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Entangled in the Membrane, Entangled in the Brain?

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Bad New Scientist has an article up today entitled Brain ‘entanglement’ could explain memories, which certainly must have sent Roger Penrose’s brain into a state of multiple correlated back-flips (twistor flips?) However, from the article:

Subatomic particles do it. Now the observation that groups of brain cells seem to have their own version of quantum entanglement, or “spooky action at a distance”, could help explain how our minds combine experiences from many different senses into one memory.

First of all, damnit New Scientist, entanglement is not just between “subatomic particles.” Second of all, the effect described is as similar to spooky action at a distance as the fact that when you look at my feet you’ll most likely see that I have the same color sock on both of my feet. To suggest that the effect described in this PLOS biology paper where they observed correlated local field potential mesurements in a monkey’s brain has got anything to do with quantum entanglement is…well…just plain wrong.

(Which is not to say that quantum effects might not arise in the brain: we simply don’t have any evidence of such effects and speculations about such effects arising are, so far, physically implausible. I.e. that’s how a scientist says: probably not, but I’m always ready to change my opinion with some good hard evidence.)


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