this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2026
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As someone who also doesn't fully understand quantum entanglement.. is it that when two particles are entangled and far apart, when we observe them they will always be in the same state? Is there any way to manipulate that state? If so, it seems like it would be pretty straight forward to use it for faster than light communications.
The two particles are in different but directly related states. For example in some circumstances with two entangled photons, it will necessarily be the case that one photon has horizontal polarisation and the other vertical polarisation. The two will never have the same polarisation.
You can't know which photon is in which state without measuring one. The effect of taking the measurement travels faster than the speed of light. Measurement is not manipulating though; you can't say "I want this photon to be measured as vertically polarised", you can only ask "what is the polarisation of this photon?". So you can't transmit information faster than light, unfortunately.
Quantum is a struggle for me to understand because, I feel like the current explanations don’t suffice why you can’t transmit information. To me, this still sounds perfectly viable for information transfer… just don’t encode information via polarization. You would encode it as a primitive derived from whether or not state collapse has happened yet or not.
Using the same/similar mechanism they can use to determine collapse happens to both entangled particles at the same time (faster than light), can they not also determine whether or not collapse has happened at all?
Maybe it’s that checking for collapse will actually cause collapse, thus ruining the information channel. But, perhaps then, you just add more entangled particles. Have some mechanism established with “throwaway” particles that can have their state collapsed either as a chain reaction or via the polling process.
Obviously I’m not the smarted person here… probably a lot wrong with my above assumption. But my point is really that explanations about quantum seem to be unsupportive to the claims they make about quantum.
AFAIU you can't determine whether the state on the other side has been collapsed. All you can say with certainty is the state on the other side after you have collapsed yours.
I'd recommend this excellent series if you want a good grounding:
https://www.rigb.org/explore-science/explore/video/arrows-time-back-future-1999
And I also found this video which I haven't watched but I expect will be good and probably attacks your pondering more directly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_0o2fJhtSc
They will be opposite states of each other the moment observing collapses their waveform. This effectively removes their entangled state. It cannot be used to communicate information faster than c.
Yep
The thing is if it's entangled, why is there a fiber cable?
If it's teleportation, why is there a cable?
However what actually makes consciousness in a brain is (hypothetically, technically) microtubules forming a very tiny cable inside of which quantum superposition is able to be maintained while we are conscious. When even brief quantum entanglement used to be insanely hard anywhere and an environment like the brain considered impossible.
Like, it's hard to tell what really happened from OPs article. But there should be much better articles explaining it, and this could actually end up being crazy important. Like, 20-30 years from now this might be how we finally get a real AI.
Quick edit:
Like, rather than one straight line to send data, if this can maintain even just entanglement in a simple fiber optic cable...
Then that's huge.
If they just stretched a string between two containment chambers that each have an entangled particle, then what purpose is the string even serving?
Any source on your claim about consciousness? Sounds very speculative.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction
Thanks, that’s an interesting read. Still stand by my opinion that your statement is overly confident in explaining consciousness.
Penrose published a book on it in 1989.
For literal decades the only thing that ruled it out was the ability for quantum entanglement in the brain. Less than 2 years ago we proved not only was that possible, but quantum super position could be sustained for as long as we're awake.
It's a pretty safe time to be confident, even without accounting for Penrose being the literal smartest person on the planet.
Like, I'm not big on "appeals to authority" but if Sir Roger Penrose spends 37 years saying something is true, and just continually gets proven more right over the decades...
It's not as far reaching as you seem to believe.
Like, gravity is just a theory too, shit is harder than people realize it is to prove.
I think you’re doing your argument a disservice by comparing it to theory of gravity. But I do appreciate learning about this hypothesis and that there is actual experimentation going on. Thanks again for sharing.
That's not a direct comparison....
It's the generic comparison to show that "just a theory" includes thing we understand 99.9999% of and definitely exists
Until we know absolutely everything, it's still a theory
But we don't have to believe in gravity for it to be real
The point is:
Doesn't mean as much as what people think when they say it
Literally glazing the guy sloppy style and basing their whole world view on a single random dude. Sorry, on 'the smartest guy in the planert'.
Ah I see the problem. I opened a thread with the word 'quantum' on it. Lmao
My non scientific intuitive guess is that the cable is there to reliably create the entanglement conditions.
This is only a proposed theory, it's very far from accepted fact.
Which is why I said hypothetically...
Although up until a year ago the very idea that quantum entanglement could happen in the brain was treated as a joke for like 30 years and that's why the larger theory was instantly dismissed...
Which is why I added the "technically" as well.
If we're being technical even gravity is just a theory. But it's not like being deny the existence of gravity...
I think you may have misused the word "hypothetically" then.
I was taught Orch OR theory at university about 17 years ago.
Instantly dismissed by who? It's a new theory, there will always be detractors and critics of new theories (see, for example: oxygen theory of combustion). That's very different from being "instantly dismissed".
I 100% did
Then you were also taught that there was no way the brain could maintain sustained quantum entanglement at the same time.
I mean, frame of reference...
You said you learned it 17 years ago, that's not very "new".
But compared to any other science, all of psychology is incredibly "new".
I'm multitasking bro, this ain't that deep
No. I've no idea what could have possibly brought you to that conclusion.
Please don't try to tell me what brought you to that conclusion while multitasking. For that matter, please don't try to tell me at all.
Luckily it's easy to find research from that period:
https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.80.021912
I rember that time as well, although it seems my memory is better than yours, despite you being waaaaaaay more confident.
If you have further questions tho, ask someone else. Good luck finding someone better equiped to talk about this stuff tho. Every days another burnt bridge, right?
One paper claiming that the Orch OR model is not a feasible explanation of the origin of consciousness does not mean that the Orch OR model is not a feasible explanation of the origin of consciousness.
I'm not sure why you think my memory is in any way relevant.
There's a significant journey from being published in a paper to being taught in classes. I was taught Orch OR somewhere between 2008 and 2010 so there's no reason to think memory comes into it.