The quantum computer in your head

For some years now, it has been rumored that the next major development in computer technology will be the quantum computer. This is a computer that doesn’t require a flow of electrons to convey information from one point to another; it will use “teleportation.” The term refers to the instant transmission of the state of one quantum—or one whole atom—to another over any finite distance.  The transmission is instant and doesn’t require being mediated by contiguous elements: it seems to leap over space as well as time.

Teleportation has been experimentally proven by physicists: it’s an instance of the “nonlocal entanglement” manifested in the submicroscopic world of the quantum.  When a particle, or even an atom, is “entangled” with another, it’s in instant communication with it, so that what happens to that particle or atom also happens to the other.  For example, when in the laboratory a particle is split into two halves and one of the halves is projected in one direction and the other in another direction, no matter how far they travel from each other, when a measuring instrument “interacts” with one of the halves, it’s exactly as if it would have interacted with the other. (This was the astonishing result of the thought experiment suggested by Einstein with colleagues Podolski and Rosen in the 1930s: the “EPR experiment.” The finding was not what Einstein expected and was not the reason why he proposed it, but when the experiment was actually carried out, some forty years later, it was this instant “nonlocal entanglement” that came to light.)

The rumor about the next breakthrough in computer technology is that engineers will succeed in entangling a whole set of relays with each other, so that they would teleport information among themselves “nonlocally.”  This would generate a flow of information that’s entire dimensions faster than the electronic means used today. It would be a giant leap in information processing speed and capacity.

Is the quantum computer the computer of the future, or is it just science fiction?  Whether or not it will be actually produced remains to be seen.  But one thing is certain: quantum computers already exist.  They are in your head.  They are known as your brain.

The brain was believed to operate as a biochemical and bioelectric system. Individual brain cells, so-called neurons, fire in complex coordinated patterns, and their chemical and electrical discharges make up a network that processes information. Somehow, this information (or some part of it) gets translated into conscious “mind-events”: shapes and colors, sounds, and the other “data” of your senses – but this is a different problem altogether. What concerns us here is the mounting evidence that your brain doesn’t operate merely by biochemical and bioelectric information processing. What your brain does is far more complex, fast, and sophisticated than this standard kind of information-processing could account for. There are thousands of chemical reactions taking place every second in every cell of your body, and your brain and nervous system ensures that they are sufficiently coherent and coordinated so that your body can maintain itself in the complex and physically highly improbable state we call living.

Your brain is the command center that directs the flow of information in your body. Precise, highly coordinated information is crucial to your body’s genetic, chemical, and physiological processes. The processes themselves are based on the interaction of molecules and atoms, and subatomic particles. These interactions are in large part biochemical, but they have a non-negligible nonlocal component as well. The particles and atoms in your body are “entangled” with each other: they receive and transmit information not just by biochemical means, but by the remarkable process known in quantum physics as “phase-conjugate quantum resonance.”  It is thanks to the existence of this ultrafast, ultrasubtle, but enormously efficient way of transmitting information that your body can be alive, and stay alive.

The fact that comes to light at the leading edge of quantum physics and quantum biology is that your body is not just a biochemical system: it’s also a “macroscopic quantum system.” Quantum systems were believed to exist only at the submicroscopic level, where quanta are in the state known as “coherent.” Interactions at ordinary dimensions and temperatures were believed to destroy their coherence: they render macroscale bodies “decoherent.” But this is not entirely the case. Some theories claim that specifically organized networks of quanta—for example, networks where the particles are “woven” or “braided”—are sufficiently robust to maintain quantum coherence at macroscopic dimensions and ordinary temperatures. Be that as it may, the fact is that living systems exhibit highly and until recently inexplicably coherent behavior. Their cells and organs resonate in phase, and the entire living organism seems to obey one encompassing “macroscopic wave-function.”

The insight that emerges is that your body is not just a biochemical system: it’s also a macroscopic quantum system. And that your brain is not just a bioelectric and biochemical computer, but also a quantum computer. The cells of your body, and the neurons and networks of neurons of your brain, are entangled with each other. This is why your brain can perform functions that are dimensions beyond the capacity of any conceivable biochemical system. Only if quantum computers come on line could there be man-made systems that come close to matching your brain’s information-processing powers.

There is more to this story than a discovery of purely scientific interest. There is also an intriguing question of enormous practical interest. If your brain is a quantum computer, is it limited to dealing with information only within your body? Would it not be capable of picking up information by the same process of “phase-conjugate quantum resonance” also from the world beyond your body? This is a breathtaking prospect, for then your brain’s access to information would transcend the range of your senses: your brain would also be picking up “extrasensory” information (ESP).  ESP has been dismissed by mainstream Western science as superstition, but it now appears that it could have a scientific basis. Quantum physics opens this possibility. And the implications are staggering.

Could some of the remarkable ESPs reported not just by mediums and sensitives, and not only by artists, poets and prophets but even by scientists—many of whom have admitted that the insights that had lead to their greatest discoveries came to them spontaneously, in dreamlike, meditative, or other “nonordinary” states of consciousness—have a real physical basis—a quantum-physical basis? We can’t dismiss this possibility. The quantum computer in your head links all parts of your body and creates coordination and harmony among them. Could it not link, and create coordination and harmony also between you and the world around you?

This possibility is of direct and immediate interest. To survive on this planet we need a higher level of coordination and harmony in the human world, and between the human world and nature, and it may be that the quantum computer in your head would enable you to experience the insights and the intuitions that can lead you in this direction. After all, traditional people often lived by their intuitions, and they lived in harmony with their surroundings. Perhaps you could try listening to your intuitions yourself…? You might find that you are living more in harmony with those around you, and with all the things that live and grow on this planet.

Tagged as: biochemical, bioelectric, Einstein, ESP, quantum, teleportation