|
Certainly,
quantum processes are involved in thinking and consciousness,
as Henry Stapp, of the University of California,
Berkeley, has spelled out. . . . A pulse coming along a nerve will
trigger the release of calcium ions, which travel across the
[synaptic] gap and trigger the next pulse of activity. A typical
calcium ion . . . will travel about 50 billionths of a meter in a
time of 200 millionths of a second. 'Simple etimates of the
uncertainty principle,' says Stapp, 'shows that the wave packet of
the calcium ion must grow to a size many orders larger than the
size of the calcium ion itself. Hence the idea of
a single classical trajectory
becomes inappropriate; quantum concepts must in principle be used.'
|