Hameroff revisits 1990 microtubule automata simulations, clashing with MIT's Miller Lab

JosephJacks_ · x · 2026-09-12

Quantum consciousness proponent Stuart Hameroff explains how microtubules can organize information as 'automata', extending cellular automata like the Game of Life. He recounts a 1990 effort with physicist Steen Rasmussen at Los Alamos building a similar model on a hexagonal cylindrical grid of tubulin subunits with Fibonacci geometry and dipole-coupling rules based on aromatic rings; simulations showed learning via Hamming distance and used Frohlich coherence at nanosecond/gigahertz scales. Miller Lab (MIT) pushes back: consciousness's substrate is the organization of neural activity around information, achievable with brain waves but 'not by microtubules'.

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