Talk:Stuart Hameroff

Untitled
130.39.223.46 seems to think Hameroff, not Roger Penrose, should get the credit for inventing the concept of quantum consciousness or quantum mind. Is this true? I haven't heard of this Hameroff fellow before -- have the media just been ignoring him due to the proximity of a vastly more famous scientist? -- Tim Starling 12:31, Aug 17, 2003 (UTC)


 * A quick google search suggests Hameroff is an MD and a professor at the University of Arizona who has proposed ideas of quantum consciousness. They seem to be an extension of Penrose's work.  I believe that the idea that consciousness is related to quantum phenomena is still very controversial, but you probably know much more about that than I do. --Robert Merkel 12:58, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * The most intelligent comments on the subject I've heard were someone on Usenet commenting that sometimes really smart scientists go a bit crazy and start dabbling in things they don't really understand. First Linus Pauling and vitamin C, now Roger Penrose and consciousness. Anyway, I haven't read much about it. I guess I'll have to now that we have a proponent hanging around. -- Tim Starling 13:22, Aug 17, 2003 (UTC)

The issue of Consciousness and the Quantum Process has been controversial since the very beginning. The bulk of Scientists hate it being discussed and regard it as 'magical thinking', but the reality is that nobody knows for sure what the relationship is. Its notable that a great many of the first generation of Quantum Scientists - Schroedinger, Pauli, Wigner, von Neumann - all thought it was key to understanding Quantum Mechanics, with von Neumann writing a highly detailed mathematical 'proof' of the issue (THE MATHEMATICAL FOUNDATIONS OF QUANTUM MECHANICS). Bohr and Heisenberg were more ambiguous on the idea, with Bohr discouraging exploration on the grounds that we will never know. The question boils down to the so-called 'Measurement Problem' and what we mean by 'wave collapse' happening through observation/measurement and how these relate to Consciousness (ie what constitutes a measurement or observation and how this relates to Consciousness/ is Consciousness part of the measurement process?). Further, we still don't know what the relationship between the microcosmic world of Quanta is in regard to the macrocosmic world of solid bodies, or whether the origins of Consciousness lie in one or the other. If Consciousness is a product only of the macrocosmic world, then one could argue that it has no relationship to the Quantum world, but since the macrocosmic world seems to emerge from the Quantum world, that begs more questions than it answers - such as what is Consciousness and how, if it is only a phenomenon of the Quantum World, does it therefore become the one anomaly in the whole Cosmos, not subject either to Quantum Processes or the Laws of Conservation of Energy?

Since we know so little (relatively speaking) about both Consciousness and how things work at a Quantum Level beyond prediction the question should remain moot. Resistance to the idea of a link stems from old mechanistic notions of Cause and Effect, suspicion of the subjective, nebulous, non-physical nature of Consciousness and the confusion of the idea with notions such as ESP, 'Telepathy', Telekineses/Psychokinesis etc. That and the impossibility of being able to prove anything at the moment. But the idea of a link between the two is not merely the preserve of isolated cranks. As well as Schroedinger, Pauli, Wigner & von Neumann there have been Bohm, Peat, Davies, Dyson, Jeans, Hoffman, Puthoff, Stapp, Squires and Rees as well as Penrose and Hameroff. Even the great John Bell and John Wheeler didn't rule it out. New Age use of the idea for all sorts of silliness hasn't helped much, of course, but one would assume given the views of these guys which include major Scientists and not a few Nobel Winners, should encourage us not to rule it out as an idea altogether. So with all respect to your Usernet commentator, unless he was in the league of some of these guys, I am not sure how much we should take note of what he said. ThePeg (talk) 08:55, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Roger Penrose gives credit to Stuart Hameroff for the part in which processes on a lower level than neurons, i.e. processes within the microtubules and interaction with the neurons, which Penrose refers to as 'Hameroff Process' in the lecture 'Science and the mind', which can be found here: http://online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/plecture/penrose/ (rdegraaf[at]boojum.hut.fi)

Upgrading this article
This article looks to have been stuck in start class for quite a time. Hameroff is mainly known for the theory of consciousness he developed jointly with Roger Penrose. This suggests that the relevant parts of the article on Penrose provide something of a guide to how this article might develop. The Penrose article gives a fuller description of the theory proposed and of the criticisms of the theory. I propose leaving it like that for a couple of weeks to allow for discussion or anyone who wants to have a go at the article. Persephone19 (talk) 17:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I have belatedly got back to this article. I have tried to leave as much as possible of the original. I have slightly enlarged the career part of the article and put more on Penrose's theory and the various attacks on it. I imagine others may wish to enlarge further. Persephone19 (talk) 21:03, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Split Sections
I've put Toward a Science of Consciousness into a separate section, and have added a link. There is some minor re-wording. I've put Film as a separate section. (Peter Ells (talk) 13:37, 4 May 2014 (UTC))

