WEBVTT 1 00:00:15.720 --> 00:00:18.440 Hello, dear friends, Welcome to the Gods of View podcast. 2 00:00:18.559 --> 00:00:25.440 I am your host, Trevor Morale is backup systems are good, 3 00:00:25.559 --> 00:00:34.600 forecasts are optimistic. We've moved on, We've grown. The hate 4 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:37.320 mail is no longer top of mind. Ooben ounce back. No, 5 00:00:37.359 --> 00:00:40.920 it's not you, guys. You could tell. You could tell 6 00:00:40.920 --> 00:00:43.759 what I was wanting. I was sharing the hate mail 7 00:00:44.399 --> 00:00:51.399 to elicit a compensatory complimentary email chain and one of 8 00:00:51.439 --> 00:00:56.200 you listened. One of you listened, So thank you. I 9 00:00:56.240 --> 00:01:01.640 feel much better, much appreciated. I particularly like this in 10 00:01:01.679 --> 00:01:04.599 the email from our dear listener. You should be a 11 00:01:04.640 --> 00:01:08.239 guest on Jesse Michael's podcast or Matt Beal's or dare 12 00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:13.280 I say rogans into that? I say, from your lips 13 00:01:13.319 --> 00:01:18.200 to God's ears, my friend put it out there, send 14 00:01:18.239 --> 00:01:23.640 out those vibrations. I'd be really nervous to do something 15 00:01:23.719 --> 00:01:26.719 like that because I'd probably lose my job. But you know, 16 00:01:26.760 --> 00:01:29.799 if you get on Rogan, it's probably like okay to 17 00:01:29.879 --> 00:01:33.680 lose your job. You know, you just got to have 18 00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:35.920 lots of books to sell or something by the time 19 00:01:35.959 --> 00:01:39.280 you get to Rogan, because yeah, that would be an 20 00:01:39.319 --> 00:01:44.359 immediate job loss for me, unless I went on there 21 00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:46.640 and did my best to not be interesting and just 22 00:01:46.719 --> 00:01:51.439 talked about my actual research and stuff. But yeah, that 23 00:01:51.480 --> 00:01:53.680 would be an immediate termination. And here's the thing. I've 24 00:01:53.719 --> 00:01:59.200 already been fired once for thought crime. I'd hate to 25 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:01.560 do it again anyway. But yes, that'd be great, that'd 26 00:02:01.560 --> 00:02:04.840 be fun. The only thing about Jesse Michaels if I'm 27 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:10.159 I don't want to slander anybody, but saying he like 28 00:02:10.199 --> 00:02:14.159 a multi millionaire investor in Peter Tele's venture capital fund, 29 00:02:16.240 --> 00:02:18.879 the great evil Peter Til No, I don't know is 30 00:02:18.919 --> 00:02:22.840 he evil? He? I mean he he owns an evil company? 31 00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:27.159 Is that true? Am I making this up? Jesse Michael's 32 00:02:28.120 --> 00:02:36.560 investor Teal Capital? Well Google pre wrote it, so oh yeah, 33 00:02:36.719 --> 00:02:39.680 he's a He's a big time He's a big time 34 00:02:39.759 --> 00:02:45.919 Peter Teal venture capital guy. So I don't know it 35 00:02:46.039 --> 00:02:49.080 just I always feel a little a little funny when 36 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:57.319 the like cool, open minded youngster is a multi millionaire 37 00:02:57.400 --> 00:03:02.800 venture capitalist invested with Peter Teel. So I think I've 38 00:03:02.840 --> 00:03:05.840 already just doomed my invite to the Jesse Michaels Show. 39 00:03:06.560 --> 00:03:09.800 But I could be wrong. Maybe this is overblown, Maybe 40 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:13.680 it doesn't matter. It's kind of a bummer though, Like 41 00:03:15.639 --> 00:03:18.520 it's hard to just be a regular guy in this world, 42 00:03:19.240 --> 00:03:24.199 you know, like in this world where everyone's an actor 43 00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:27.240 and everything is a stage, it's difficult to just be 44 00:03:27.400 --> 00:03:32.280 a regular guy. And right now, I'm still very firmly 45 00:03:32.319 --> 00:03:34.240 a regular guy, and I kind of like it. I 46 00:03:34.360 --> 00:03:37.599 kind of like that. You know, this is not this 47 00:03:37.719 --> 00:03:40.680 show is not huge. Do I mean that? Do I 48 00:03:40.759 --> 00:03:44.280 mean that? I gotta think about that. There's a middle ground, 49 00:03:44.360 --> 00:03:48.599 right there's a dangerous middle zone. Like I'm safe here. 50 00:03:49.080 --> 00:03:52.120 I'm safe here with very few listeners. And I would 51 00:03:52.120 --> 00:03:55.560 be safe if I