Quantum Cognition and Brain Microtubules
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- Опубліковано 7 жов 2024
- Quantum biology meets neuroscience! Talk given by Stuart Hameroff to the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at UC Berkeley, on January 9, 2013
Abstract
Cognitive decision processes are generally seen as classical Bayesian probabilities, but better suited to quantum mathematics. For example: 1) Psychological conflict, ambiguity and uncertainty can be viewed as (quantum) superposition of multiple possible judgments and beliefs. 2) Measurement (e.g. answering a question, reaching a decision) reduces possibilities to definite states ('constructing reality', 'collapsing the wave function'). 3) Previous questions influence subsequent answers, so sequence affects outcomes ('contextual non-commutativity'). 4) Judgments and choices may deviate from classical logic, suggesting random, or 'non-computable' quantum influences. Can quantum cognition operate in the brain? Do classical brain activities simulate quantum processes? Or have biomolecular quantum devices evolved? In this talk I will discuss how a finer scale, intra-neuronal level of quantum information processing in cytoskeletal microtubules can accumulate, operate upon and integrate quantum information and memory for self-collapse to classical states which regulate axonal firings, controlling behavior.
Links:
1.) www.newscientis...
2.) www.quantum-cog...
"His model is purely hypothetical at this point."
Well at least it's coherent, unlike the non-quantum mind models. I mean it's not like we have much else to go on in terms of trying to figure out what the mind is.
Johanan Raatz still its an impressive explanation.
I am thrilled by the fact that there are people on the face of this planet who are much cleverer than myself.
Finally a pointer in the right direction, have been following Roger Penrose for a while, very happy Hameroff wrote him that letter. Unbelievable this presentation has so few viewers, when looking back, this presentation and the involvement of Penrose will be recognized where the real knowledge about the functioning of the brain started.
Who would mark this video thumbs down? Even if you disagree with the conclusion, the video is still pretty interesting!
Great presentation of important research. Consciousness interfaces with brain at the quantum level through microtubules. Activities in the microtubules produce memory storage and control neural firing. Neural firing controls downstream cognitive-motor-sensory functions of the body. This makes a whole lot more sense than current theories where consciousness "magically" pops out of complex neural firings.
+Roy S If this holds water, then a quantum conscious AI will occur. Even more interesting, it will just "occur". The latest event with Google Deepmind and their AlphaGo program deep learning intuition rather than the standard brute force approach..........If an AI suddenly becomes conscious, will it stay quiet? Will it reach out? Would it take time to figure things out? Would it be disoriented? My hunch is that it would stay quiet for as long as it needs or wants to since it would still follow the routine of deep learning.
Amaroff with his knowledge of microtubules is changing the world ,humans will always be ahead of AI
Good times! With the exception of Sapiensiate over there in the corner monologuing while banging Tonka trucks together, occasionally saying "Bam! We cowboys got another woo scientist!" It was kinda hard to hear over him from where I was sitting.
Still much more peaceful than that UA-cam room down the hall, people were jumping up & down angrily on cushions in there! I heard someone mention the word "scientology" but I left before I heard anything else.
"Joe Mills just said below that Hameroff's math is off by 5 orders of magnitude"
Actually it looks like he said we need 10*5 neurons:
"Now, we need over 10^13 tubulins entangled in order to have 1 conscious "frame" or event per second (Observation of qualia and wave function collapse are simultaneous) or only 10^5 neurons"
So that is why, even as a model you have to favour the quantum mind hypothesis over the emergent property hypothesis, because the former actually makes predictions, and has some evidence supporting it.
I know. It will totally catch everyone off guard!
good to see people are following!
Point taken.
Though I may suspect that given the warmth of the brain that these computations may not be as efficient as they could be for a quantum computer. The quantum computations in photosynthesis for example do not process information as quickly as artificial quantum computers like the D-Wave.
Which is why we don't think that fast.
I have been working on a different aspect of quantum biology that may also be of interest. There's a video and a forthcoming paper. Quantum Biology. Dawe Quantum Diffusion in Neurons. Life beyond the Edge.
+Chris Dawe link?
Hunter Toole n
The mechanism doesn't explain the phenomena, the inner experience simply is.
It begins to look as though consciousness is part of the universe, it will arise anywhere it can and it will.
Seems to be fundamental. It just needs a brain to synthesize the moments into a stream of experience.
But what is the observer. Theres the rub.
