One of the most important open questions in science is how our consciousness is established.
This, they argue, could explain the mysterious complexity of human consciousness.
Penrose and Hameroff were met with incredulity.
Quantum mechanical laws are usually only found to apply atvery low temperatures.
Quantum computers, for example, currently operate at around-272C.
At higher temperatures, classical mechanics take over.
For this reason, the quantum consciousness theory has beendismissed outrightby many scientists though others arepersuaded supporters.
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Each neuron containsmicrotubules, which transport substances to different parts of the cell.
Fractals are structures that are neither two-dimensional nor three-dimensional but are instead some fractional value in between.
This might sound impossible to visualize, but fractals actually occur frequentlyin nature.
Thats a key characteristic of fractals.
Its easy to see why fractals have been used to explain the complexity of human consciousness.
Thats why Penrose and Hameroffs proposal is called a theory of quantum consciousness.
But advanced technology means we can now measure quantum fractals in the lab.
So inour latest research, my colleagues at Shanghai Jiaotong University and I went one step further.
We then repeated this experiment on two different fractal structures, both shaped as squares rather than triangles.
And in each of these structures, we conducted hundreds of experiments.
Our observations from these experiments reveal that quantum fractals actually behave in a different way to classical ones.
Our work could also have profound implications across scientific fields.