probable fiction
05:12, 4 May 2015‎ 75.85.4.117 (talk)‎. . (12,161 bytes) (+1,330)‎. . (His career and issues related to the supervision of residents at the University of Arizona) (undo) single edit anon, uncited deparagement. Probably should be reverted. Another vote? GangofOne (talk) 06:21, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * After thinking about it a few minutes, I went ahead and undid it. If it's real, then cite it, 75.85.4.117, GangofOne (talk) 06:57, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Further research on the idea of microtubles/anesthesia, independent of any quantum ideas
Has there been any further research on the idea that anesthesia affects the microtubles somehow, independent of the idea (I'm tempted to say "woo?") that quantum mechanics is therefore involved in those microtubles and (therefore says Penrose) consciousness? And the idea that the microtubles are somehow involved in "sub-cellular computation" - whether or not it has anything to do with "quantum wave-functions maintained by microtubles" (my vague understanding having skimmed Shadows of the Mind)? Jimw338 (talk) 15:03, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

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Critisms by Grush and Churchland
I'll start with the assumption that people know what a giant Sir Rodger Penrose is.

Grush is a professor of philosophy with no physics or mathematics background that I can find. His Ph.D. is in philosophy and cognitive science.

Patricia Churchland is in the philosophy department at UC San Diego. She does not have a Ph.D. in anything that I can find. Her husband does, both of her children do, but she does not. Her last degree is a MA  from the University of Pittsburgh in 1966. she has no educational background in physics or mathematics or neuroscience, neurophysiology, or mathematics beyond elective classes.

I'm the third sentence of the abstract of the paper by Grush and Churchland (published in the journal of consciousness studies, not published in a physics journal or a neuroscience journal) they totally disagree in a dismissive fashion with what Penrose says about Godel's theorem. Then they go on to quantum gravitational phenomenon, microtubules, and a whole host of things that they do not have the educational background to be writing about in the context of a criticism of one of the Giants in the history of mathematical physics cosmology and quantum mechanics, or even Hammeroff's knowledge of structures in the brain.

Originally the claim on this Wikipedia page was that objective reduction theory was widely criticized but only this example was given. So at first, I removed the part that said widely criticized, but then I looked closer at the actual paper. You don't have to get any further than the abstract to know that this is not a consequential criticism of the theory given their lack of education or status since they are writing about things they are not expert is bad in this context (Stuart Hameroff knows more about neurophysiology then these two combined) but the disagreement about Godel's theorem should be considered outrageous. Not that disagreement about it is outrageous, but that criticism by these two is outrageous. If criticism is going to be mentioned here it should be within the field from people of comparable status. Jackhammer111 (talk) 02:08, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi, Jackhammer. I understand that you don't feel that Churchland's criticisms apply because she is not a physicist. However, we editors are not supposed to make such judgement calls, especially given that the topic is consciousness and Churchland is definitely considered an expert on that. It's up to the readers of the article to decide whether or not the arguments are germane. As to how widespread the criticism of Hameroff/Penrose, it's certainly not zero, especially given how non-mainstream their theory is. The article should have some neutral point of view way to present the fact that the theory is fringe. A few notable critics of the theory (sources to come) are Max Tegmark, Daniel Dennett. I'm pretty sure, Demasio, Metzinger and Goff are detractors as well. If you'd like to read wikipedia policy on these things, please check out. WP:OR, WP:RS, and most importantly WP:FRINGE. Cheers. DolyaIskrina (talk) 22:13, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, the actual transgression of competence is physicists like Penrose talking about consciousness, which is not their field. Or anesthesiologists like Hameroff talking about quantum, which is not their field. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:31, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