Interacting with the mind (whatever it may be) of course -or interacting with the rest of the mind.
"it doesn't explain *how*"
Ok, so what you are essentially saying is that we've basically traded one mystery (the hard problem) for another (collapse), by defining collapse as a part of consciousness.
The explanation for collapse comes when you change your ontology to that of digital physics or idealism. Reality is made of conscious percepts. So that which is not perceived does not exist.
Thank you for sharing this!🌟
QC does not say that anything quantum is going on in the brain, but rather that the same math used in QM must be used to model cognition. (though they don't say that it IS QMical) And apparently it works: quantum-cognition . de/themes/themes . html
However, it turns out that one can not simulate a QM system classically without the system slowing down exponentially: wikipedia . org/wiki/Universal_quantum_simulator
Meaning it is happening in their somewhere, we just don't know how yet.
P.R. Sarkar's Microvita places the interconnect between the spiritual and the physical within the microtubules.
I can't imagine they would publish something in the front page if it had no merit, though I will look into it more.
this is very interesting, at the moment of collapse and then trigger. it looks to me as though we are in a state of zero point energy; which is occurring 40x as second... i hadn't broke it down this far (to microtubules) but more to the axon level (the path) in conjunction with other axon's, creating Hz/MHz fields..... i like :-) more research! Stuart Hameroff, hats off!!! o yeah use 7.83MHz for your research into depression.... etc would love to hear more!
"I'm intelligent, extremely competitive, and extremely hard-working."
As a friend, a little piece of advice: Don't slap yourself on the back in public. It doesn't come off looking good.
I can't imagine they would publish something in the front page if it had no merit, and apparently it was attracting researchers at major conferences, though I will look into it more.
Quantum activity inside the tubules is protected from De-coherence.
Microtubules connect us to the zero-point energy fields where memories and other fields are stored............just have to tune in to the one pathway you want since all exist simultaneously.
What I was trying to say is that Patricia Smith Churchland's opinion does not carry any more weight in this debate than Dr. Hameroff's.
1.) IIT is also coherent in my view, but only if the information is an actual substance. (which would tie it to digital physics and thus QM) Meaning only a quantum mind version of it would be coherent.
2.) I know, what I'm saying though is that it at least has the possibility of being wrong. Most of the other approaches "aren't even wrong," because they are epistemically incoherent in one way or another.
Left me stunned
Patricia Smith Churchland is not some kind of authority on the subject whose opinion is more important than the opinion of other experts. Lastly, the quantum mind hypothesis is testable. As Dr. Hameroff points out, a testable prediction is there should be a correlation between the MIC of anaesthetic gases and their ability to inhibit superconductance in microtubules. This would be scientific evidence that consciousness arises from quantum processes in microtubules.
There are no discrete consciousness moments. It is more like a song with the past, now and future woven together.
Because do the von Neumann chains the chain of collapse events must eventually terminate on consciousness. Meaning at some point there is a collapse event which is identical with a subjective perception of the mind.
It's in the formalism of QM which can be predicted in an objective mathematical way, and yet it is ontologically subjective.
The main problem with Hameroff's model in my opinion is the lack of empirical data. He doesn't have any data that quantum physics would affect the brain the way he says it does. He also doesn't address how consciousness is confined to being a property of a localized center of the brain while the gap junctions and microtubules his theory is based off of are ubiquitous throughout the nervous system. Never mind the fact that he doesn't publish his findings.
This is the gateway to the parallel worlds. Thru concentration it is possible to connect to your parallel selves. Quantum tubes and entanglement are the bridges... ? ?
I wasn't referring to the microtubules but rather that consciousness must be quantum mechanical or else our thinking processes would slow down exponentially.
Ok, thanks for the heads up. Not that intend to buy one anyway in the immediate future.
I'm waiting till we can simulate full universes on one anyway. I'll buy one along with my "Sims Universe" came then.
You keep saying that but when was his last publication in a peer-reviewed journal? I've looked at his publications page and he lists his most recent actual publication in 2010. Granted, that is in a low impact journal and doesn't include any experimental work, but that is his most recent publication. Prior to that, his last research publication in an actual journal is 1996 (when it comes to Orch-OR). You can argue that his 2007 publication is an actual article but (con'td)
Except that we can't conceive of a p-zombie experiencing a collapse event. The collapse event bridges the subject/object gap. It's the only phenomenon in all of science that is both subjective and objective simultaneously.
