What??? This speaker is very knowledgeable but uses too much jargon without explaining what it means in laymen’s terms. It sounds like he was trying to say that we perceive things and consciously realize them just after they actually happen. So the world around us is actually already in the past and our consciousness is just behind time. But does this mean that we don’t really have consciousness and it is just our brain computing what just happened.
I don’t think so. This does not account for thoughts and contemplations about what is going on. It may be true about our reflexes. We do not have conscious control over them because they happen before we have a chance to think about them. But not everything we do is reflex. We can and do think about things. These are things that take time and are not reflexes. I don’t think we are just spectators of our world.
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If you find Hameroff's ideas confusing, you might appreciate the clarity offered here:
http://www.starlarvae.org/Star_Larvae_The_Physics_of_Subjectivity.html
Heresiarch appears to be an apologist for Hameroff.
Hameroff himself appears to be a vigorous apologist for Hameroff.
Make what you will of the coincidence.
I suspect that Hameroff was invited to BB2006 because Roger Bingham was looking for discussion provoking controversy, which probably also explains his inviting Elizabeth Loftus.
I think that you are absolutely correct that Orch OR is dubious at best. Quantum physicists themselves point out that decoherence would be a problem at body temperature.
As to delays in conscious conceptualization -- we drop a very hot object before we consciously feel that it is hot, for example -- there are perfectly good neuroanatomic explanations without resorting to quantum mythology. As you say -- reflex arcs kick in before signals reach the neocortex.
Microtubules are important in intracellular transportation and occur in many cell types other than neurons. There's an animation and explanation here:
http://biologyofcells.blogspot.com/2007/12/inner-life-of-cell.html
If consciousness depended solely upon quantum mechanisms in the region of microtubules, other cells within our bodies would also be 'conscious' and we could dispense with our peripheral nervous system.
My gosh, creative thinkers really do come up with some . . . er, creative ideas. Bright creative thinkers come up with elaborate justifications for . . . er, creative ideas.
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