Intuition: Perception or Delusion ?
The intuitions reported by mystics, poets, artists, ordinary people, even scientists, often go beyond of the range sensory perception. In the reductionist culture inspired by classical science, they are dismissed as mere delusion classical empiricism claims that there is nothing in the mind that was not first in the eye. However, the classical tenet is not universally upheld. It is exceptional in annals of the history, and even in the context of contemporary cultures.
In the history intuitions were embedded in the conceptual framework through which a given culture interpreted the nature of reality. In indigenous societies shamans and medicine-men (and women) tuned themselves to spontaneous apprehension through rigorous initiation and training; they derived their mystical vision from them. In mythically oriented societies the world was seen as a cosmic realm of spirits, and in classical cultures it was believed to be governed by a panoply of unseen gods. The Abrahamic monotheistic religions recognised the intuitions of their prophets as conveying fundamental truths about God and the nature of His creation. Eastern cultures have always held that reality extends far beyond the domain of the senses.
On the other hand Western culture takes as real only that which is manifest – literally “to hand.” Because what people see is constrained by what they believe they can see, everything that is not conveyed to consciousness by eye and ear is dismissed from the modern view of the world.
But are the intuitions that occasionally surface in consciousness mere delusion? Or can there be intuitions that are as real and fundamental as sensory perception? This question calls for a deeper look at the possibility that spontaneous insights and apprehensions may have a physical basis. There are findings at the cutting-edge of scientific research that affirm this possibility.
The Brain as a “macroscopic quantum system”
The crucial finding is the discovery that the brain isn't merely a classical biochemical system; in some respects it is a “macroscopic quantum system.” Certain cerebral functions involve processes previously thought to be limited to the domain of the quantum. The pertinent functions concern the reception and transmission of information at the cellular and subcellular level: intercellular communication involves quantum-effects and processes. Neurons and neuronal and subneuronal networks form synchronised oscillators that receive and send information through quantum resonance. This information propagates quasi-instantly throughout the organism and does not require classical channels of signal transmission.
The various forms and characteristics of information transmitted through quantum resonance are not fully understood, but their physical basis is clear. It is nonlocality, the process Einstein first said is “spooky” and then Erwin Schrödinger termed “entanglement.”
Entanglement means that the states and functions of the entangled entities are correlated beyond the ordinary bounds of space and time. As a result the entities are intrinsically and fundamentally coherent. Such coherence obtains in the domain of the quantum: in pristine states quanta are coherent and mutually entangled. Only interaction in some form (measurement, and possibly certain acts of observation) renders them decoherent. Macroscale objects were said to be in a permanently decoherent state, yet certain objects also exhibit forms of quantum coherence. There is experimental evidence that the state of entire atoms can be entangled, and in recent years quantum-coherence has been discovered at the scale of living organisms. The divide between the microworld of the quantum and the world of macroscale objects has been breached.
The heat of living organisms – even of warm-bodied species – does not necessarily destroy the coherence that is the precondition of entanglement. While classical quantum theory maintained that at ordinary temperatures Brownian movement made quanta, so-called “qubits,” decoherent and thus incapable of entanglement, recent research (inter alia by Kitaev, Pitkanen, and Frecska and Luna) indicates that the problem of “heat-decoherence” is not insuperable.1 There appear to be networks of quanta where the particles are “woven” or “braided” in a way that is sufficiently robust to maintain coherence at body temperatures. Whereas at such temperatures classically organised qubits become decoherent, networks of woven or braided qubits conserve coherence. As Parsons put it, “braiding is robust: just as a passing gust of wind may ruffle your shoelaces but won’t untie them, data stored on a quantum braid can survive all kinds of disturbance.”2
Quantum coherence in the brain and throughout the organism is not just theoretical speculation; it is entirely fundamental for coordinating the processes that make life possible. The staggering number of physical and chemical reactions taking place in the living organism is not likely to be coordinated by limited and relatively slow biochemical signal-transmission alone. Only the “entanglement” of the organism’s cellular and subcellular components can ensure a sufficiently rapid flow of multidimensional information to maintain the organism in its physically improbable state far from thermal and chemical equilibrium.