Main description:

Seeks answers to these questions using the underlying assumption that consciousness can be understood using the intellectual potential of modern physics and other sciences. There are a number of theories of consciousness, some based on classical physics while others require the use of quantum concepts.

The latter ones have drawn criticism from the parts of the scientific establishment while simultaneously claiming that classical approaches are doomed to failure.

The contributing authors presents a spectrum of opinions from both sides of this on-going scientific debate, allowing readers to decide for themselves which of the approaches are most likely to succeed.

Contents:

The Path Ahead.- Consciousness and Quantum Physics: Empirical Research on the Subjective Reduction of the Statevector.- Microtubules in the Cerebral Cortex: Role in Memory and Consciousness.- Towards Experimental Tests of Quantum Effects in Cytoskeletal Proteins.- Physicalism, Chaos and Reductionism.- Consciousness, Neurobiology and Quantum Mechanics: The Case for a Connection.- Life, Catalysis and Excitable Media: A Dynamic Systems Approach to Metabolism and Cognition.- The Dendritic Cytoskeleton as a Computational Device: An Hypothesis.- Recurrent Quantum Neural Network and its Applications.- Microtubules as a Quantum Hopfield Network.- Consciousness and Quantum Brain Dynamics.- The CEMI Field Theory: Seven Clues to the Nature of Consciousness.- Quantum Cosmology and the Hard Problem of the Conscious Brain.- Consciousness and Logic in a Quantum-Computing Universe.