Rethinking Neural Networks

Quantum Fields and Biological Data

Karl H. Pribram

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781138985384
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317780946
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Cognitive Psychology & Cognition
• Index: Psychology

The result of the first Appalachian Conference on neurodynamics, this volume focuses on processing in biological neural networks. How do brain processes become organized during decision making? That is, what are the neural antecedents that determine which course of action is to be pursued? Half of the contributions deal with modelling synapto-dendritic and neural ultrastructural processes; the remainder, with laboratory research findings, often cast in terms of the models. The interchanges at the conference and the ensuing publication also provide a foundation for further meetings. These will address how processes in different brain systems, coactive with the neural residues of experience and with sensory input, determine decisions.

II. Quantum Neurodynamics

Chapter 4

The Basics of Quantum Brain Dynamics

Mari Jibu and Kunio Yasue

Research Institute for Informatics and Science
Notre Dame Seishin University
Okayama 700, Japan

1. Motivation

One of the major purposes of this first Appalachian conference is an exposition of several prototypes of quantum neurodynamics, and intensive discussion will be expected to open a new direction in the research activity of BRAINS founded by Dr. Karl Pribram in Radford University. We wish to take part by addressing a small exposition of the basic concepts and ideas of quantum brain dynamics coined originally by Dr. Hiroomi Umezawa catching Pribram's enthusiasm in which the fundamental physical process of the brain can be described within the realm of quantum field theory.

Issues on the research activity in the field of brain science today seem to be arising from the unbalance of research interests between physical science and brain science. In good old days a scientist like Descartes investigated the fundamental law and processes of the brain from the point of view of the fundamental law of the materialistic world he found. Today, scientists are scattered into many different fields and the brain belongs to brain scientists officially.

The brain stands on the very intersection of the materialistic world and the mind world. It seems therefore natural to expect the same order of research activity from physical science as that from brain science. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Knowing very well the fundamental law of materialistic world, that is, quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, physicists are in general not interested in investigating the fundamental process of the brain function, even though their activity comes from that. However, it seems of certain importance that a few great physicists founded once quantum mechanics and quantum field theory have made deep considerations on the brain function. Among them are Bohr, Schrödinger, Pauli, Böhm and Josephson. We can guess their common deep insights:

For better understanding of the fundamental law of the mind world, it may help us to see fundamental processes of the brain as fundamental physical processes from the point of view of the fundamental law of the materialistic world, that is, quantum mechanics and quantum field theory.

2. Emergence of Quantum Field Theory

First of all, it is necessary to understand the conventional way to see the matpriaiistic world. Although the fundamental law of the materialistic world is provided by quantum theory, that is, quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, it is very hard in most cases to investigate the real sophisticated natural phenomena in the materialistic world directly in terms of quantum theory. Therefore, physicists developed an approximative description of the materialistic world given by quantum statistical mechanics, classical statistical mechanics and classical electromagnetism which is valid only for investigating natural phenomena of matters in which all the huge number of atomic ingredients manifest thermal disorder.

It succeeded in describing the fundamental feature of matters in or near thermal equilibrium, and then has been believed accidentally by many scientists to be the most fundamental theory of physics convenient for investigating also such natural phenomena of life as the brain function.

Consequently, the conventional way to see the brain stands on the approximative law of the materialistic world. There, quantum and classical statistical mechanics, classical electromagnetism and quantum chemistry offered us an empirically unified standpoint. Approximative and empirical laws of living matters have been built up by patching many fragmentary results or knowledge obtained in this empirically unified standpoint. Among them are chemical biology, biological physics, physical biology and molecular biology. They do not provide us with a good framework for clarifying the essential aspect of natural phenomena of life, because they gathers only the thermally disordered behaviors of living matters.

The essential aspect of such natural phenomena of life as the brain function may be a fact that they are resulting from certain fundamental processes of fully quantum theoretical nature in which all the atomic ingredients manifest ordered behavior and no longer suffer from thermal disorder. What is needed definitely seems to provide the brain scientists with a proper framework of quantum theory valid for investigating the fundamental process of living matters full of ordered natural phenomena. We call such a framework describing the fundamental physical process of the brain from the point of view of the fundamental law of the materialistic world, that is, quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, “quantum brain dynamics” and abbreviate it by “QBD”.

Of course, such a fundamental framework is not restricted to the brain function. It may provide us also with a drastically new way to see life. We call the more general framework in which the fundamental physical process of living matters can be investigated from the fundamental point of view of quantum theory “quantum biodynamics”and abbreviate it also by “QBD”. It is time, in September 1992, to declare quantum mechanics and quantum field theory respectable in both brain and life sciences.

3. History of Quantum Brain Dynamics

There may be many different ways to approach to quantum brain dynamics and quantum biodynamics just as you can easily find in other addresses of this conference. It is our principle role to present you the basic concepts and ideas of a long-standing world-wide approach to QBDfs coined originally by Umezawa in 1960's.

Let us start from a historical sketch of the development of Umezawa's quantum brain dynamics.

In 1944 Schrödinger emphasized that the essential aspect of natural phenomena of life is to create order in the disordered environment against the second law of thermodynamics. (Schrödinger, 1944) Living matters are matters eating entropy and producing order. Other matters are all subject to the second law of thermodynamics and well described by quantum statistical mechanics. However, quantum statistical mechanics becomes poor in investigating the order-creating process against the second law of thermodynamics. For such aim, we have to work directly with quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, and if necessary introduce a completely new approximation suitable for describing ordered natural phenomena of life. When we apply quantum mechanics or quantum field theory to ordered natural phenomena, it is of extreme importance that we have to use appropriate approximations which may keep the general and fundamental features of such phenomena clear. Certainly, quantum statistical mechanics may not provide us with a good approximation.

Pribram is an outstanding brain scientist who claimed the emergence of incorporating quantum theoretical method of investigation into the brain science about ten years after Schrödinger's deep insight on the long-standin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Keynote Evolution of Complexity of the Brain with the Emergence of Consciousness
• Viewpoint Neurodynamics and Synergetics
• Section I. The Dendritic Microprocess
• Section II. Quantum Neurodynamics
• Section III. Nanoneurology
• Section IV. Perceptual Processing
• Afterword
• List of Authors Cited