Edward Kelley

My name is Edward Kelley. I am disabled and indigent, staying with family until I can get approved for Social Security Disability benefits. I am pretty much confined to home, not so much because of my disability but for the lack of transporation. Still, even if I did have a vehicle, I would not be able to drive it except for short trips to the drug store, grocery store etc because the medications I take make me extremely drowsy and my reaction times are diminished. I wouldn’t be driving like a drunk driver, more like a little old lady who can barely see over the steering wheel.

Because of my confinement, I needed a way to reach out to people and socialize. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life stuck in the house sitting on my ever expanding butt with nothing to do but watch television all day like a lot of shut-ins. I needed interaction. As such, I created this blog. 

The blog is about me. It is about my triumphs, my trials and my tribulations. It is about my loves, my hates and my indifferences. It is about my experiences, my hopes and my dreams. It is about my interests, my hobbies and my recreations. Finally, it is about my faith, my faith in the existence of God, and my faith in God. Loaded with social, political, financial, medical & scientific commentary, you will find my blog an interesting place to visit and participate. 

Why is it called “The Quantum Brain“?

There is a theory, which I subscribe to, that life and consciousness are connected to the fundamental level of reality, the quantum world. This theory was proposed by Stuart Hameroff MD, a physician and researcher at the Arizona University Medical Center and author of the website Quantum Consciousness.

Stuart states the following about his theory:

Consciousness defines our existence and reality, but the mechanism by which the brain generates thoughts and feelings remains unknown. Most explanations portray the brain as a computer, with nerve cells (“neurons”) and their synaptic connections acting as simple switches. However computation alone cannot explain why we have feelings and awareness, an “inner life.”

We also don’t know if our conscious perceptions accurately portray the external world. At its base, the universe follows the seemingly bizarre and paradoxical laws of quantum mechanics, with particles being in multiple places simultaneously, connected over distance, and with time not existing. But the “classical” world we perceive is definite, with a flow of time. The boundary or edge (quantum state reduction, or ‘collapse of the wave function”) between the quantum and classical worlds somehow involves consciousness.

I spent twenty years studying how computer-like structures called microtubules inside neurons and other cells could process information related to consciousness. But when I read The emperor’s new mind by Sir Roger Penrose in 1991 I realized that consciousness may be a specific process on the edge between the quantum and classical worlds. Roger and I teamed up to develop a theory of consciousness based on quantum computation in microtubules within neurons. Roger’s mechanism for an objective threshold for quantum state reduction connects us to the most basic, “funda-mental” level of the universe at the Planck scale, and is called objective reduction (OR). Our suggestion for biological feedback to microtubule quantum states is orchestration (Orch), hence our model is called orchestrated objective reduction, Orch OR.

If this theory is indeed true, then our consciousness is connected to the universe in unimaginable ways. When one considers the most recent theories concerning strings, multiple dimensions, parallel universes etc, then our minds, indeed our souls, would reach far beyond our mere physical existence.

As a Christian, I find no conflict with this theory. In fact, it affirms my belief in God. If the known and unknown universe is the entirety of God’s mind, then that mind can manifest itself however it chooses, even in the personage of Jesus Christ.

The Bible says that God created man in his image. This is obviously not a reference to his physical image but to his spiritual image. That being the case, our spiritual nature encompasses far more than what we are able to perceive in our material world and that spiritual nature is connected to the universe at a fundamental level of reality.