Lithium Quantum Consciousness

Conscious agency is considered to be founded upon a quantum state of mind . An original synthesis, called “Lithium Quantum Consciousness” (LQC), proposes that this quantum state utilises lithium-6 (spin-1) qutrit nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) quantum information processing (QIP) in the connectome (brain-graph). In parallel to the connectome’s processing of physiological controls, perception, cognition and intelligence via quantum electrodynamics (QED), the connectome also functions via its dynamic algebraic topology as a unitary transceiver antenna laced with lithium-6 nuclei which are spin-entangled with each other and with the environmental vortical gluon field via quantum chromodynamics (QCD). This unitary antenna (connectome) bestows the self its unity of consciousness within an intertwined-history multi-agent environment. An equivalence is proposed between Whitehead’s occasions of experience and topological spacetime instantons in the vortical gluon field. Topological spacetime instantons pervade the vortical gluon field in a quantum information network of vortex interactions, herein termed the “instanton-net”, or “Instanet” [sic]. The fermionic isotope lithium-6 has a very low nuclear binding energy and the smallest non-zero nuclear electric quadrupole moment of any stable nucleus making it susceptible to quantum chromodynamic (QCD) interaction with the vortical gluon field and ideal for spin-1 qutrit NMR-QIP. The compact spherical atomic orbital of lithium provides ideal rotational freedom inside tetrahedral water cages in organo6Li+(H2O)4 within which the lithium nucleus rapidly tumbles for NMR motional narrowing and long decoherence times. Nuclear spin-entanglement, among water-caged lithium-6 nuclei in the connectome, is a spin-1 qutrit NMR-QIP resource for conscious agency. By contrast, similar tetrahedral xenon cages in organo6Li+Xe4 excimers are postulated to decohere the connectome’s NMR-QIP due to xenon’s NMR signal being extremely sensitive to its molecular environment. By way of this quantum neurochemistry, lithium is an effective psychiatric medication for enhancing mood and xenon is an effective anaesthetic.