Stuart Hameroff, MD, is a professor of anesthesiology and psychology at the Banner University Medical Center of the University of Arizona in Tucson. He is also co-founder and director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona. He is author of Ultimate Computing: Biomolecular Consciousness and Nanotechnology. Since 1994, he has organized the “Toward a Science of Consciousness” conferences at the University of Arizona and elsewhere. Working with Sir Roger Penrose, he is the co-author of the Orchestrated Objective Reduction (ORCH OR) theory of consciousness.

Here he describes a current research project designed to potentially falsify the theoretical model he has been developing for the past three decades. It involves measurements of quantum superposition within tubulin molecules when stimulated with laser light. Hameroff predicts that this superposition will be found and that it will be influenced by various anesthesias in direct proportion to their potency. The conversation also explores other heuristic implications of the ORCH OR theory.

(Recorded on January 14, 2021)

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Published on February 8, 2021