The Extended Brain: Cyclic Information Flow in a Quantum Physical Realm

Abstract

The present knowledge of the brain neurology, collectively, is insufficient to explain higher mental processes such as (self)-consciousness, qualia, intuition, meditative states, transpersonal experiences as well as ultra rapid brain responses and functional binding between distant parts of the brain. It is proposed that super-causal space-time configurations may function as an interface between molecular transitions and the particular higher mental functions. As super-causal principles, the iso-energetic brain model as well as various quantum brain theories, are treated. Iso-energetic states of the brain may enable protein perturbation mediated information processing within a tenth of a millisecond and make use of subjective space-time configuration created in life as an emergent modality of the neural system. In addition, elementary quantum processes are seen as essential for higher brain functions, since our central nervous system forms an integral part of a dynamic universe as a non-local information processing modality. In this respect, quantum physics also allows the build-up of an individual mental knowledge domain on the basis of self-selective imprinting of a geometric space/time dimension, as induced by wave/ particle transitions in the brain. The central hypothesis of the present paper is that a versatile and rapid responding brain function requires complementary information processing mechanisms both at the iso-energetic and quantum (macro- and micro-) levels, enabling bottom up and top down information processing. This requires a nested organization of fine-tuned neural micro-sites that enable coherence/de-coherence transitions as a basis for information transfer. For a rapid and causally effective flux of information, as well as a continuous updating of a personal information domain, a “bi-cyclic” mental workspace is conceived, housing interacting and entangled wave and protein-based perturbations that build-up and retrieve information from a universal knowledge domain.