each time the implication of quantum phenomena in living systems is discovered – something that happens in photosynthesis, the functioning of enzymes, smell or the biological orientation system used by certain species of birds on their migrations – someone remembers to mention Penrose and Hameroff’s proposal.
Far from thinking that their work had something to do with all this, a group of researchers, including the Spanish scientist David López, from the University of Warsaw (Poland), came across what could be considered the first test of the existence of quantum phenomena in the human brain.
López and his colleagues wanted to study the noise that occurs in our thinking organ at rest –an innate characteristic of it–, which disappears when neuronal connections are activated. “Measuring noise can be used to effectively quantify how different areas of the brain are activated or clean the signal of an MRI, for example,” he tells us when we ask him about the usefulness of his experiments.
While working with a small area of the brain, the scientists found a signal that, surprisingly, looked a lot like an EKG. “We detected a peak for each beat, but we could not explain the observations using classical physics,” explains López.
At this point, the experts thought they would have to enter the complex world of quantum. “We were very clear that we were dealing with a signal that measured the interaction of brain activity at rest with the input of the cardiac signal, and that a quantum point of view was necessary to explain it,” says the researcher. He tells us that things got even more interesting when they compared the results observed in a group of people over the age of sixty-five and in another group of younger individuals, between eighteen and thirty. “That relationship between the brain and the cardiac signal, which we saw in the latter, disappeared with age,” he explains. “However, it is true that both at the cardiac and cerebral level there is a decline, and that can affect this interaction,” says López.
Everything was rushed when the team discovered that one of the volunteers had fallen asleep in the middle of the test. “When we analyzed the data from the scanner of that particular person, we saw that at the beginning there was a perfectly synchronous and clearly cardiac signal, but as the test progressed it disappeared, only to reappear at the end,” he tells us. From there we got the idea that it can be a sensitive signal to changes in consciousness ”. And he adds: “ In a state of alert, that is, while we remain awake, both the heart and the brain must act in a coordinated way. But when that state changes and we enter a sleep phase, the synchrony is broken and the signal varies and becomes louder. We analyze all the possible options when explaining these results and, for us, the only thing that makes sense is that we are talking about quantum coherence. If that object that we want to measure – in our case, the signal that we obtain and relate to consciousness – is separated into several waves, there may be a moment when these interfere and produce the signal ”, clarifies López.
The researchers say they have many indications that it is a quantum effect. “It is a phenomenon that is very sensitive to movement,” says this expert. We need calm conditions to measure it. It is enough for the volunteer to move in the scanner for the signal to be distorted. Furthermore, we have shown that the peak of the signal – which makes it look like an electrocardiogram – cannot be explained by the laws of classical physics. “
Even so, for López, the hypothesis postulated by Penrose and Hameroff remains highly debatable. However, he does not deny that his measurements can be used to support the idea of a certain quantum consciousness , a breath of fresh air in a field of research that, despite being highly controversial, has never failed to attract the attention of scientists. .
David López tells us that when Hameroff read the draft of his article, he contacted his team to comment during a meeting on the progress that has been made in this field in recent times, including those promoted by Matthew Fisher, a A theoretical physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who is among the most enthusiastic proponents of Penrose’s theses, and Hameroff himself. Fisher is currently leading a macro-study known as The Quantum Brain Project or QuBrain . This project, in which the Heising-Simons Foundation has injected 1.2 million dollars, aims to study the quantum brain hypothesis from different angles. The idea is to try to find the definitive proof that relates the phenomena of the physics of the very small with human consciousness, two things that, to tell the truth, share a wonderful complexity.