had a million listeners, because that'd 52 00:03:55.599 --> 00:04:00.719 be financially viable. But everything in between the three hundred 53 00:04:00.719 --> 00:04:03.240 listeners I have now and the million listeners I would 54 00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:07.319 need for financial independence is nothing but danger. That's the 55 00:04:07.400 --> 00:04:10.560 danger zone. That's the loser job zone. That's to become 56 00:04:10.639 --> 00:04:15.520 unhireable zone. So you gotta be careful. Anyway, I've got 57 00:04:15.520 --> 00:04:19.839 a pretty cool topic for you all today. I think 58 00:04:21.319 --> 00:04:26.240 I'm a nervous wreck, you guys. I never ask for guests, 59 00:04:26.920 --> 00:04:31.560 and I've started asking for guests. I asked on a 60 00:04:31.560 --> 00:04:35.720 big forum online where people were like kind of science 61 00:04:35.800 --> 00:04:39.839 minded but open minded you know, and that's how I 62 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:43.160 got paired up with that paleontologist a couple episodes ago, 63 00:04:43.800 --> 00:04:46.639 who I thought was very generous with this time, much appreciated, 64 00:04:48.240 --> 00:04:52.439 and I emailed this guy directly because I'm a big 65 00:04:52.519 --> 00:04:57.959 fan of the way he's set up experiments to test 66 00:04:58.519 --> 00:05:05.240 theories and consciousness, particularly orchestrated objective reduction, which is I 67 00:05:05.279 --> 00:05:07.079 still have a hard time wrapping my head around. But 68 00:05:07.079 --> 00:05:11.600 it has something to do with Roger Penrose's ideas and 69 00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:20.560 Stewart Hammeroff's ideas that conscious experience subjective experience is a 70 00:05:20.639 --> 00:05:25.360 product somehow of the collapse of quantum wave functions within 71 00:05:25.399 --> 00:05:29.439 our mind. And you know, it's kind of tough to 72 00:05:29.480 --> 00:05:32.519 understand what that means, except for the fact that Stuart 73 00:05:32.519 --> 00:05:37.279 Hammeroff and antithesiologists has sort of put forward a location 74 00:05:37.519 --> 00:05:41.639 for this, which is the microtubule. And of course this 75 00:05:41.759 --> 00:05:44.680 was sort of dismissed because for a long time we've 76 00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:50.040 assumed that quantum activity cannot occur in a warm, wet, 77 00:05:50.079 --> 00:05:54.920 and noisy environment like our mind. You know, our quantum computers. 78 00:05:54.920 --> 00:06:00.519 We cool them down to nearly absolute zero. But it 79 00:06:00.560 --> 00:06:02.480 turns out we may have been wrong about that, as 80 00:06:02.560 --> 00:06:06.399 is often the case, we end up being wrong about stuff, 81 00:06:08.759 --> 00:06:13.279 and microtubules are very small, so it's difficult to study them. 82 00:06:13.959 --> 00:06:17.879 And Mike Weist, the guy who I'm talking about right now, 83 00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:20.879 he designed a really interesting study to do just that. 84 00:06:21.720 --> 00:06:23.639 And so I emailed him said hey, would you come 85 00:06:23.639 --> 00:06:25.839 on the show, And I expected never to hear back 86 00:06:25.839 --> 00:06:29.279 from him, and he said yes. So I have an 87 00:06:29.519 --> 00:06:36.079 urgent need. I'm putting out the all Points bulletin. This 88 00:06:36.160 --> 00:06:39.199 is a call to action, a call to arms. Fall 89 00:06:39.279 --> 00:06:44.399 in attention, fall in at attention listeners of the Gods 90 00:06:44.399 --> 00:06:48.720 I View podcast. I'm going to play an interview he 91 00:06:48.800 --> 00:06:51.800 did to just get us in the right headspace for 92 00:06:51.839 --> 00:06:57.279 this topic. This is big, this is uncharted territory for 93 00:06:57.360 --> 00:07:00.000 the Gods I View podcast. We're talking to real people, 94 00:07:01.279 --> 00:07:06.240 real people of import and we need to have our 95 00:07:06.240 --> 00:07:09.639 wits about us to navigate these treacherous waters. And so 96 00:07:09.639 --> 00:07:11.560 what I would like is some listener questions. I think 97 00:07:11.560 --> 00:07:15.240 that'd be pretty cool to go on a show as 98 00:07:15.240 --> 00:07:20.040 a guest and already have listener questions ready shows a 99 00:07:20.120 --> 00:07:22.160 level of engagement with the topic, which I think is 100 00:07:22.199 --> 00:07:25.879 pretty special. So we're going to listen to this video 101 00:07:26.519 --> 00:07:30.160 and if you have a question, pop into your mind, 102 