Dans un article récent du New Scientist, 4 january 2025, p 41, Hartmut Neven directeur du laboratoire Quantum Intelligence Artificial Lab responsable chez Google de la mise au point des ordinateurs quantiques les plus puissants à ce jour, propose d’intriquer des neurones du cerveau humain avec un ordinateur quantique pour obtenir des états de conscience de plus en plus élevés, que lui et Roger Penrose, qui partage ce point de vue, appellent de la conscience quantique.
Mais comment intriquer des neurones humains avec des qubits provenant d’un ordinateur quantique? Harmut Neven propose d’utiliser pour cela ce qu’il nomme des cerveaux en miniature (brain organoid) constitués d’un petit nombre de neurones prélevés dans un cerveau humain, à l’occasion par exemple d’une opération cervicale, et incités à se reproduire. Ce dispositif devrait permettre de tester les phénomènes d’intrication
Référence
Testing the Conjecture That Quantum Processes Create Conscious Experience
Hartmut Neven 1,*, Adam Zalcman 1, Peter Read 2, Kenneth S Kosik 3, Tjitse van der Molen 3, Dirk Bouwmeester 4,5, Eve Bodnia 4, Luca Turin 6, Christof Koch 7
Editors: Andrei Khrennikov, Rosario Lo Franco
- PMCID: PMC11203236 PMID: 38920469
Abstract
The question of what generates conscious experience has mesmerized thinkers since the dawn of humanity, yet its origins remain a mystery. The topic of consciousness has gained traction in recent years, thanks to the development of large language models that now arguably pass the Turing test, an operational test for intelligence. However, intelligence and consciousness are not related in obvious ways, as anyone who suffers from a bad toothache can attest—pain generates intense feelings and absorbs all our conscious awareness, yet nothing particularly intelligent is going on. In the hard sciences, this topic is frequently met with skepticism because, to date, no protocol to measure the content or intensity of conscious experiences in an observer-independent manner has been agreed upon. Here, we present a novel proposal: Conscious experience arises whenever a quantum mechanical superposition forms. Our proposal has several implications: First, it suggests that the structure of the superposition determines the qualia of the experience. Second, quantum entanglement naturally solves the binding problem, ensuring the unity of phenomenal experience. Finally, a moment of agency may coincide with the formation of a superposition state. We outline a research program to experimentally test our conjecture via a sequence of quantum biology experiments. Applying these ideas opens up the possibility of expanding human conscious experience through brain–quantum computer interfaces.
Europe Solidaire 