One Step Closer To Understanding the Origin of Consciousness With Proposed Quantum Computers Experiment
- Abigail Balkus - MSc. in Health and Social Psychology
- Jan 23
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 2
Human kind has long been wondering what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. What is our consciousness, and how does it function?
We are now one step closer to finding the answers to these existential questions that keep us up at night. With new proposed experiments by Google's head of Quantum AI development, Hartmut Neven.
Read more to find out the details of this potentially paradigm-shifting project.
According to the 'NewScientist' news, Neven has been interested in the relationship between mind and matter. With this experiment he hopes to combine the two in order to better understand how mind and matter interact together, in hopes to discover how each are related, and how consciousness (mind) arose from matter.
How it Works
In 2022, The Nobel Prize in Physics went to scientists Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger1.
They discovered 'quantum entanglement' a phenomenon explaining on a micro-level how all events, people, and feelings are ultimately connected. Quantum entanglement describes the entanglement of photons, how their movements are constantly connected to the other's, their actions, behaviors, and relationship are forever entangled. Without prior knowledge or connection between two photons, scientists were consistently able to predict that when one photon was surged in one direction, the other photon would go in the opposite direction. It is as if the particles, coming from the same starting point, were telepathically connected. Although this exact prediction, which they tested 200 times in a row, would have been called a one in 1060 chance of occuring2. Only when the particle is measured as to go "up", does the opposite particle settle on going "down".
These results, on a macro-level, demonstrate the connection between each action we make to other world developments. And the understanding that we can create our own realities, determining the movements of reality around us with our own consciousness.
Utilizing this Quantum Mind theory that nonlocalized quantum effects, interacting in smaller features of the brain than cells, may play an important part in the brain's function and could explain critical aspects of consciousness, scientists at the Wellesley College Neuroscience Department were able to develop and prove a hypothesis under the constraints of this theory.
The groundbreaking research completed this September (2024)3, found that micro-tubular structures inside of the cytoplasm of cells play a role in consciousness and awareness. When they utilized anesthesia drugs targeting these neural structures, the rats more quickly lost consciousness.
Now, with research success expanding on the theory of Quantum Mind, how human consciousness is connected with the mechanisms of quantum entanglement, Google's Quantum AI team wants to utilize quantum supercomputers (a computer running under the properties of quantum mechanical phenomena) to expand human consciousness.
The plan aims to create quantum entanglement with the photons of our mind and the photon entanglements created in these quantum supercomputers.
According to an interview with the 'New Scientist' with Nevin4., “If a person could entangle their brain with a quantum computer, they’d create a quantum superposition involving both systems. When this superposition collapses, the person might report a richer conscious experience requiring more bits to describe—think N+M instead of just N.”
These experiments could utilize Elon Musk's new Neuralink technology5. to connect human brains to computers, but the exact plan is still in the works. Will the project of messing with a human brain be worth it? Will it lead us to answers about consciousness's connection with quantum entanglement, or develop more questions?
Do You Think Connecting a Human's Brain with a Computer is Worth it, and Ethical?
Yes, the scientific development is worth it!
Nope, let's leave our brains alone.
Happy Thirsty Thursday. 🎉
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