Comment by CuriouslyC
10 hours ago
Blame Roger Penrose for the microtubule bullshit. Ironically, he's the opposite of new age, dude won a Nobel prize.
10 hours ago
Blame Roger Penrose for the microtubule bullshit. Ironically, he's the opposite of new age, dude won a Nobel prize.
Maybe, just maybe, an eminent physicist who won the Nobel Prize knows more than us. At the very least his ideas deserve consideration instead of ridicule and dismissal.
Also as far as I know, Penrose’s main argument is that consciousness can not be computational. If you can’t argue against an idea with reason and resort to name calling, you’re not being rational you’re just being dogmatic and censoring ideas.
I didn't say all his theories were garbage, though the theories inspired by them developed by laypeople almost certainly are. I just don't find his argument compelling enough on its face to warrant holding them up as real progress.
Also, remember that Isaac Newton was deep into alchemy and religious prophecy. Just because you have one good idea and you're smart enough to follow it to its logical conclusion doesn't mean every idea you have is good.
You could turn that idea over: Newton's alchemical researches may have given him the courage to posit action at a distance. Universal gravitation was very controversial and was not at all accepted initially. Descartes spent pages and pages building theories of vortex action to explain forces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease
Again, if you disagree with Penrose’s idea, just explain your disagreement. It’s so ironic how you’ll call it bullshit and link to some pop culture skeptic idea with no scientific backing to try and undermine an idea in defense of “real science”
> Another approach is to follow that word, heresy. In every period of history, there seem to have been labels that got applied to statements to shoot them down before anyone had a chance to ask if they were true or not. "Blasphemy", "sacrilege", and "heresy" were such labels for a good part of western history, as in more recent times "indecent", "improper", and "unamerican" have been.
https://paulgraham.com/say.html
6 replies →
Penrose's argument isn't rational itself, so I don't see why a rational argument should be required in order to dismiss it. As CuriouslyC points out, quantum consciousness is the equivalent of Newton's dalliances with alchemy and astrology.
Maybe you could briefly describe and steelman his argument as a show of good faith instead of just denouncing it because it’s “equivalent with alchemy and astrology.” My understanding is that it’s very rational, it’s based on mathematical proofs.
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Let he go first and start arguing for this one with reason. If he insists on using discredited ideas that are known not to lead to the results he insists on, name-calling is an appropriated response.