Marvin Minsky was a mathematician and computer scientist who co-founded MIT's CSAIL - Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He said that the study of consciousness is what people wasted their time on in the 20th century. Ouch. We seem no closer to solving the mind-brain problem mind-brain problem than we were a hundred years ago. The study of consciousness is a niche area in neuroscience and occasionally appears in AI research. Few prominent thinkers today are focused on it - except for Sir Roger Penrose. Penrose is a physicist famous for his groundbreaking work in general relativity. He helped Stephen Hawking conceptualize black holes and gravitational singularities. He came up with "Twister Theory", which proposed a connection between quantum mechanics and the structure of spacetime. His recent Nobel Prize was for discovering that black hole formations are good predictions for the general theory of relativity. He also spent decades studying consciousness and has put forth a theory with Stuart Hameroff, a medical doctor, on the origin of consciousness called Orchestrated Objective Reduction, or OOR. His interest in consciousness began when he was a graduate student at Cambridge. He had learned of Godel's Incompleteness Theorems, which states that there are certain claims in mathematics that cannot be proven. This sparked a curiosity in Penrose that whatever is going on in our consciousness could possibly not be computational. Most scientists regard quantum mechanics irrelevant to our understanding of how the brain works. But as someone who has extensively thought about quantum mechanics, Penrose puts forth a possible connection between it and consciousness. OOR is a biological theory of mind that states that consciousness originates at the quantum level inside neurons, rather than the conventional view that it's a product of connections between neurons. There is an objective "reduction" that happens in protein structures known as microtubules, and this reduction goes through a process known as quantum coherence. In quantum computing, bits of information can both be "on" and "off" at the same time. The simultaneous existence of both states is called superposition. Quantum coherence happens when a large number of things, like a whole system of electrons in the brain, exist together in superposition at once. Objective reduction refers to Penrose's ambitious theory about quantum gravity - how the concept of superposition applies to different spacetime geometries. Hameroff suggested to Penrose that microtubules are the quantum device that Penrose had been looking for in his theory. Microtubules help control the strength of synaptic connections in neurons and their shape can protect them from the surrounding noise of the region. They are also symmetric and have a lattice structure. These characteristics are synchronous with how quantum coherence only seems possible in highly protected environments. Neuroscientists generally believe decisions are driven by neural processes that operate independently of conscious thought, suggesting that free will may be obsolete. Robert Sapolsky famously speaks about a revelation he had at 14: "…this is nonsense, there's no God, there's no free will, there is no purpose." Free will shouldn't be tied to conscious decision making because their relationship is much more nuanced. For instance, we can have the will to drive safely on the highway, but we're largely unconscious of most traffic details. Most neuroscientists find it hard to support the concept of free will. Most scientists grow up believing the universe is determinate. In fact, many entered science because they wanted to learn more about the universe and how to better predict it. But quantum theory implies indeterminism. So Penrose might not say that the universe is indeterminate, but he might say that it's determinate and not computable. When asked if he believes if there's any inherent meaning in the universe, Penrose said "somehow, our consciousness is the reason the universe is here." Penrose's theory on quantum gravity and OOR support the concept that superposition can be applied to both spacetime and to neural networks. If that is the case, the universe is indeterminate. There is a case for a mover in an indeterminate landscape. Penrose's response made me think of Carl Jung's take on consciousness. He wrote in Answer to Job: "Existence is only real when it is conscious to somebody. That is why the Creator needs conscious man even though, from sheer unconsciousness, he would like to prevent him from becoming conscious. Whoever knows God has an effect on him." Jung strongly believed that man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious. He coined the phrase "collective unconscious" which refers to the structures of the unconscious mind which are shared among beings of the same species. It's populated by instincts and archetypes, such as the loving mother, the wise old man, the shadow, and the tree of life. As far as he could tell, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. Man's destiny is to create more consciousness. If Jung read about Penrose's Twister Theory and OOR, he might say that the process of creating more consciousness affects the collective unconscious. To Jung, to be in divine service was to be a light in the sea of darkness. Put another way, we should strive to create more consciousness in the sea of unconsciousness. The process of man becoming conscious of himself allows for God to become conscious of his creation. That is a powerful goal, which fits man meaningfully into the scheme of creation, while at the same time conferring meaning upon it. If we are to take Jung's ideas at face value - that we should strive to shine light in the sea of darkness, or create more consciousness in the sea of unconsciousness, and if it's found that the universe is indeterminate and that there is a mover, the next step would be for us to know more about the mover. But if we shine so much light as to rid of the collective unconscious, man overcomes his instincts and dependency on archetypes. Man... becomes God.