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Possible Superconductivity In the Brain? (springer.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the keeping-quantum-computing-in-mind dept.

"The unprecedented power of the brain suggests that it may process information quantum-mechanically," according to a new research paper. Long-time Slashdot reader time961 writes: Pavlo Mikheenko, a superconductivity researcher at the University of Oslo, has published a paper in the Journal of Superconductivity and Novel Magnetism (abstract only; arxiv pre-print here) suggesting that microtubule structures in pig neurons exhibit evidence of superconductivity that could represent a mechanism for quantum computing performed by the brain to achieve the brain's phenomenal information processing power. The observed effects (at room temperature and standard atmospheric pressure) are claimed to indicate a critical temperature of 2022 +/- 157 K, far higher than the 135 K achieved in other materials under similar conditions.

Interesting, if true.

14 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Porcine aviation by TeknoHog · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'll believe this when these superconducting pigs levitate above magnets.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  2. Wrong. It is not QM, it is QFT. by Mr.+Dollar+Ton · · Score: 3, Funny

    And I suggest that the brain has unprecedented power, because it connects to superpowers present in the Dark sector via the mechanism of kinetic mixing.

    It is not science anymore, but a popularity and buzzword contest.

  3. This is Pseudoscience BS by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 3, Informative

    This Quantum Mind crap has been around since the 90s. It's just mysticism wrapped up in new jargon to sound all sciency to people who don't know what they're talking about.

    1. Re:This is Pseudoscience BS by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2

      The idea was proposed by Sir Roger Penrose. He got the sir part for being a scientist. It was a serious idea. Substructures within neurons could plausibly (especially in 1989) exhibit some quantum mechanical properties. The idea didn't work out.

      The better part of a decade later the woo factory decided quantum was synonymous with magic.

    2. Re:This is Pseudoscience BS by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 2

      Roger Penrose also hasn't published any significant research since the 90s because he turned into a crank and has been spending his time appearing at "conciousness studies" conferences.

    3. Re:This is Pseudoscience BS by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And believe me, it's sad to see one of our great minds turn into a nut.

      I minored in physics at Penn State in the late 90s when he was at the Penn State Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos at Penn State, so I actually attended some of the original lectures he gave on QM. It was just as nutty back then. He basically dreamed up an entirely new particle that didn't exist in the standard model and which had never been detected and then postulated it interacted with microtubules in some unknown way to cause some unknown effect and *MAGIC* consciousness happens.

      Even though it was known at the time that's not what microtubules do and that there's no way a neuron could maintain quantum decoherence long enough for it to have any effect on its synaptic function.

      It is and always was a bunch of wishful thinking because Penrose personally couldn't deal with the idea free-will may be an illusion.

    4. Re:This is Pseudoscience BS by gweihir · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, since all attempts to model a human mind conventionally have failed and since quantum stuff is pretty much the only additional mechanism Physics currently offers, it does have a point. I do agree that it is mysticism. But unless Physics finds something else that could explain the mind (seems rather unlikely at this stage), mysticism is pretty much the only possible explanation. Yes, I find this unsatisfactory too. But this does not blind me to the known facts.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    5. Re:This is Pseudoscience BS by Immerman · · Score: 2

      Have their been any realistic attempts to model a brain? Last I heard, the most sophisticated neural structure modeled was something like part of a rat's motor cortex, and the results were very promising

      Lets be clear that neural networks are not even remotely close to modeling a brain - even if you created one from a full connectome mapping of a human brain (which last I heard we weren't anywhere close to creating) you'd be modeling a network of dozens (hundreds?) of wildly different types of massively complex, asychronous neurons as a network incredibly simple synchronous identical fuzzy logic gates. If you got anything remotely resembling a human mind out of such a gross oversimplification it would be a miracle.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    6. Re:This is Pseudoscience BS by Tough+Love · · Score: 5, Informative

      Have their been any realistic attempts to model a brain?

      Still not quite able to model C elegans. Rather a long way from modelling an ant, let alone human consciousness.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  4. As an unrelated side note... by Rei · · Score: 2

    I've been gathering peoples' reactions to this study in the comments sections of news articles for my paper, "Catchphrase Hokum: Assessing The Public's Willingness To Believe Anything That Uses Buzzwords And Was Published In A Journal With A Five-Year Impact Factor Less Than One", which has been accepted for publication in the journal Gullibility.

    --
    Musk needs a safer hobby than Twitter. Fire juggling? Cage fighting? Solo hot air balloon trips?
  5. Re:Size doesn't matter by omnichad · · Score: 2

    Or maybe reread what you just said. Neurons are infrastructure, possibly something that contains a quantum component of some sort. Not that I necessarily agree, but what you're saying doesn't rule out the OP.

  6. bunch of nonsense by Goldsmith · · Score: 5, Informative

    I am a condensed matter physicist.

    This paper measures normal nonlinear electrochemical effects and assumes they're superconducting. Further, there is a misunderstanding of what quantized conductance means, and how to demonstrate that quantized conductance is being measured.

    There is no evidence presented of superconductivity, and no good argument for why it would be expected. It's a bit embarrassing that the author is a Physics professor.

  7. Re: "Interesting, if true!" by twosat · · Score: 2

    Neil Armstrong written backwards is "Gnorts, Mr Alien"

  8. Re:Human brain maybe a quantum computer! by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 2

    Quantum effects take place in every single cell of the body and have a curious additional effect of entanglement between particles growing in range with increasing particle count and interactions in a highly ordered system like within a cell. Hell, it was only a decade and a half ago we realized chloroplasts utilized quantum entanglement to harvest light so efficiently, the structure of heme is virtually identical and is able to act as a trigger to eject Oxygen from Iron (a pretty strong bond, otherwise.) To think nerve cells, arguably the most electrically charged portions of an organism, aren't utilizing quantum effects in their computations is the real absurdity here. There's not one single effect we've encountered in studies of physics which doesn't already exist in nature, it just took us figuring out there was an effect to know what to look for.