A new theory suggests that consciousness might arise from macroscopic interactions between the zero-point field (which permeates all space) and glutamate (the brain’s most abundant neurotransmitter). This interaction could help explain both why quantum processes can occur within environments like the brain and why we lose consciousness under anesthesia. Nobel Prize-laureate Roger Penrose believed that these quantum interactions could explain consciousness, and the resulting theory (along with his work with Stuart Hameroff) eventually became Orchestrated Objective Reduction. According to Keppler, glutamate-ZPF coupling answers a few outstanding questions about quantum interactions and consciousness. In response to Penrose’s own quantum theory, the great physicist’s collaborator Stephen Hawking once wrote that “his argument seemed to be that consciousness is a mystery and quantum gravity is another mystery so they must be related.” Could it be that quantum theories of consciousness are examples of some kind of Holmesian fallacy?