00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:32.199 jot it down, send it to me. God's I view 103 00:07:32.240 --> 00:07:35.399 book at gmail dot com, and I will ask the 104 00:07:35.480 --> 00:07:37.879 man himself when I speak to him next week. Unless 105 00:07:37.879 --> 00:07:40.439 he listens to the show and decides to cancel, that's 106 00:07:40.480 --> 00:07:45.480 always possible, But as of right now, we're on, So 107 00:07:45.720 --> 00:07:46.079 let's go. 108 00:07:47.399 --> 00:07:52.000 What I'm going to be suggesting is that microtubules, and 109 00:07:52.040 --> 00:07:55.240 I'll tell you more about those, but they are literal 110 00:07:55.319 --> 00:07:58.879 tubes made out of protein that are inside all of ourselves, 111 00:07:59.199 --> 00:08:04.360 including our nerve cells. They have special roles and special 112 00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:10.519 organization and special accessory proteins in neurons in brain cells 113 00:08:10.560 --> 00:08:15.759 as compared to other parts of the body, and so 114 00:08:16.120 --> 00:08:20.639 I have a bit of Well, the hypothesis on the. 115 00:08:20.600 --> 00:08:24.439 Table is that our consciousness. 116 00:08:23.879 --> 00:08:30.560 Is a property of vibrations of these microtubules, of the dipole, 117 00:08:30.639 --> 00:08:34.360 the electric dipoles, that they're made out of a collective 118 00:08:34.440 --> 00:08:38.480 vibration of the microtubules in our brain cells. The hypothesis 119 00:08:38.519 --> 00:08:42.200 is that is the the physical substrate of our consciousness. 120 00:08:44.120 --> 00:08:46.879 All right, big claim, big claim that the audio is 121 00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:49.559 kind of bad for some reason on this YouTube video, 122 00:08:49.679 --> 00:08:53.519 so sorry for all the background ers. Although my computer 123 00:08:53.559 --> 00:08:56.000 does a pretty good job filtering stuff out. Sometimes it 124 00:08:56.039 --> 00:08:58.039 sounds bad in my headphones and good in real life. 125 00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:03.679 So anyway to the claim is this structure, this kind 126 00:09:03.679 --> 00:09:08.720 of ubiquitous structure, highly evolutionary conserved structure, meaning it's in 127 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:16.480 all cells, human cells, shark cells, plant cells, protozoa. They 128 00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:19.799 all have microtubules, and microtubules we kind of assumed were 129 00:09:19.960 --> 00:09:22.279 very important. They seemed like they were sort of spokes 130 00:09:22.279 --> 00:09:26.279 on a bicycle wheel radiating out from the cell center 131 00:09:26.399 --> 00:09:30.799 called the centrosome. And there is these little cool you 132 00:09:30.840 --> 00:09:34.000 can watch animations of it online. These little cool is 133 00:09:34.519 --> 00:09:39.320 it canesan and dining proteins that would walk towards the 134 00:09:39.360 --> 00:09:46.600 cell center or away from carrying luggage, carrying vesicles, and 135 00:09:46.679 --> 00:09:48.440 so this is how things move around in the cell. 136 00:09:48.480 --> 00:09:50.639 This is something that sort of missed in like high 137 00:09:50.679 --> 00:09:51.440 school biology. 138 00:09:51.440 --> 00:09:51.840 One on one. 139 00:09:51.879 --> 00:09:53.799 You have all these structures and it's like, well, okay, yeah, 140 00:09:53.840 --> 00:09:57.000 but how does stuff get around? And this is how 141 00:09:57.120 --> 00:10:02.440 there's this sort of intracellular high way system railroad system 142 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:08.120 tracks that motor proteins little engines pull train cars around. 143 00:10:08.159 --> 00:10:11.559 It's really cool. I mean, it is so cool, but 144 00:10:11.759 --> 00:10:14.200 it's still that's kind of a basic, you know, very 145 00:10:15.960 --> 00:10:21.519 mundane thing, railroad tracks, right, but they also do some 146 00:10:21.559 --> 00:10:26.519 other stuff. They also organize the cell's genetic material during mitosis, 147 00:10:26.519 --> 00:10:29.840 and they split your genome in half. Well, you make 148 00:10:29.879 --> 00:10:32.600 a copy of it first, but so your your cell 149 00:10:32.639 --> 00:10:35.519 copies your DNA, so you have two copies of everything, 150 00:10:35.559 --> 00:10:38.279 and the centrisome split it in half in reel in 151 00:10:38.440 --> 00:10:41.480 these sister chromatids or the the you know, the new chromosomes, 152 00:10:41.480 --> 00:10:45.240 the daughter chromosomes, sorry, two opposite poles of the cell, 153 