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 “Orch OR” theory of consciousness.
Here he points out that, while under anesthesia, the nervous systems of patients – albeit somewhat quiescent – is, nevertheless, active in many ways. Nerve signals are still conducted throughout the body. Furthermore, the variety of anesthetic gases are capable of inducing anesthesia is virtually all species, without engaging in chemical reactions. Hameroff’s search for the basis of anesthesia has led him to the conclusion that it primarily occurs in proteins within the microtubules of the nervous system. He also noted that the hydrocarbon molecules associated with the microtubules were associated with quantum superposition. This is where, he suggests, consciousness actually resides. The microtubules provides a link between the nervous system and the realm of quantum processes.
New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). His master’s degree is in criminology. He teaches parapsychology for ministers in training with the Centers for Spiritual Living through the Holmes Institute. He has served as vice-president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, and is the recipient of its Pathfinder Award for outstanding contributions to the field of human consciousness. He is also past-president of the non-profit Intuition Network, an organization dedicated to creating a world in which all people are encouraged to cultivate and apply their inner, intuitive abilities. His American Indian name, chosen at age eight, is Soaring Eagle.
(Recorded on August 4, 2015)
