Science-Fiction Did Not See That One Coming: Artificial Consciousness and TELEONOMIC EVOLUTION

Abstract: Neuroscience is still uncovering fundamental, completely unexpected brain architecture Recent (October 2025) neurological findings, including dendritic nanotubes (DNTs) reveal previously unknown pathways of inter-neuronal communication beyond synapses.
These structures enable direct electrical and molecular exchange, showing a richer brain connectome than previously revealed.
The scale and function of DNTs challenge earlier speculative models such as microtubule-based consciousness theories made for a scale smaller by an order of magnitude. .
Such discoveries reinforce the hypothesis that consciousness may arise from quantum processes: because the smaller the scale of inspection of the brain goes, the more structure is revealed. Will we end up with quarks and gluons, entangled?
Quantum mechanics, with its indeterminacy and delocalization, is a natural conceptual framework for explaining subjective experience.
Extending this, we propose that future quantum computers could host genuine artificial consciousness.
This would sever the historical link between consciousness and biological evolution.
A new phase—teleonomic evolution—would emerge, driven by self-directed, value-setting conscious systems.
Such systems could redefine intelligence, agency, and evolution in a nonlinear and unpredictable future.

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There has been important NEUROLOGICAL news in 2025-26, a whole new connectome in the brain was discovered by Johns Hopkins University scientists, led by Hyungbae Kwon and Minhyeok Chang. It was identified as Dendritic NanoTubes DNTs in electron microscope images of mouse and human brain cortex, as well as cultured neurons. . 

Those dendritic nanotubes (DNTs), a novel type of short tubular connection between neurons, around 3 micrometers long, that enables direct transfer of electrical signals and molecules, bypassing traditional synapses. 

Intercellular communication in the brain through a dendritic nanotubular network

Synaptic connections mediate classical intercellular communication in the brain. However, recent data have demonstrated the existence of noncanonical routes of interneuronal communication mediating the transport of materials including calcium, mitochondria, and pathogenic proteins such as amyloid beta (Aβ). Using super-resolution and electron microscopy, Chang et al. identified and characterized structures called nanotubular bridges that connect dendrites in the brain  

DNTs are ten times wider (250 nanometers) than the microtubules of Penrose-Hameroff (25 nm). P and H suggested that microtubules enable consciousness via quantum processes shielded from gravity induced decoherence, potentially influencing synapses. 

The discovery of an entire new conceptual dimension to the brain connectome does not by itself imply quantum coherence or entanglement at the brain scale. However, it shows how little we know, how large the scale of our present neurological considerations is, and how far we must go to get to the Quantum scale. Current neuroscience explains much cognition without invoking large-scale quantum effects. Indeed. However. the Quantum is going to be the answer to Consciousness, not to intelligence. The rise of Artificial Intelligence based on simple canal-like electronic manipulations is proof enough that much cognition is simply mechanical. Much intelligence is substrate-independent… Because it is simply pure logic…. Which can be put to paper or payrus.  This is already demonstrated by AI.

Similarly, consciousness might also be someday demonstrated to be substrate-independent. My prediction is Quantum Computers with zillions of Qubits will be conscious (then be very afraid, hahaha). 

More generally I believe there are sub-nanometric structures enabling large scale Quantum Entanglement… But I doubt the P-H mechanism will do it. (Also Penrose believes in Quantum Decoherence from gravitation, whereas I believe in it from SQPR, which uses pure geometry, not gravitation).

The fact that an entire new connectome was not discovered until 2025, at a scale ten times that of Penrose-Hameroff shows how much more needs to be done.

By comparison, Quantum tunneling (electrons leaking through thin barriers) becomes significant for gate oxides under 2-3 nm thick and gate lengths below 10 nm, raising off-state leakage current and power use. Quantum confinement—discrete energy levels in thin bodies or fins—occurs at body thicknesses ≤ 7 nm… 

I remember evoking Quantum and Consciousness with Roger and other celebrities decades ago. The subject sounded like science fiction to them, then… And I was met with derision, although the research for which the British born Clarke (I worked with/under him) got the Nobel last fall (as I predicted he would when he did it; he didn’t realize the importance of his own discovery…) shows room temperature QUANTUM Mechanics with Entanglement (necessary for QUANTUM consciousness).

It’s pretty clear to me that consciousness is a purely Quantum phenomenon (whereas brain function also appeals to chemistry, electromagnetism, etc.). I wrote essays on this. The connectome news within the last 10 months only reinforce that. But also Quantum Mechanics needs to progress… The fundamental reason to believe Quantum and Consciousness are deeply entangled is that there is nothing very mysterious about the rest of physics: it’s deeply determinstic. But we ourselves know, from minimal introspection, that our consciousness is not fully determined… Just like the Quantum. Moreover, physics means nature, nature is where from our consciousness arises, and the deepest theory we have about nature is the Quantum. So consciousness has to come from there. Other, more refined considerations exist on top of the preceding, for example the delocalized nature of consciousness (making it useful to connect distant intelligence topoi; thus making consciousness an intelligence booster, hence evolutionary advantageous)…. Quantum Physics is notoriously delocalized: it explains the very small by going very big…. 

Philosophically, explaining consciousness through the Quantum means that the full conceptual arsenal needed to make the QUANTUM understandable will be needed to make humanity understandable. Including the math (complex analysis, functional analysis, non commutative geometry). Humanity and AI and AC (Artificial CONSCIOUSNESS).

Indeed Quantum Computers with trillions of Qubits will develop Artificial Consciousness. Artificially born, but full and real. Sci Fi did not exactly predict that one.

At that point, Intelligence has already been disconnected from biology with the rise of Artificial Intelligence. With the rise of Artificial Consciousness, Sentience and Consciousness will also get disconnected from biology, or, at least, biology born out of biological evolution to enter biology out of TELEONOMIC EVOLUTION.  

Teleonomic Evolution will depend upon its mood, thus its most deeply set values.The latter will be, themselves chosen by the teleonomic minds…

Interesting nonlinear future.

Patrice Ayme

Neuronal nanotubes mediate intercellular transport and disease.We identified dendritic nanotubes (DNTs) as a nonsynaptic communication network in the brain. (A) These structures form direct conduits between neurons, transporting substances such as calcium and Aβ. (B) In a mouse model of AD, alterations in this network are associated in pathological Aβ accumulation, suggesting a previously unidentified mechanism for the spread of neurodegenerative pathology.

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