Microtubules and plant consciousness, and meditation

One explanation is that radiation (probably muons and pions) from outer space penetrated the space capsule, and traveled through the astronaut's eyeball and interacted with the retina, triggering an event registered in the brain as a flash, or streak, of light. Continuing from this example, so it may be with moments of protoconsciousness: perhaps neurons of the human brain are from time to time penetrated by precursors of protoconsciousness as a result of which sensitive sites, say among the arrays of MTs, are caused to activate a neural mechanism, the transduction of which is a ‘flash’ of consciousness. Furthermore, and in keeping with this speculative view of the induction of consciousness, the duration of the Cherenkov flash within the eye is short (≤ 10⁻¹⁰s) compared with the integration time of the eye (approx. 50 ms).²³² Similarly with quantum protoconscious moments: an OR event occurs within a moment of time lasting about 13–20 ms; longer times (25 and 30 ms) are required to bring about, respectively, the recognition of the event and to set it in the correct place within the sequence of such events.

it is suggested that meditative states allow an ‘awareness of the flow of time’, one moment of meditative self-awareness (or protoconsciousness) corresponding to one unit of quantal time, and occurring sufficiently frequently for this ‘self-awareness’ to be perceived as a continuous process. The upper limit of quantal time frequency (40.5 Hz) is similar to the 40 Hz frequency associated with meditative state of mind.¹²⁶

 ^{https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4594572/}

 The necessary communicative processes are due, in part, to the movement of plant growth regulators – auxin, for example, which has neurotransmitter-like properties, and is probably also assisted, or mediated, by MTs and the cytostructural code. Presumably, in order to re-establish the correct architecture (after an injury, say) the plant titrates the entire system for hormonal composition and quantities, as well as making use of the bioelectrical code,⁶⁷ part of which involves electropotential difference (EPDs) between growing parts. 

 This awareness, this subliminal consciousness of self, is thus the consequence of the soma and brain being touched by an interaction with the cosmos – the relationship between the organism and the gravitational attraction between Earth, Moon and Sun. In this regard, where Organism-Earth-Moon-Sun forms a unit, a fully developed, continuous awareness of organismal self might be considered to be an answer to a further, fourth question: Can consciousness in a living organism arise from some physical feature of the cosmos?