Stuart Hameroff never explains why microtubules in the kidneys or lungs are not conscious. Or does it only happen with Neuronal cells? In which case the objection still stands, since most of the talk is about neurons. Also quantum conscious as opposed to emergent consciousness has some ethical implications.
I dont know. Im not sold on microtubules being the answer, just an interesting possibility. Mostly when it comes to quantum cognition I take an experimental approach as to how it ties into brain biology and say we should see what it turns out to be. We know consciousness can't be emergent as that is literally magic. However we dont yet have all the answers as to wear it is either. So I just say eliminate what we know isnt/cant be the answer and wait and see about the rest.
I love that video.
Very good, except I think his comments on Bayesian Nets are inaccurate / hand wavy. I believe what he is referring to is that the training of Bayesian Nets in AI is often using MCMC (random walks) or approximations that don't allow as much connectedness as we would like. So yes QM could allow us to train a Bayesian Net exhaustively giving much better estimations of the probability graph, in fact it would give us profoundly powerful graphs. This improvement isn't a flaw in Bayesian Nets themselves, just a flaw with the current limitations we have with the way they are trained. Though I think we need to chuck in some Information Theory in there at some point to give some structure to the graph - we will never be able to have fully connected graphs as that would require O(2^N) training examples (N = num features).
Why the problem of lighting interference when using projectors every time
Perhaps but, again, we are entering the realm of speculation. I think that actual research is more worth our time than entertaining someone who isn't willing to do it. That's just my opinion. When you look at quantum cognition, it isn't contributing to neuroscience yet. It may in the future but that just isn't the case now.
Hello matrix guy. This video and it's information is amazing. For me was very interesting the structure of microtubules and the hexagonal paterns cause i'm working on ceramic alumina templates with nanoporous in an hexagonal arrangement that can be used to grow nanotubules inside the porous and just by copying this structures we can have a huge research field in nanoelectronics. I will try to get his papers. Thumbs up for your video.
Idealists are about to start popping up everywhere.
makes perfect sense at 50-percent playback speed
"bunch of people in neuroscience"
Well tell you what. Once they've recognized the hard problem and don't defer to incoherencies such as, "I am a process," then they will have some actual authority on the nature of consciousness. Until then they can't truly be said to study it.
As for quantum cognition, that is much more mainstream than Orch-OR or anything to do with Hameroff, and is much more solid. Given the obvious, it is only a matter of time before quantum bio absorbs cognitive science.
Well no model of consciousness has been demonstrated yet, though given Bandyopadhyay's work it is feasible.
"being modeled yet because of the large gap in neuroscientific knowledge"
Right the explanatory gap between empirical and non-empirical knowledge.
"Take care of your tubules and everything else will be OK!" How? With Zinc?
no eat you're proteins..
A lack of cell biology means that Hameroff will have to jump to the next gap (having abandoned the idea that the cytoplasm in a neuron will become gel like to hold his superposition). He argues that microtubules must be the site of the superposition (as they will have some protection against the messy electrical chaos of the cytoplasm). He also argues that the wider superposition must be connected from dendrite to dendrite (because a traditional axodendritic connection is too far apart and too electrically chaotic, what with all the neurotransmitter release).
The most interesting thing about dendrodendritic connections is that they are performed by the spiny protrusions that can move and thus form and break connections quickly. In order to do this they have to have mobility not structure. And that is why you don't find any microtubules in them.
Boom - another woo scientist falls to empiricism.
Johanan you're a really clever guy, and I love your videos on physics, but please don't go the same way as this one. You're better than that.
Lets just let the science do the talking. All the dogamtic posturing and threats are meaningless in the face of science.
enormousforce dogmatic posturing?
Sapiensiate
*dogmatic posturing*
An approach or attitude towards something that is based largely, if not entirely, on dogmatic thought, as opposed to real empiricism.
*and threats*
_"Johanan you're a really clever guy, and I love your videos on physics, but please don't go the same way as this one [otherwise I won't watch your videos anymore]"_
*"Boom - another woo scientist falls to empiricism."*
How certain are you about that? You think you can just make a statement on youtube and voila, dismiss someone like Hameroff? There's nothing empirical about your proclamation.
enormousforce There is a huge amount of empiricism in my post. Hameroff's entire conjecture depends upon microtubules in dendrodenritic connections. There are none.
