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Currently the blog contains 113 entries.
Anaesthesia and Consciousness
Stuart Hameroff, co-author of the Orch-OR (orchestrated objective reduction) theory of consciousness, and himself an anaesthetist, has advanced the hypothesis that the action of anaesthetic gases depends on quantum processes. Studies made in the latter decades of the 20th century indicated that anaesthetic gases act in hydrophobic pockets within proteins. (Franks & Lieb, 1982-4; Halsey, 1989). Van der Waals forces act between anaesthetic gases and non-polar amino acids making up the proteins. Van der Waals forces represent the attraction or repulsion of negative or positive electrical charges arising on atoms or molecules in close proximity.
Proteins are comprised of chains of amino acids. The folding of proteins, or change in their conformation, is a function of the attraction and repulsion of amino acid side groups, by means of van der Waals forces. Receptors for neurotransmitters are the area most susceptible to anaesthetics, but they appear to affect a range of other proteins such as ion channels, second messengers, and the microtubules and microtubule associated proteins that are important in the Orch-OR theory.
Hameroff’s suggests that anaesthetics may disrupt conformational switching in protein. Given that anaesthetics are used to ablate consciousness, this carries the implication that consciousness itself is related to conformational switching in protein. Hameroff has been responsible for proposing a neural mechanism to support Roger Penrose’s theory that consciousness and some areas of human understanding represent a connection to the geometry of spacetime, for Penrose, the fundamental level of the universe.
Simon Raggett
Buses and Religion
Yesterday, a bus drove past me in Greenwich, and plastered along the side was an advert that said: "The fool hath said in his heart; There is no God" Psalm 14:1.
Evolution and Intelligence
Is there an intelligence driving evolution of life?
Thoughts on the meaning of meaning
I don't see that the idea that existence ‘being a lucky break’ takes away a meaningful meaning.
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