ULTIMATE COMPUTING - Quantum Consciousness Studies

Protein Conformational Dynamics 143
Figure 6.5: Computer simulation showing energy (vertical axis) localization along
distance (southwest to northeast axis) as function of anharmonicity (southeast to
northwest axis). Over a specific range, energy becomes localized and travels as
solitary wave, or soliton. With permission from Bolterauer, Henkel and Opper
(1986).
Concrete evidence exists for solitons as giant waves in or underneath the
ocean, as optical solitons in laser fiber optics and in other systems. Current
technologies are incapable of proving or disproving biological solitons. If
Davydov is correct about myosin heads, then solitons are responsible for the
molecular level filamentous contractions that drive every move we make.
Propagating solitons in the cytoskeleton could be the dynamic medium of
biological information processing. If so, solitons would be to consciousness what
electricity is to computers.
6.8 Coherent Excitations /Fröhlich
Protein conformational states can register dynamic biological information and
control the real time functions of cytoplasm. The mechanisms of conformational
regulation are not clearly understood, primarily because technology has not
(quite) yet reached the nanoscale. Proteins are clearly vibrant, dynamic structures
in physiological conditions. A variety of recent techniques (nuclear magnetic
resonance, X-ray diffraction, fluorescence depolarization, infrared spectroscopy,
Raman and Brillouin laser scattering) have shown that proteins and their
component parts undergo conformational motions over a range of time scales
from femtoseconds (10 -15 sec) to many minutes.