

But recast in modern times as the brain-mind problem, it has become more and more scientists’ territory, and these days, it is a natural meeting ground for biologists and physicists-it is the ultimate science frontier. The question-What is the mind?-has for centuries been lying uneasily at the border of philosophy and science. In what direction is our theory of mind going and will physics play a crucial role in it? In other words, what does the future of neuroscience look like? It is thanks to that instant of grace that we can see even the faintest glimmer of light. But in the minute quantum world that’s enough.

0.1 hertz frequency Heart Brain Coherence Meditation Music Syncronization with Binaural Beats. In the quantum-computing molecules I mentioned, it lasts only a 10th of a trillionth of a second. In physics, coherence also is used to describe the coupling and degree of synchronization between different oscillating systems. The state of coherence is short-lived-it is rapidly destroyed under the onslaught of countless quantum particles in the environment. So the name of the game in the brain is quantum coherence. Rather than going through the tedious processing of information one piece at a time as ordinary digital computers do, a web exploiting quantum coherence will handle myriads of pieces simultaneously, saving precious time and brain space-in principle, one processing unit operating in the parallel quantum-computing mode is capable of doing what would require myriads of units operating in the sequential mode of standard digital computers.

A quantum-computing neuronal web will do this hands down. It is this parallel information processing that the hypothesis addresses. That part of the brain’s hard-wiring has been known for some time through the elegant work of neurophysiologists, probing the cortex and other brain regions with microelectrodes. Up in the cerebral cortex, the neuron networks typically have multiple inputs, and the information coming from many different sensory channels gets processed in parallel. A quantum computer is a natural for that: by virtue of its very mathematical structure, it is a parallel information processor-a processor that is ultrafast and, given a sufficient information supply, virtually indefatigable. Against that backdrop, I put forth the hypothesis that quantum coherence is at the heart of the parallel information processing that goes on in the upper reaches of the brain and allows our minds to almost instantaneously deal with the staggering information amounts coming in through our senses.