00:10:46.200 --> 00:10:49.039 and then they push the cells apart until they split 154 00:10:49.080 --> 00:10:52.840 in half. So it's actually the centrisomes that are like 155 00:10:53.159 --> 00:11:00.159 key and foundational to cellular division and replication mitosis. So 156 00:11:00.200 --> 00:11:04.720 that's kind of interesting right. Well now Mike Weist and 157 00:11:04.759 --> 00:11:07.480 others are proposing that no, no, no, as they do 158 00:11:07.600 --> 00:11:10.759 much more than that. You know, these things, these structures 159 00:11:10.759 --> 00:11:13.879 are made of these little tubulent subunits that are polar, 160 00:11:14.159 --> 00:11:16.840 meaning they have the two sides of the molecule have 161 00:11:17.039 --> 00:11:22.279 a charge. There's an electrical gradient to cross them, and 162 00:11:22.320 --> 00:11:27.080 they resonate, they flip back and forth, and so the 163 00:11:27.200 --> 00:11:33.519 idea is that somehow this resonant frequency is responsible for 164 00:11:33.639 --> 00:11:38.480 our inner world, for subjective experience. It's fantastical, but they 165 00:11:38.519 --> 00:11:40.919 do some really good research. Now I'm still sort of 166 00:11:41.039 --> 00:11:48.519 stuck the same place I'm stuck with all explanations of consciousness, 167 00:11:48.559 --> 00:11:50.159 which is like, Okay, this is all very cool, but 168 00:11:50.200 --> 00:11:53.519 it's I still don't really understand, and maybe it's my 169 00:11:53.559 --> 00:11:58.240 own issue, but I still don't understand how this process 170 00:11:58.639 --> 00:12:03.399 leads to the subject active experience, like the feeling that 171 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:07.840 I'm in my head looking out listening thinking how does 172 00:12:07.879 --> 00:12:10.519 this little resonance lead to that? And Mike does a 173 00:12:10.519 --> 00:12:15.840 pretty good job, you know, doing the best any human 174 00:12:15.919 --> 00:12:19.399 could really of teasing that out. So let's listen. 175 00:12:19.879 --> 00:12:24.080 And aside from the evidence I'm gonna talk about here, 176 00:12:25.799 --> 00:12:29.679 this is also kind of plausible because in a biological 177 00:12:29.759 --> 00:12:33.799 or evolutionary sense, because from the very beginning of life 178 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:39.600 from this in single celled organisms, microtubules are already playing 179 00:12:40.159 --> 00:12:45.879 a very dynamic role integrating sensory information and coordinating movement. 180 00:12:46.600 --> 00:12:51.559 So it's microtubules that are inside the philipodia and scillia 181 00:12:51.720 --> 00:12:55.519 and various kinds of legs that single celled organisms have 182 00:12:56.159 --> 00:12:59.039 and are participating with other parts of the cytoskeleton in 183 00:12:59.120 --> 00:13:05.919 actually swimming and crawling and so on. It's microtubules. One 184 00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:08.679 of my slides is about how it. 185 00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:10.519 It is kind of cool that the first instruments of 186 00:13:10.679 --> 00:13:15.639 moving and interacting with the environment were brought about by microtubules. 187 00:13:15.879 --> 00:13:18.480 You know, the cilia, the flagellum, the things that move 188 00:13:18.519 --> 00:13:21.519 around on cells that allow them to walk around and explore. 189 00:13:23.320 --> 00:13:26.960 Those microtubules. I think there's something pretty profound about that. 190 00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:28.480 You don't think You don't think of a little hair 191 00:13:28.519 --> 00:13:30.720 that can move and make you swim as being like 192 00:13:31.919 --> 00:13:35.759 this foundational thing about existence. But it is the ability 193 00:13:35.799 --> 00:13:38.720 to go out into the world as a little cell, 194 00:13:38.879 --> 00:13:44.600 you know, and have goals, find food, evade danger, like 195 00:13:45.480 --> 00:13:48.320 this is this is it? This is the first stirrings 196 00:13:48.320 --> 00:13:50.360 of life, right, it's pretty It's pretty cool. 197 00:13:50.399 --> 00:13:56.440 The microtubules that coordinate or choreograph the beautiful dance of 198 00:13:56.559 --> 00:14:01.799 the chromosomes during mitosis. So in the middle are the 199 00:14:01.919 --> 00:14:05.759 chromosomes being pulled apart. What's pulling them apart are microtubules, 200 00:14:06.120 --> 00:14:09.720 and what's coordinating all that is the so called microtubule 201 00:14:09.799 --> 00:14:15.639 organizing center, which is also made