Megahertz Brain Waves, Microtubule Time Crystals, and the Physics of Consciousness | Stuart Hameroff

Presented by Valis Corp at SF Deep Tech Week 2025 (https://luma.com/valis-2025)
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Deep Tech Week is a decentralized conference hosting the worlds best entrepreneurs and investors bringing science fiction technologies to life
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“Consciousness may not emerge from neurons firing — it may be the quantum music playing inside them.”

At Deep Tech Week San Francisco 2025, Dr. Stuart Hameroff, anesthesiologist, professor, and co-creator of the Orch-OR theory of consciousness with Sir Roger Penrose, delivers a mind-bending exploration into the quantum physics of the brain — and why megahertz brain waves and microtubule time crystals could be the hidden heartbeat of awareness itself.

In this talk, Hameroff reveals over 40 years of research connecting neuroscience, quantum mechanics, and anesthesia — from the origins of life and cognition to the possibility of consciousness before biology itself.

Drawing on experimental data from nanotechnology labs in India, EEG studies, and ultrasound brain stimulation, Hameroff shows that consciousness might operate across a hierarchy of frequencies — from hertz-level cortical oscillations to megahertz and terahertz vibrations deep inside neurons.

Highlights:
• ⚡ Megahertz brain waves — new evidence of deep oscillations far below EEG resolution
• 🧬 Microtubule time crystals — self-similar oscillations repeating across scales from Hz to THz
• 💡 Quantum anesthesia — why all anesthetics erase consciousness by acting on microtubules, not synapses
• 🧠 Memory in the cytoskeleton — how long-term memory might be stored in microtubule lattices, not synaptic weights
• 🌌 Orch-OR theory (Penrose–Hameroff) — consciousness as quantum collapse events in space-time geometry
• 🪷 Primordial consciousness — why life may have begun from “pleasure-seeking” quantum molecules in interstellar dust
• 🧏 Ultrasound brain stimulation — how megahertz resonance could reverse Alzheimer’s and enhance mood
• 🧘 From neurons to Brahman — parallels between Penrose’s quantum geometry and Eastern metaphysics of the ground of being

Hameroff argues that consciousness is not computation — it’s orchestration.
The brain is not a computer but a quantum orchestra, where microtubules act as fractal resonators, coupling matter and mind through self-similar rhythms — like a cosmic symphony extending from neurons to the Planck scale.

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🎙 Speaker Bio: Dr. Stuart Hameroff

Dr. Stuart Hameroff is Professor Emeritus of Anesthesiology and Psychology, and Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona. Best known for co-developing the Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) theory with mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose, Hameroff’s career bridges medicine, neuroscience, and quantum physics.

His research has linked anesthesia, quantum biology, and the cytoskeleton — proposing that microtubules inside neurons function as quantum processors, where moments of conscious awareness correspond to self-collapsing quantum states.

Hameroff has published extensively on quantum coherence in biology, ultrasound neuromodulation, and the quantum origin of life, and has appeared in numerous documentaries including What the Bleep Do We Know!? and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman.