Abstract

This article reviews the modern approaches to the quantum brain hypothesis. The aim is to consider the hypothesis and its classical brain-machine alternative from a broad perspective, including physics, biology, computer science, cosmology, and metaphysics. My starting point is that asking whether consciousness can or cannot have free will is fundamentally incorrect. This aspect is challenged by both physics and neuroscience. The paper argues that the search for conscious free will, as it is typically tested in Libet-type experiments, implies putting the cart before the horse. From the evolutionary perspective, a more correct question is this. Might primitive neural networks of simple organisms have possessed free volitional mechanisms (quantum in origin) as an extremely valuable acquisition for the flourishing of life? Might then the mechanisms have evolved from primary (rapid and random) reflexes in the oldest brain regions such as the brainstem to give rise to conscious cortex-centered properties in later stages of the brain evolution?