I didn't exactly say that, or at least, didn't intend to exactly say that. It's correct of you to ask for that clarification.

When I say "vindicated the theory", that was, admittedly, pretty vague.

What I should have said was the recent experiments removed what has been more or less statistically the most common and continuing objection to the theory, by showing that quantum effects in microtubules, under the kind of environmental conditons that are relevant, can indeed be maintained long enough for quantum processes to "run their course" in a manner that, according to Hameroff and Penrose, makes a difference that can propogate causally to a level that is of significance to the organism.

Now, as to "decision making". I am honestly NOT trying to be coy here, but that is not entirely a transparent phrase. I would have to take a couple thousand words to unpack that (not obfuscate, but unpack), and depending on this and that, and which sorts of decisions (conscious or preconscious, highly attended or habituated and automatic), the answer could be yes or no... that is, even given that consciousness "lights up" under the influence of microtubule-dependent processes like Orch OR suggests -- admittedly something that, per se, is a further condition, for which quantum coherence within the microtubule regime is a necessary but not sufficient condition.

But the latter is plausible so many people, given a pile of other suggestive evidence. The deal breaker has always been the can or can't quantum coherence be maintained in the stated environs.

Orch OR is a very multifaceted theory, as you know, and I should not have said "vindicated" without very careful qualification. Removing a stumbling block is not proof of truth, of a theory with so many moving parts.

I do think, as a physiological theory of brain function, it has a lot of positives (some from vectors of increasing plausibility coming in from other directions, theorists and experiments) and the removal of the most commonly cited objection, on the basis of which many people have claimed Orch OR is a non-starter, is a pretty big deal.

Hameroff is not a wild-eyed speculator (and I am not suggesting that you are claiming he is.)

I find him interesting and worthy of close attention, in part because has accumulated an enormous amount of evidence for microtubule effects, and he knows the math, and presents it regularly.

I first read his Biomolecular Mind hardback book, back in the early 90's, which he actually wrote in the late 80's, at which time he had already amassed quite a bit of empiracle study regarding the role of microtubules in neurons, and in creatures whithout neurons, posessing only microtubules, that exhibit intelligent behavior.

Other experiments in various quarters over quite a few recent years (though there are still those neurobiologists who do disagree) have on the whole seemed to validate Hameroff's claim that it is quantum effects -- not "ordinry" synapse-level effects that can be described without use of the quantum level of description -- that are responsible for anaesthesia's effects on consciousness, in living brains.

Again, not a proof of Orch OR, but an indication that Hameroff is, perhaps, on to some kind of right track.

I do think that evidence is accumulating, from what I have seen in PubMed and elsewhere, that microtubule effects at least partially modulate dendritic computations, and seem to mediate the rapid remodeling of the dendritic tree (spines come and go with amazing rapidity), making it likely that the "integrate and fire" mechanism involves microtubule computation, at least in some cases.

I have seen, for example, experiments that give microtubule corrupting enzymes to some, but not control, neurons and observe dendritic tree behavior. Microtubules are in the loop in learning, attention, etc. Quantum effects in MTs.... evidence seems to grow by the month.

But, to your ending question, I would have to say what I said... which amounts to "sometimes yes, sometimes no," and in the 'yes' cases, not necessarily for the reasons that Hameroff thinks, but maybe partly, and maybe for a hybrid of additional reasons. Stapp's views have a role to play here, I think, as well.

One of my "wish list" items would be to take SOME of Hameroff's ideas and ask Stapp about them, and vice versa, in interviews, after carefully preparing questions and submitting them in advance. I have thought about how the two theories might compliment each other, or which parts of each might be independently verifyable and could be combined in a rationally coherent fashion that has some independent conceptual motivation (i.e. is other than ad hoc.)

I am in the process of preparing and writing a lenghty technical queston for Stapp, to clarify (and see what he thinks of a possible extension of) his theory of the relevance of the quantum zeno effect.

I thought of a way the quantum zeno effect, the way Stapp conceives of it, might be a way to resolve (with caveats) the simulation argument ... i.e. assess whether we are at the bottom level in the hierarchy, or are up on a sim. At least it would add another stipulation to the overall argument, which is significant in itself.

But that is another story. I have said enough to get me in trouble already, for a Friday night (grin).