SIR ROGER AND SILLY NONSENSE ABOUT MICROTUBULES IN CONSCIOUSNESS Microtubules. I

SIR ROGER AND SILLY NONSENSE ABOUT MICROTUBULES IN CONSCIOUSNESS
Microtubules. I wondered where Sir Roger Penrose got this ridiculous idea and now, well, now I know: anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff.

Simplicity: a microtubule functions like a rail, that motor proteins can carry ‘cargo’ (resources) along to transport whatever resources are necessary within the cell.

In addition, because they are relatively strong, they can provide structure to keep organelles in place. In that way they are precursors to the evolution of veins, nerves, cartilage and bone, for similar purposes: structure and transport.

So, in the context of anesthesia, inhibiting transport along microtubules will suppress electrochemical transmission.

In particular, the axon hillock within the neuron, and the axon itself, is relatively dense with microtubules to ensure that the rather long distance of the axon (from neuron to nerve scales) can carry resources as neurons are expensive cells that must transmit over long distances.

In this sense it is rather logical why we would concern ourselves with the role in suppressing consciousness by suppressing costly transmissions.

But that role doesn’t tell us anything about how consciousness is produced. And how it’s produced is absurdly simple – just like all activity in the brain has turned out to be terribly simple (and as Neil Turok is thankfully finally advocating, that the laws of the universe are terribly simple).

Cheers
CD