EvoStar Invited Speakers
Stuart
Hameroff MD
Professor, Anesthesiology
and Psychology
Director, Center for Consciousness Studies
The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
www.quantumconsciousness.org
Opening Talk: The
‘conscious pilot’ – Dendritic synchrony moves through
the brain (like a computer worm) to mediate
consciousness.
The brain is viewed as a computer in which sensory
processing, control of behavior and other cognitive
functions emerge from ‘neurocomputation’ in parallel
networks of perceptron-like neurons. In each neuron,
dendrites receive and integrate synaptic inputs to a
threshold for axonal firing as output –
‘integrate-and-fire’. Neurocomputation in
axonal-dendritic synaptic networks successfully
accounts for non-conscious (auto-pilot) cognitive brain
functions. When cognitive functions are accompanied by
consciousness, neurocomputation is accompanied by 30 to
90 Hz gamma synchrony EEG. Gamma synchrony derives
primarily from neuronal groups linked by
dendritic-dendritic gap junctions, forming transient
syncytia (‘dendritic webs’) in input/integration layers
oriented sideways to axonal-dendritic
neurocomputational flow. As gap junctions open and
close, a gamma-synchronized dendritic web can rapidly
change topology, evolve and move through the brain
(like a benevolent computer worm might move through
computer circuits) as a spatiotemporal envelope
performing collective integration and volitional
choices correlating with consciousness. The ‘conscious
pilot’ is a metaphorical description for a mobile,
gamma-synchronized dendritic web as vehicle for a
conscious agent/pilot which experiences and assumes
control of otherwise non-conscious auto-pilot
neurocomputation. Intra-neuronal aspects of
consciousness involving e.g. quantum computation in
cytoskeletal microtubules will also be discussed, as
will the evolution and place of consciousness in the
universe.
Prof. Dr.
Peter Schuster
Peter Schuster is the chairman of the Institute of
Theoretical Chemistry at Vienna University since 1973.
He is external faculty member of the Santa Fe
Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, since 1991. In
1992 – 1995 he was the founding director of the
Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Jena,
Thüringen, Germany. He is president of the Austrian
Academy of Sciences and member of several academies
including the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina,
the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and
Humanities, the Saxonian Academy of Sciences and the
Nordrhein Westfälische Academy of Sciences. His
research interests comprise nonlinear dynamics and
theory of complex evolvable systems, structures and
properties of RNA molecules, sequence structure
mappings and neutral networks, optimization of
properties of biopolymers as well as gene regulatory
and metabolic networks. He is author or coauthor of
more than 300 original articles in scientific journals
and nine scientific books.
Closing
Talk:
Optimization, Selection and Neutrality – What we can
learn from nature.
Everywhere in nature we encounter remarkable
adaptations. Ever since Darwin adaptations in biology
are explained by the powerful interplay of
reproduction, variation, and selection. The
mathematical basis for optimization in the sense of
Darwin is provided by population genetics, which
represents the unification of the selection principle
and Gregor Mendel’s laws of genetics. Molecular biology
opens a new avenue towards the description of
evolutionary optimization by means of chemical reaction
kinetics. In particular, the metaphor of fitness
landscapes is put upon a firm empirical and
mathematical fundament. Analysis of sequence-structure
relations of biopolymers, especially proteins and
nucleic acids reveals the phenomenon of neutrality.
Many sequences form the same structure and cannot be
distinguished by selection therefore. Neutrality was
found to be essential for the success of optimization
on rugged fitness landscapes.