removed criticism
Of course, Penrose and Hameroff are not Beyond criticism but criticism of their work should come from people of similar education and status, not from people in a totally unrelated field. This is most especially true when they argue that sir Roger Penrose, one of the greatest physical mathematicians that ever lived is flatly wrong. So when Patricia Churchland ( Bachelor of philosophy and an arts master's degree, which makes her the only one in her immediate family without a PhD) and Rich Grush ( Bachelor of Arts philosophy and somehow a philosophy PhD with no master's degree) in a paper in a Consciousness Journal say the Godel result does not imply that human thought is, in fact, non-algorithmic, and Sir Roger Penrose ( no curriculum Vitae needed) says that it does I don't think it rises much above being slightly amusing, let alone rising to the level of saying "Penrose's ideas were widely criticized by neuroscientists, logicians and philosophers". One single article does not widely criticized make and neither one of them is a logician or a neuroscientist. Not to mention that is if it's a criticism of Penrose on Hameroff"s page. Jackhammer111 (talk) 22:34, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
 * This is bullshit. Gödel does indeed not have any such weird consequences for consciousness, as anyone (except Penrose) who understands math and has looked at Gödel's work can tell you. People make mistakes, even your heroes. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:45, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I like Penrose as much as the next fellow, but he is often spectacularly wrong. Just to take an alternate point, his cosmological model predicted that there would be non-causal circular features imprinted in the CMB which are not there. He proposes extravagant ideas, but sometimes the ideas are wrong. jps (talk) 12:14, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The philosophy of consciousness is hardly a "totally unrelated field" to a proposal about consciousness, and the soundness of arguments does not depend upon the author's credentials. (For that matter, many people have PhD's, while fewer are Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.) XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:04, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I know you feel strongly about this, but that's not how this works. You must seek consensus or you are engaging in WP:EW. It's especially out of bounds to remove WP:RS from a page just because you personally don't think the person is qualified. However, I do think it was oddly placed before, so I'm going to move it to the "criticism" section for now. Moving forward we should talk about changes that don't remove Churchland from the page. DolyaIskrina (talk) 22:37, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

2022 Italian experiment of Diosi-Penrose
I hope it's kosher to move this conversation from my personal talk page to here. DolyaIskrina (talk) 18:11, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi Dolyalskrina, I had deleted from the page in question the reference to the article of June 2022 for the following reasons:
 * 1) The study referred, as written, to the gravity-based collapse which is a hypothesis of Lajos Diosì and Roger Penrose. Stuart Hameroff's hypothesis is that quantum processes in microtubules are responsible for consciousness (which is confirmed by experiments made in April 2022), so it is more correct to insert the statement on Roger Penrose's voice.
 * 2) Quantum consciousness theories in general are not based solely on the Diosì-Penrose model. Thus, the claim that the study "undermines any theory of quantum consciousness" is incorrect.
 * 3) The study authors said working out alternative gravity models could make the theory more plausible.
 * This is why I propose to make changes that reflect the critical points indicated. Deoxys7680 (talk) 12:26, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * There might be something to be done with the text. We should discuss it at Talk. I know science journalism can often get it wrong, but unfortunately we can't, despite whatever expertise we have or even how wrong the article is, just independently decide it is wrong. We need citations. Also "undermines" does not mean disproves. And that is the word they use for better or worse. DolyaIskrina (talk) 15:26, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I recommend simply leaving "In 2022 no evidence of gravity-related quantum collapse was found" and removing "this undermines EVERY possible quantum explanation for consciousness", as this is not true: Orch-OR is not the only quantum theory on the conscience 51.179.96.35 (talk) 14:59, 15 August 2022 (UTC)}}
 * I don't think that is enough information about how this experiment is being interpreted vis a vis Orch Or, given the pys.org WP:SECONDARY interpretation of the experiment. Specifically: "In their new paper they have explicitly examined the repercussions of their finding for Penrose and Hammeroff's Orch OR theory of consciousness. After reanalyzing the most plausible scenarios set out by Hammeroff and Penrose, in light of their recent experimental constraints on quantum collapse, they were led to conclude that almost none of the scenarios are plausible. "This is the first experimental investigation of the gravity-related quantum collapse pillar of the Orch OR consciousness model, which we hope will be followed by many others," says Curceanu." This is so obviously about Orch Or and so clearly saying that this undermines it. Yes the door is open for saving the theory, but, without citations to support it, we can't just decide to ignore how these people are reading this experiment and how the experimenters themselves are reading it. How about we change "undermining" to "weakening"? DolyaIskrina (talk) 18:27, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree, but the article, as you rightly noted, is about the Orch-OR theory. There are other theories of the implication between quantum mechanics and consciousness. This article does not undermine ALL theories between quantum mechanics and consciousness but only Orch-OR. As it is written in the voice it seems that all quantum theories on consciousness are unlikely. I recommend replacing as follows: «In 2022, a group of Italian physicists conducted several experiments that failed to provide evidence in support of a gravity-related quantum collapse model of consciousness, weakening the plausibility of the theory» 51.179.96.35 (talk) 20:04, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * It has been almost a month since the previous replies, but I think that indeed the word "undermining" is missguiding. What the italian physicists did, was to show that excess radiation is not detected radiating from the brain. Orch OR does not predict that. However, since wikipedia relies on sources and the source (incorrectly) states that it undermines Orch OR, it cannot be dismissed. May I change the word "undermining" to "weakening", as said above and wait for further updates? Παραλλάξιος (talk) 09:36, 9 September 2022 (UTC)