Quantum Sys-stems

Science Tunnel - Max Planck Society

Nothing in the physical sciences predicts the phenomenon of consciousness. Yet its reality is apparent to each and every one of us

Consciousness is as fundamental as matter - in some ways, more fundamental. Advances in physics, psychology, and philosophy have shown that reality is not what it seems.

Take vision, for example. When we look at a tree, light reflected from its leafs is focused onto cells in the retina of the eye, where it triggers a cascading chemical reaction releasing a flow of electrons.

Neurons connected to the cells convey these electrical impulses to the brain’s visual cortex, where raw data is processed and integrated. Then — in ways that are still a complete mystery — an image of the tree appears in our consciousness.

It may seem that we are directly perceiving the tree in the physical world, but what we are actually experiencing is an image generated in our mind.

The same is true of every other experience. All that we see, hear, taste, touch, smell and feel has been created from the data received by our sensory organs. All we ever know of the world around are the mental images constructed from that data. However real and external they may seem, they are all phenomena within our mind.

Peter Russell
The Universe as a hologram by Michael Talbot
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The human brain stores and processes its information at the level of single organic molecules and is a single macroscopic quantum system. Acts of consciousness may be viewed as incorporating quantum events.
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