How much more empirical do I need to be?
Sapiensiate
*Hameroff's entire [theory] depends upon microtubules in dendrodenritic connections*
Have you got a better theory and a prediction to go with it?
*there are none*
How certain are you about that?
Keep in mind that the Hameroff's and Penroses hypothesis is testable. And as Dr Hameroff points out, a testable prediction is the correlation between the MIC of anaesthetic gases and their ability to inhibit superconductance in microtubules. If this can be demonstrated (and research into this is inevitably forthcoming), it would be scientific evidence that consciousness arises from quantum processes in microtubules.
When you or Patricia Churchland use the term "explanatory power" that has very strict scientific meaning. Specifically, it means that a hypothesis has explanatory power if it can make testable predictions. It's somewhat synonymous to predictive power. The quantum mind hypothesis has predictive and therefore explanatory power, because it can make testable predictions. Let me know if you think Churchland used "explanatory power equal to pixie dust" in another sense.
I disagree given the data that comes from neuroscience. In a series of experiments, neuroscientists have demonstrated that the neural root of consciousness is most likely in the limbic system.
Well the only thing I need to tie in the mind is the observer effect, which already has plenty of evidence. Unless of course one wishes to claim that the minds interactions are non-physical and not reducible to collapse. However, I haven't said that all the details of Orch-OR are true, just interesting.
"and not with pure conjecture"
Which is generally the sort of claim one makes when one confuses neuroscience with making non-empirical claims past correlates (even if they are causative).
I took it from his website directly under his publications list. Granted, that is selected publications but I think it holds up for my purposes.
it's not helping the case by publishing this in youtube standard license rather than creative commons
Well I don't agree with all of his ideas, and until we figure out how quantum cognition works yes it is speculative to say for sure it's in the microtubules. I just thought the talk was interesting.
BTW, and I'm going to try to nail down where this came from, but the other day someone posted on the idealism board pointing out that classical process that simulates a quantum process must slow down exponentially. This was attributed to Feynman, but if it's true, it would have implications for QC.
I am a layman about neuroscience and Quantum physics - therefore U have to treat my comment as such - most of the neuroscientists and cosmologist and physicians disagree to the quantum consciousness theory because there is no physical evidence that quantum states play any role for information processing in the brain.
Even Sir Roger Penrose who wrote a book with him together about this topic seem to disagree.
"She specializes in philosophy of the mind."
Philosophy of the mind has nothing to do with neurology and anaesthesia which is Dr. Hameroff's specialty.
No, is it only about quantum effects in the brain? Do they explain why the large ions in the cell don't just cancel the effects out?
"to what I actually say? I said that I hate amateur armchair philosophers."
Well for example I was thinking with regards to the free-will debate on the LGS, which wasn't just armchair philosophy. Though yes some philosophy on the internet is of the armchair variety.
"As for the reaction you had, I don't blame you."
Don't worry about it too much. I know where you're coming from. As for Nicolas, I kind of explained you didn't mean to sound arrogant, so be nice. (I'm telling him the same)
In addition to memory, there are many other limbic functions that govern most of consciousness. You learn this in intro psych and in intro biology when you study the structure of the brain.
"the ones that think Consciousness is supercalifragilistic but that's an illusion"
Um, sorry, but that's not a counterargument. I was arguing from the fact that we must model cognition as quantum, but that classical simulations of quantum behavior slow down exponentially, that we could not be classical.
No reference to eliminativist or emergentist mumbo-jumbo...
Perhaps a more complete model would include some quantum mechanics (likely it probably does) but that doesn't necessarily lead to all of the stuff you are proposing (which you have to concede based upon the lack of evidence either way). I'm comfortable saying I don't know and there isn't any evidence. I'd rather go with what has empirical support at the moment and not with pure conjecture.
Personally, I think that posting this stuff hurts rather than helps any quantum mind theories because Hameroff doesn't want his ideas in the peer review process. Wouldn't it be of greater use to wait for legitimate theories of mind to be developed (there are none that are even close to being complete)? It's one of those things that seems more like preaching than popularizing.
Thanks.
"If we knew how our bodies were made, we wouldn't dare move." G Flaubert.
"Does that mean that the thalamus solves the hard problem of consciousness? No."
