Quantum information theoretic approach to the mind-brain problem

Abstract

The brain is composed of electrically excitable neuronal networks regulated by the activity of voltage-gated ion channels. Further portraying the molecular composition of the brain, however, will not reveal anything remotely reminiscent of a feeling, a sensation or a conscious experience. In classical physics, addressing the mind-brain problem is a formidable task because no physical mechanism is able to explain how the brain generates the unobservable, inner psychological world of conscious experiences and how in turn those conscious experiences steer the underlying brain processes toward desired behavior. Yet, this setback does not establish that consciousness is non-physical. Modern quantum physics affirms the interplay between two types of physical entities in Hilbert space: unobservable quantum states, which are vectors describing what exists in the physical world, and quantum observables, which are operators describing what can be observed in quantum measurements. Quantum no-go theorems further provide a framework for studying quantum brain dynamics, which has to be governed by a physically admissible Hamiltonian. Comprising consciousness of unobservable quantum information integrated in quantum brain states explains the origin of the inner privacy of conscious experiences and revisits the dynamic timescale of conscious processes to picosecond conformational transitions of neural biomolecules. The observable brain is then an objective construction created from classical bits of information, which are bound by Holevo's theorem, and obtained through the measurement of quantum brain observables. Thus, quantum information theory clarifies the distinction between the unobservable mind and the observable brain, and supports a solid physical foundation for consciousness research.

27 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (20)

• Quantum entanglement
• The importance of quantum decoherence in brain processes
• Noncommuting mixed states cannot be broadcast
• Event-Ready Bell Test Using Entangled Atoms Simultaneously Closing Detection and Locality Loopholes
• The Free Will Theorem
• Coding Theorems for Quantum Channels
• Impossibility of deleting an unknown quantum state
• Quantum coherence in ion channels: Resonances, Transport and Verification
• The Strong Free Will Theorem
• Quantum Mechanics of Proteins in Explicit Water: The Role of Plasmon-Like Solute-Solvent Interactions
• On the quantum dynamics of Davydov solitons in protein $\alpha$-helices
• Quantum Harmonic Analysis of the Density Matrix
• Probing finite coarse-grained virtual Feynman histories with sequential weak values
• Launching of Davydov solitons in protein $\alpha$-helix spines
• Quantum tunneling of Davydov solitons through massive barriers
• Inner privacy of conscious experiences and quantum information
• Quantum entanglement shared in hydrogen bonds and its usage as a resource in molecular recognition
• Double Slit with an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Pair
• Monte Carlo simulation of quantum Zeno effect in the brain
• Quantum transport and utilization of free energy in protein $\alpha$-helices

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Neurons as hierarchies of quantum reference frames
• Quantum information in neural systems
• Quantum propensities in the brain cortex and free will
• Causal potency of consciousness in the physical world
• Quantum information theoretic approach to the hard problem of consciousness
• Molecular Quantum (MolQ) Communication Channel in the Gut-Brain Axis Synapse
• Dynamic semantic networks for exploration of creative thinking