out of microtubules. You've 202 00:14:15.639 --> 00:14:18.960 probably heard that they function like railroad tracks for little 203 00:14:19.399 --> 00:14:22.600 munchkins that carry proteins to different parts of the cell. 204 00:14:23.440 --> 00:14:28.799 There is even a series of papers in which Gunter 205 00:14:28.879 --> 00:14:33.519 Albrecht Bueler shows them some really nice experiments that in 206 00:14:33.559 --> 00:14:38.919 some single celled organisms, microtubules appear to be detecting electromagnetic 207 00:14:39.440 --> 00:14:44.000 radiation infra red light and not only detecting it, but 208 00:14:44.159 --> 00:14:48.159 detecting what direction it's coming from, so that the cell 209 00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:52.240 can orient itself with respect to that. So, you know, 210 00:14:52.360 --> 00:14:56.559 they act like little eyes and little nerves inside single 211 00:14:56.600 --> 00:15:00.320 cells and kind of like muscles as well. So they 212 00:15:00.360 --> 00:15:03.600 kind of do the whole the whole business of life 213 00:15:04.519 --> 00:15:09.360 aside from aside from the replication, and so yeah, I 214 00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:11.720 use this slide to stand for a whole range of 215 00:15:11.720 --> 00:15:15.200 phenomena showing that although they are called part of the 216 00:15:15.240 --> 00:15:19.320 cytoskeleton and they're stiff and they have a function like bones, 217 00:15:19.960 --> 00:15:23.240 they're not just bones for the cell. They're not just 218 00:15:23.360 --> 00:15:26.919 tent poles holding up the cell. They have many functions. 219 00:15:27.279 --> 00:15:34.120 And so this is this quantum consciousness hypothesis is. 220 00:15:32.799 --> 00:15:34.799 Is tacking onto that, and it sort of. 221 00:15:36.279 --> 00:15:41.360 Makes sense of the continuity between life and consciousness that 222 00:15:41.399 --> 00:15:44.159 has been that's starting to be noted by neuroscientists. 223 00:15:44.240 --> 00:15:51.919 It's really a profound point. Yes, I'm sorry, yeah, commercial anyway, 224 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:54.440 So it's gonna be it's gonna be interesting to see 225 00:15:54.519 --> 00:15:55.879 what we end up talking about. 226 00:15:56.519 --> 00:15:56.720 You know. 227 00:15:56.759 --> 00:16:03.679 I have found that all scientists, especially experimentalists like doctor Weist, 228 00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:08.440 they're pretty reluctant to speculate. And this show is like, 229 00:16:08.600 --> 00:16:10.679 that's all I want to do, you know, I just 230 00:16:10.679 --> 00:16:12.960 want to get all the speculation out of my system, 231 00:16:13.440 --> 00:16:16.519 you know. And so we'll see, you know, if it's 232 00:16:16.559 --> 00:16:22.960 going to be more of a pretty much straightforward research discussion. 233 00:16:23.080 --> 00:16:25.279 But I would love to know. I would love to 234 00:16:25.320 --> 00:16:29.440 be like I wish Mike could come anonymously so I 235 00:16:29.440 --> 00:16:31.039 could just ask him, like, what do you think is 236 00:16:31.080 --> 00:16:34.960 really going on? Man? Come on, tell me level with me. 237 00:16:36.399 --> 00:16:38.080 If no one was going to know, if no one 238 00:16:38.120 --> 00:16:40.480 was going to listen to this, what is this? What 239 00:16:40.639 --> 00:16:43.960 in the world is this? Now we haven't even really 240 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:45.840 got into the interesting part yet, so I guess I'll 241 00:16:45.879 --> 00:16:46.440 stop talking. 242 00:16:46.639 --> 00:16:51.200 So that's making the connection between life and consciousness. Now. 243 00:16:51.279 --> 00:16:55.840 Another way to make this connection is by considering anesthesia, 244 00:16:56.480 --> 00:16:58.679 which are medically miraculous. 245 00:16:59.679 --> 00:17:02.080 Yes, so we have volatile. 246 00:17:01.480 --> 00:17:04.279 Anesthetics and we have different kinds of injectable anesthetics on 247 00:17:04.359 --> 00:17:09.079 focusing on the vile, volatile ones. We vaporize them and 248 00:17:09.119 --> 00:17:12.519 breathe them in like a gas. And it turns out 249 00:17:12.559 --> 00:17:17.519 those kind work on everything alive, not just us and 250 00:17:17.799 --> 00:17:23.759 primates or mammals, but also invertebrates, single cell creatures that 251 00:17:23.839 --> 00:17:27.200 have no neurons at all, and even plants. 