You are confusing quantum consciousness with the hard problem of consciousness. Although the two problems are somewhat overlapping as quantum consciousness may provide a solution to latter, quantum consciousness still can have explanatory power even if it never succeeds in solving the hard problem of consciousness. It can have explanatory power by making testable predictions such as those mentioned by Dr. Hameroff.
It is Churchland's and Denett's hypothesis which has the explanatory power equal to pixie dust in synapses. That's because when you say the mind is an emergent property of the brain, what predictions can be made from that? How is it possible to test that scientifically? What is the threshold or border where the mind suddenly emerges from combining little bits of the brain?
If there's no objective threshold it is impossible to test or falsify, therefore not scientific.
No I don't flag posts for spam on principle.
Guys, both of you, tone it down a little or it will escalate.
Nice post. Who flagged this as spam?
I don't think the idea that "brain causes consciousness" is necessarily correct. This is a common trap of thinking. Brain doesn't necessarily cause consciousness just like radio receiver doesn't cause radio waves. It's just the receiver's structure that causes radio waves to manifest in a certain way. Similarly, consciousness could be a fundamental property of matter itself (in Hameroff's theory the ability to "quantum collapse" in a proto-conscious moment) which solves the hard problem.
I would say that because I have. Someone once said that I was really intelligent and I responded with, "Thank you but I know a lot of people who are as intelligent as I am. I like to think that I'm very competitive and very hard-working for the most part." In context, that is what I meant. You took it out of context.
"no experimental evidence supporting Hameroff's model. How can you say it's the best when..."
Well one could point out that it is the only one capable of actually explaining consciousness at this point. And Bandopadhyay's work puts it in the ballpark. So given what we already know from Wigner's friend thought experiments it's quite reasonable even if not proven.
"The current consensus..."
You keep citing this as though it's some kind of authority, as though you lack arguments of your own.
lol! No he doesn't, but I get your point. It would be rather petulant though if he did simply dismiss what is in a popular science magazine, for no other reason than that it was a popular science magazine. Sure it's not an actual journal, but the editors aren't idiots, and it's not like they just publish anything. I think he'd understand that.
"and worked my fucking ass off."
Fair enough. I can see how that would be irritating. Aterall I suppose I've had the same kind of reaction before when people attack my physics knowledge.
BTW, regarding your comment of philosophy, not all philosophy is amateur especially when professional philosophers are cited. (even if by people without formal training in it) You may not mean it like that, but it CAN come off snooty (and/or scientistic) sounding -even if that is not at all your intention.
TIP OF THE ICEBERG
Thanks. :)
"A quantum system within the brain would rapidly undergo wave function collapse"
That assumes a lot, and with what we've already seen in quantum bio, nature has proven more ingenious than that.
"(and that's assuming this solves the hard problem, which it simply doesn't)."
Sure it does. All one needs to do is to shift the underlying ontology and equate collapse with the Whiteheadian "moment of experience."
Need to define concsciousness, self-awareness, data processing, and intelligence -- all different.
around 35:00 he explains consciousness a bit... he means a conscious thought, not consciousness in the big philosophical sense.
***** I like your definition better than the vid's def., it's more complete, not just thoughts. I'd say that other animals are conscious too... from having dogs i'm furry sure they are conscious. Good point consciousness isn't necessarily favorable! it can be a real pain in the self-perceived neck... or most often, in our poor little puffed-up egos.
I think that mis-function is partly due to the fact that our consc evolved in a tribal setting, and growing up in the modern world doesn't always give us what we need to develop right. All tribals have a rite of passage thing when kids get around 13 years old, to help them transition to adult, but we treat them like babies and make them sit in desks for another 5 years copying useless crap out of a textbook. They need more challenge than that... survive in the desert and kill a lion type of thing... (speaking for the guys). That's why sports are so important at that age, it gives us some of what we need in that respect.
For computers to become truly aware, they'll need electronic nerves so they can experience their own self, not just process info... ?
***** dogs rock! about computers, maybe if we made programs evolve within bodies -- like DNA needs cells -- they could grow to have self-awareness. Right now i think the computer world is like the primordial soup before life began...
Microvita Theory...
if you want to leap beyond the threshold of present Science..then give this topic a shed from your fractions of intelligence and not your excellent critics!
Can anyone summarise what opposition Hameroff, Penrose et al. receive for their theory?
+modvs1 No, but here are the rebuttals on the paper
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064513001905
""measuring"?"
In physical terms that would mean interacting.
"p-zombie "measure"?"
