2025
Volume 25, Number 3, pp. 82-91
Quantum processes in neural systems: In ancient times and nowadays
Paata J. Kervalishvili and Susie A. Michailidis
Euro-Mediterranean Academy of Arts and Sciences, Athens, Greece Webster University Athens, 9 Ipitou St, Syntagma Sq., GR-10557
The nature of thought is explored, and its amenability to physical thinking is examined. Early ideas about the relationship between mind and body are reviewed. Some remarkably prescient insights, especially from early Greek philosophers, are highlighted. The advent of quantum mechanics is viewed as an important development offering a chance to understand what seem like intractable mysteries in mental processes examined using classical paradigms. The Penrose–Hameroff model is the most developed, but clearly does not offer a complete solution. Artificial intelligence, notably large language models, being wholly synthetic, may be more amenable to complete understanding, but they are also starting to manifest unexpected and hitherto unexplained features.
Keywords: artificial general intelligence, brain, consciousness, decoherence, dualism, entanglement, mind–body, monads, orchestrated objective reduction, quantum computing