252 00:17:27.720 --> 00:17:30.640 This should be the end of the discussion. You know, 253 00:17:30.680 --> 00:17:34.480 this should be it. Let me let me give you 254 00:17:34.519 --> 00:17:37.039 some background. We don't really have a good sense about 255 00:17:37.119 --> 00:17:41.000 how anesthesia works. There's a lot of theories about gabba 256 00:17:41.039 --> 00:17:45.599 receptors and ion channels and neurons. No one wants to 257 00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:48.559 entertain the idea that they could function, that could act 258 00:17:48.599 --> 00:17:51.839 on a much simpler structure because what are the implications. Well, 259 00:17:52.720 --> 00:18:00.559 what does anesthesia do? Anesthesia turns consciousness off. So whatever 260 00:18:00.680 --> 00:18:06.400 structure the anesthesia interacts with must be the structure that 261 00:18:06.519 --> 00:18:13.200 is key to conscious experience, right, Because if this molecule, 262 00:18:13.240 --> 00:18:19.680 this anesthesia molecule, turns off consciousness, it's the key to consciousness. 263 00:18:19.880 --> 00:18:23.680 What is the luck, what is it attaching to? What 264 00:18:23.759 --> 00:18:27.359 is it interacting with? And because we have we have 265 00:18:27.400 --> 00:18:31.440 such a neuron dominant framework for the brain and how 266 00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:34.559 the brain works, and how consciousness works. We want to 267 00:18:35.839 --> 00:18:42.960 assume it must be that anesthesia directly affects neurons. However, 268 00:18:44.319 --> 00:18:50.519 anesthesia also affects plants and single cell organisms. What are 269 00:18:50.559 --> 00:18:56.200 plants and single cell organisms missing. They're missing neurons, they're 270 00:18:56.240 --> 00:19:03.000 missing neurons. So surely can't be the neuron. And you 271 00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:05.599 can like equivocate, you can say, well, maybe there's something 272 00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:09.319 like a neuron blah blah blah blah. No, no, listen, listen, stop, stop, 273 00:19:11.519 --> 00:19:18.079 stop the binding side of this molecule. That's that's the key. 274 00:19:18.200 --> 00:19:21.799 Where where do these molecules bind? What is their target? 275 00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:26.640 What is the effector it can't be neurons, It can't 276 00:19:26.680 --> 00:19:29.160 be neuron cell membrane, It can't be an ion channel 277 00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:30.960 in a neuron. It can't be a receptor in a 278 00:19:31.039 --> 00:19:35.839 neuron because single cell organisms don't have that. And these 279 00:19:35.920 --> 00:19:39.319 drugs do the same things across all these creatures. And 280 00:19:39.359 --> 00:19:41.319 there's a great quote on the screen right now by 281 00:19:41.319 --> 00:19:44.960 Claude Bernard that says, what is alive must sense and 282 00:19:45.039 --> 00:19:50.960 can be anesthetized. The rest is dead. And this is true, 283 00:19:51.359 --> 00:19:57.119 This is just foundationally true. This is key it's no 284 00:19:57.200 --> 00:20:00.000 wonder that one of the coolest theories of consciousness comes 285 00:20:00.079 --> 00:20:04.559 from an antithesiologist, because what an anise geologists do. They 286 00:20:04.599 --> 00:20:07.880 turn consciousness on and off. And they try to do 287 00:20:07.960 --> 00:20:10.880 so without turning your heart on and off. That's the 288 00:20:10.920 --> 00:20:15.400 other equally important competing factor. But they turn consciousness on 289 00:20:15.440 --> 00:20:18.559 and off in a reversible manner. That's the key, because 290 00:20:18.599 --> 00:20:20.960 you can turn consciousness on and off a lot of ways. 291 00:20:22.119 --> 00:20:24.920 You could get a forty five caliber could do that, 292 00:20:25.079 --> 00:20:28.319 but you can't bring them back easily. So the ability 293 00:20:28.359 --> 00:20:35.359 to reversibly turn consciousness off, that's what antithesiologists do. And 294 00:20:35.839 --> 00:20:38.440 how interesting is it that we don't know how their 295 00:20:38.559 --> 00:20:42.160 drugs work until maybe now. But you guys have to understand, 296 00:20:42.200 --> 00:20:46.440 this is pretty controversial. There's not widespread acceptance of this 297 00:20:46.920 --> 00:20:53.400 because it really undermines, in my opinion, the neuroscientific framework 298 00:20:53.519 --> 00:21:01.480 for interpreting consciousness because if the neuron isn't necessary for consciousness, 299 00:21:02.559 --> 00:21:05.400 then we've got a real problem. But now listen, it's 300 00:21:05.400 --> 00:21:08.519 still physical explanation. We're we're not invoking the soul or 301 00:21:08.599 --> 00:21:12.640 the spirit yet, but it does just it's pretty This 302 00:21:12.720 --> 00:21:14.599 is people don't like this. People don't like to hear this, 303 00:21:14.680 --> 00:21:16.960 especially neuroscientists. 