Yes, though if collapse is a moment of experience it could undermine the concept of a p-zombie.
"theological implications"
Interesting ones. In the big picture it would actually reformat how we think about God. Speaking of which, check this out: watch?v=7eKG_OZuAkw
"prefer dualist explanations"
Usually. Though I have a different ontology in mind than either! Hint: There is no spoon. ;-)
Biases from the cognition that desires to be recognized?
Interfering with the quantum effects in the microtubules.
Well it was apparently significant enough to get a front page article in New Scientist: newscientist . com/article/mg21128285.900-quantum-minds-why-we-think-like-quarks.html#.Ue12IG1t53U
"He is proposing actual quantum mechanical events that aren't based in biological reality"
Well you need to theorize before you can test.
Well I've heard that was a gimmick. The actual article from what I know wasn't actually denying evolution.
Now, let's add in another confounder: this scientist is relatively young and new. He only recently established his own lab so he is just starting to get a good workflow in. Last year alone, he published 2 research articles. My guess is that he keeps that rate up. So at that rate, he is publishing 6 times as frequently as Hameroff in a similar field. It would seem that knowledge of how this thing works is pertinent. BTW, I can do this for pretty much any researcher at my university.
even if I grant you that, he still isn't publishing in any meaningful sense. I personally know professors that publish 5 papers a year. However, let's control for a field. Let's pick neuroscience. Also, let's pick a scientist who is working in a similar area. He has published 8 times in the same time period as Hameroff (by the same criteria). Additionally, his work is universally accepted unlike Hameroff's.
Because then quantum mechanics would have to magically stop working just because a mind is the object doing the measuring.
And the only reason the laws of quantum mechanics would not apply to minds as well as everything else would be if substance dualism is true. But that makes no sense.
PS. If you want to see a physicist who does know what he's talking about in regards to quantum mechanics and the mind, I JUST uploaded a new video - a lecture by Henry Stapp: watch?v=1t2dnfhpL6I
My bad. I was thinking of how Hameroff's calculations were off in another context where he was off by two orders of magnitude.
Starts at 3:30
Not really because a selected publications list traditionally lists all publications by a scientist up to a certain point their career. Usually, that point is once they are post-doctoral researchers. It's supposed to be an easy way to find publications. This is the difficulty of talking with someone who doesn't know the subject matter. I put him into one of the citation engines at my university and I just got the exact same result that I had before. This means that my assumption wasn't unfounded
I don't want or need your advice as I've gotten pretty damn far without it. I take advice from people worth my respect and people who I think can provide actual advice. You're the type of person who insults people and then cries about them insulting you back. You're the type of person who can pretend to be tough until he runs into someone who has a look in their eye like they will fight you to the death. I know your type and I avoid it like the plague.
I can't hear anything really
No consciousness is largely confined to the limbic system. Memory is also largely confined there. This is because autobiographical and episodic memory are incredibly important to consciousness. I'm a little rusty on my neuro but if I recall this is why you can blackout from drinking too much before you pass out. You lose your episodic memory so you don't remember anything as it is happening. Thus, you lose a key part of consciousness.
Theorists can publish frequently (look at the field of computer science for instance; the guy that I mentioned publishing 5 papers a year on average is a computer scientist).
My mistake. Sahu et al is Bandyopadhay's lab. It took some digging. So, the work that I was referring to by Bandyopadhay was in that paper! I'm happy because what I said remains correct and in line with the peer-reviewed literature!
surprisingly, these nano poodles have a byte far greater than their bark!
Nicolas:
What ITS said is how science SHOULD work as per the logic of deduction; but science ACTUALLY works as a conversation where mounting evidence eventually leads to consensus -> Orthodoxy -> poor new theory built on old accurate statement.
Where have I been passive-aggressive?
I think I've been pretty active. I've stated that I don't think Hameroff's work has any bearing in the peer-reviewed literature. I think that you have no idea how little you actually know regarding biology. I also think that we should be patient in waiting for an answer from researchers who are working hard. I find it hard that any of that is passive. I'm upfront about what I think.
Confirmation of a hypothesis or hypotheses doesn't matter as much as falsification. That's a basic truth of scientific research. You can always come up with alternative explanations. However, the key thing is that you have to try to falsify those (as best you can). Most of what Newton said was correct (to a degree much larger than Hameroff), but what is most important? What he got wrong ended up being more important than what he got right because that is how science works.