We, through our senses perceive a world. This world we try to understand using physics. But these perceptions itself stands on top of consciousness. So consciousness is at least, as real as the world that physics conventionally tries to reason about. It could be even more fundamental, because you can have only consciousness in this universe, but still could sense a whole universe with "things" inside it. But without consciousness, and just a universe with "things", there is no "sensing"...
Point is, physics should include study of consciousness...
There's a difference between making and testing hypotheses, and desperately scrambling to find proof to justify a conclusion made in advance in the face of mounting evidence that said conclusion is false, which is what Penrose is doing regarding quantum consciousness.
Grossly simplifying: he is a dualist, he wants to reconcile his belief in the soul and his physicist's materialist view of biology, so he resorts to putting the source of consciousness in quantum phenomenas, and seeks to prove that they occur in the brain. I disagree that there's an immaterial soul, I disagree that it puppets the material universe through quantum phenomenas, and I disagree that there are important quantum phenomenas in the brain. Most physicists are with me on these.
I'm with you regarding opinion on consciousness, but do you think it would be 'better' if there were no dualists and no dualist essays and ideas?
Because I hardly think so.
This is not like alternative medicine where there is harm for people who don't follow the mainstream. And I stress again that Penrose (in the interviews I saw) doesn't actually claim that he absolutely has to be right.
> do you think it would be 'better' if there were no dualists and no dualist essays and ideas?
No of course not, people should be free to discuss and believe in dualism. What I find regrettable, is how often Penrose's name is invoked in an appeal to authority, as if his past (and very valuable) contributions to physics were enough to make him right on everything, including this subject.
Ultimately, I believe dualism is wrong, and I believe I have good reasons to think so. My previous comment was simply my attempt at deconstructing Penrose's argument, participating in the ever-ongoing popular debate.
>source of consciousness in quantum phenomenas, and seeks to prove that they occur in the brain
I think he should look for consciousness as the source of quantum phenomena. Not the other way around. But as he is a physicist, all nails looks like a physics problem.
It is the same situation where people might have struggled to explain the heavenly observation using an earth centric model. Once you invert the wrong premise that you consider as fundamental, the answer, previously so elusive, becomes trivial...
You know, I pooh poohed his theories. Still do in sum. But there’s a there there that’s building.
Damn Deepak Chopra and his ilk of idiots for making any conversation of quantum mechanics and biology tinged with pseudoscience. Hopefully we’ll keep getting experimental evidence as we go that it’s not at all absurd to consider quantum effects in biology.
That said, those effects are going to look nothing like sustained coherence for long periods of time.
Except when he's rambling about quantum consciousness or other nonsense, which happens a lot nowadays.
>quantum consciousness or other nonsense
Can you tell me why it is non-sense?
We, through our senses perceive a world. This world we try to understand using physics. But these perceptions itself stands on top of consciousness. So consciousness is at least, as real as the world that physics conventionally tries to reason about. It could be even more fundamental, because you can have only consciousness in this universe, but still could sense a whole universe with "things" inside it. But without consciousness, and just a universe with "things", there is no "sensing"...
Point is, physics should include study of consciousness...
Have you actually hear him talk about it? It is very far from rambling and he will be the first to tell you that he is not sure he is right.
We need physicists to come up with and develop novel ideas to consider no matter how many of them might be entirely wrong.
If mind was random, people would miscalculate 1+1 with 50% probability. So earth might be flat, but it's unlikely.
> If mind was random, people would miscalculate 1+1 with 50% probability.
That does not follow at all.
Miscalculation doesn't follow from randomness?
If you run an LLM (with temp >0) and use a true random generator for seeds, it will still tell you 1+1 is 2.
There's a difference between making and testing hypotheses, and desperately scrambling to find proof to justify a conclusion made in advance in the face of mounting evidence that said conclusion is false, which is what Penrose is doing regarding quantum consciousness.
Grossly simplifying: he is a dualist, he wants to reconcile his belief in the soul and his physicist's materialist view of biology, so he resorts to putting the source of consciousness in quantum phenomenas, and seeks to prove that they occur in the brain. I disagree that there's an immaterial soul, I disagree that it puppets the material universe through quantum phenomenas, and I disagree that there are important quantum phenomenas in the brain. Most physicists are with me on these.
I'm with you regarding opinion on consciousness, but do you think it would be 'better' if there were no dualists and no dualist essays and ideas?
Because I hardly think so.
This is not like alternative medicine where there is harm for people who don't follow the mainstream. And I stress again that Penrose (in the interviews I saw) doesn't actually claim that he absolutely has to be right.
> do you think it would be 'better' if there were no dualists and no dualist essays and ideas?
No of course not, people should be free to discuss and believe in dualism. What I find regrettable, is how often Penrose's name is invoked in an appeal to authority, as if his past (and very valuable) contributions to physics were enough to make him right on everything, including this subject.
Ultimately, I believe dualism is wrong, and I believe I have good reasons to think so. My previous comment was simply my attempt at deconstructing Penrose's argument, participating in the ever-ongoing popular debate.
Fair enough, I can see that.
>source of consciousness in quantum phenomenas, and seeks to prove that they occur in the brain
I think he should look for consciousness as the source of quantum phenomena. Not the other way around. But as he is a physicist, all nails looks like a physics problem.
It is the same situation where people might have struggled to explain the heavenly observation using an earth centric model. Once you invert the wrong premise that you consider as fundamental, the answer, previously so elusive, becomes trivial...
You know, I pooh poohed his theories. Still do in sum. But there’s a there there that’s building.
Damn Deepak Chopra and his ilk of idiots for making any conversation of quantum mechanics and biology tinged with pseudoscience. Hopefully we’ll keep getting experimental evidence as we go that it’s not at all absurd to consider quantum effects in biology.
That said, those effects are going to look nothing like sustained coherence for long periods of time.
They didn't start the fire. Quantum + biology → Woo has been with us since the 1960s at least.