304 00:21:16.519 --> 00:21:19.519 And so for those creatures, we don't know if they're conscious, 305 00:21:19.559 --> 00:21:20.200 But what we can. 306 00:21:20.119 --> 00:21:23.480 Observe is these gases reversibly. 307 00:21:22.920 --> 00:21:28.519 Stop their wiggling around, and so Claude Bernard basically used 308 00:21:28.599 --> 00:21:30.799 anesthesia almost as a definition of life. 309 00:21:32.319 --> 00:21:34.240 If it's alive, it can be anesthetized. 310 00:21:34.799 --> 00:21:38.200 So I've already pointed out some of these things don't 311 00:21:38.200 --> 00:21:40.640 have neurons, but they're sensitive to the same chemicals that 312 00:21:40.680 --> 00:21:43.319 put us to sleep for surgery. So this is a 313 00:21:43.359 --> 00:21:48.599 table showing a list of proteins and cellular components that 314 00:21:49.599 --> 00:21:53.920 I that volatile anesthetics bind to. And so these are 315 00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:58.920 candidate molecular targets that might be part of how these 316 00:21:58.960 --> 00:22:00.400 gases make us on conscious. 317 00:22:01.599 --> 00:22:02.680 I circled the ones. 318 00:22:02.920 --> 00:22:05.920 I circled the microtubules because those are the ones I'm 319 00:22:05.920 --> 00:22:11.359 going to focus on. So the field tends to assume that, 320 00:22:11.480 --> 00:22:17.200 because these gases are so they say, promiscuous, they bind 321 00:22:17.240 --> 00:22:21.400 to many different proteins. The assumption is they probably make 322 00:22:21.480 --> 00:22:24.400 us unconscious by some combined effect. 323 00:22:24.079 --> 00:22:28.039 On many different proteins. But there are a number. 324 00:22:27.839 --> 00:22:34.079 Of facts that suggest instead that although. 325 00:22:33.799 --> 00:22:34.839 They bind the many things. 326 00:22:34.920 --> 00:22:38.920 The functional effect on consciousness is coming from one main target, 327 00:22:39.039 --> 00:22:42.640 one main molecular target. And the first of these facts 328 00:22:42.759 --> 00:22:46.519 is the so called Meyer Overton correlation here, which is 329 00:22:46.680 --> 00:22:51.440 this linear relationship, although it's on log log scale, but 330 00:22:51.559 --> 00:22:58.559 this very strict relationship between how well these different chemicals are, 331 00:22:58.839 --> 00:23:02.960 how soluble they are an olive oil that predicts how 332 00:23:03.039 --> 00:23:06.240 much you need of that anesthetic to put someone to sleep. 333 00:23:07.599 --> 00:23:13.920 So the solubility in lipids is predicting how effective these 334 00:23:13.960 --> 00:23:19.000 chemicals are as an anesthetic. And why that's suggestive or 335 00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:23.160 why it's remarkable is that these are these different chemicals 336 00:23:23.200 --> 00:23:26.799 on the on the chart are very diverse chemically. Some 337 00:23:26.839 --> 00:23:31.200 of them are just single elements, single atoms, like nitrogen 338 00:23:31.319 --> 00:23:35.759 crypton ze xenon. Xenon is an anesthetic at a high 339 00:23:35.839 --> 00:23:39.640 enough concentration, So they don't these chemicals. 340 00:23:39.240 --> 00:23:41.640 Don't really have chemical similarities. 341 00:23:42.599 --> 00:23:45.799 What they have in common is their tendency to go 342 00:23:45.839 --> 00:23:49.079 into hydrophobic pockets in cells. 343 00:23:49.440 --> 00:23:54.119 That's that's the solubility in fatty stuff. Excuse me. 344 00:23:55.119 --> 00:23:58.880 So that relationships is suggesting that rather than some kind 345 00:23:58.880 --> 00:24:03.359 of specific chemical lock and key binding as is typical 346 00:24:03.400 --> 00:24:06.880 of most drugs, these kinds of drugs maybe are interacting 347 00:24:06.920 --> 00:24:08.319 by a relatively. 348 00:24:07.799 --> 00:24:10.279 Non specific physical interaction. 349 00:24:13.119 --> 00:24:17.720 Similarly, the second part here, the second panel, is to 350 00:24:17.960 --> 00:24:22.680 argue against the idea that these gases are primarily working 351 00:24:22.680 --> 00:24:26.440 on ion channels. So iron channels are the gates in 352 00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:30.160 the membranes of our neurons that let charged ions in 353 00:24:30.200 --> 00:24:32.759 and out, and that's how that's how we create the 354 00:24:32.799 --> 00:24:37.400 electrical signals that neurons use to communicate with each other 355 00:24:37.519 --> 00:24:41.200 and that they use to communicate with muscles. So we 356 00:24:41.279 --> 00:24:43.519 know that whatever our mind is, it must be able 357 00:24:43.559 --> 00:24:47.599 to translate its commands into action potentials to talk to muscles. 