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.
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...
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.
My previous comment was simply my attempt at deconstructing Penrose's argument, participating in the ever-ongoing popular debate.
That may be so, but just the mention of Penrose's name in the context of something else caused you to start a whole subthread that had nothing to do with the subject.
It's statistics that emerges with very high probability due to the law of large numbers. If you calculate 1+1=2 with 100% probability, then quantum physics doesn't meaningfully participate in your reasoning, not more than brownian motion.
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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.
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 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...
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.
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.
That may be so, but just the mention of Penrose's name in the context of something else caused you to start a whole subthread that had nothing to do with the subject.
It was not "just the mention of Penrose's name", it was this comment specifically:
Is something wrong with my original comment?
Fair enough, I can see that.
If mind was random, people would miscalculate 1+1 with 50% probability. So earth might be flat, but it's unlikely.
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.
You mean mind is deterministic and cancels all noise? Then what quantum physics would do there?
You don't need to cancel all the noise to solve 1+1 correctly. The model in the example is non-deterministic.
I don't know Penrose's view deeply enough to defend it further (view which I for the record do not share).
He's just rambling.
Where did the 50% came from?!
Many phenomenon emerge from randomness with very high probability just because the law of large number.
It's statistics that emerges with very high probability due to the law of large numbers. If you calculate 1+1=2 with 100% probability, then quantum physics doesn't meaningfully participate in your reasoning, not more than brownian motion.