358 00:24:48.279 --> 00:24:51.279 And so that's you know, because ion channels govern those 359 00:24:51.359 --> 00:24:54.160 action potentials. That's why people tend to focus on the 360 00:24:54.200 --> 00:25:00.200 ion channels as the likely targets of anesthetics. But if 361 00:25:00.200 --> 00:25:03.319 you consider that, what this charge is showing is how 362 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:06.839 if you take the half of an effective dose of 363 00:25:06.920 --> 00:25:10.839 one anesthetic and half of an effective dose of another 364 00:25:10.920 --> 00:25:14.400 anesthetic dose, you can put them together and get approximately 365 00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:20.599 one effective dose. But the pairs here are chosen such 366 00:25:20.680 --> 00:25:25.079 that one of the chemicals in the pair has a 367 00:25:25.079 --> 00:25:28.839 strong effect on a particular ion channel receptor, like maybe 368 00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:32.960 the inhibitory gabbot receptors and the other one does not. 369 00:25:34.359 --> 00:25:36.319 And so the fact that you can put them together 370 00:25:36.359 --> 00:25:39.720 and get a full dose is arguing against any single 371 00:25:39.759 --> 00:25:43.440 ion channel being the primary target. And the authors who 372 00:25:43.519 --> 00:25:47.200 put this review together also concluded they couldn't come up 373 00:25:47.200 --> 00:25:52.279 with any combination of ion channels that could explain how 374 00:25:53.279 --> 00:25:57.720 these anesthetics put us to sleep. So those are some facts, 375 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:02.359 some observations to suggest maybe there's one primary target. And 376 00:26:02.400 --> 00:26:05.240 you know, the primary target I'm going to suggest is microtubules, 377 00:26:05.440 --> 00:26:09.240 and so this paper is some theoretical support for that idea. 378 00:26:09.720 --> 00:26:17.920 Tubulin are the pieces the that polymerize into microtubules. And 379 00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:22.960 so they did a quantum chemical simulation of different anesthetic 380 00:26:24.160 --> 00:26:30.759 molecules binding to tubulin and how that binding disrupts or 381 00:26:30.759 --> 00:26:34.680 does not disrupt the vibrations, the dipole vibrations that I 382 00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:38.039 mentioned earlier that are supposed to be the substrate of consciousness. 383 00:26:38.960 --> 00:26:42.240 And so they found that the more you mess with 384 00:26:42.319 --> 00:26:49.119 those vibrations, the stronger of an anesthetic we're talking about. 385 00:26:49.160 --> 00:26:54.720 And so, in other words, by assuming that anesthetics are operate, 386 00:26:54.880 --> 00:26:58.680 are binding to microtubules to cause their effects on consciousness, 387 00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:04.240 they more or less reproduce that Meyer Overton correlation, and 388 00:27:04.279 --> 00:27:06.039 I don't think that can be said for any other 389 00:27:06.240 --> 00:27:10.480 candidate molecular target. So this is consistent with the possibility 390 00:27:10.559 --> 00:27:16.079 that microtubules are the main molecular target by which volatile 391 00:27:16.119 --> 00:27:19.440 anesthetics make us unconscious. And so that's also consistent with 392 00:27:19.480 --> 00:27:22.440 the possibility that they might be the substrate of consciousness. 393 00:27:23.359 --> 00:27:24.839 It doesn't prove it by itself. 394 00:27:26.279 --> 00:27:31.119 And moreover, well, yeah, so yeah, there's some further evidence. 395 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:32.720 I want to mention. 396 00:27:34.799 --> 00:27:38.799 Here's a bit more about microtubules what they look like 397 00:27:38.920 --> 00:27:44.039 in an em electron micrograph, and you can see the 398 00:27:44.200 --> 00:27:49.839 so called microtubule associated proteins forming these cross bridges amongst them, 399 00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:53.319 so they allow them to make larger scale structures, and 400 00:27:53.359 --> 00:27:56.519 they also help keep the microtubules from falling apart. My 401 00:27:56.839 --> 00:28:02.480