5 ms·

I'm not making a claim, I argue based on what we already know. Penrose is the one claiming something here. > Do you think Penrose disagrees that the Human mind

by Udo 9y ago

I'm not making a claim, I argue based on what we already know. Penrose is the one claiming something here. > Do you think Penrose disagrees that the Human mind is bound by physical laws?? Yes. Having read his work in the past, I know that he disagrees the human mind is bound by physical laws. This is the whole reason behind the argument they're putting forth to begin with: they postulate that humans are capable of making an inference that could not possibly be made by a machine intelligence. However, it has never been shown that we are not a machine intelligence.

manyoso 9y ago
Then I am sorry to say you have no idea what you are talking about. Penrose nowhere claims the human mind is not bound by physical laws. Cite one place where he says anything like this or go home.
- simonh 9y ago
  He argues that quantum magic enables human minds to do things that formal computer systems cannot do. I'm not sure what his position is on computers that incorporate quantum magic though.
  - Udo 9y ago
    I suspect the argument manyoso is setting up here is based on sophistry around the concept of "physical laws". His stance is most likely that quantum woo is part of the physical laws, in the same way a fundamentalist religious person would assert that the content of a holy book is part of the physical laws. What I - and I hope most people - mean by the phrase is different though, it's the body of actual physical laws that have been shown scientifically. > I'm not sure what his position is on computers that incorporate quantum magic though. Interesting thought experiment. I suspect he would be fine with those in theory, however since he already declared this special connection to the supernatural for humans it'd be interesting what computer components he would consider equivalent. But the beauty of his position is that, in the event of a generally intelligent computer emerging, he could always claim that any given nanoscale computing component is the silicon analogue of "quantum microtubules" (which was his woo-related organelle of choice in neurons). It's not like he ever has to prove his claims in order to be taken seriously.
    - manyoso 9y ago
      It is not quantum woo and it is not quantum magic. Objective collapse theories are the complete opposite of what you are disparaging. Objective collapse theories are more physical than what we currently have. Few people have made more contributions in the twentieth century to actual physics than Penrose. He is one of the world's leading experts on general relativity and his objective collapse theory is nothing more that when quantum gravity is understood that gravity will play a role in the collapse of the wavefunction. To describe Penrose as engaging in 'quantum woo' or 'quantum magic' is grossly inappropriate. It just gives evidence that you don't understand what he is proposing. See Scott Aaronson for what an rebuttal to Penrose looks like not the ham fisted straw man takedowns from the likes of people in this comment section.
      - Chronos 9y ago
        Penrose is not just arguing for objective collapse. Penrose is arguing for something computationally more powerful than objective collapse.
        manyoso 9y ago
        If gravity plays a role in wave function collapse that will pose serious questions for the Church-Turing hypothesis. It might very well make it impossible for non-Quantum computers to accurately model quantum gravity. Penrose does not argue for "something computationally more powerful than objective collapse" rather, he argues that the physical Church-Turing thesis is false due to quantum gravity. Something he is an expert on, btw.
        Chronos 9y ago
        "gravity plays a role in wave function collapse that will pose serious questions for the Church-Turing hypothesis" Says who? Penrose is blacklisted, cite someone else.
    - dang 9y ago
      > I suspect the argument manyoso is setting up here is based on sophistry around the concept of "physical laws". His stance is most likely that quantum woo is part of the physical laws, in the same way a fundamentalist religious person would assert that the content of a holy book is part of the physical laws. That falls far below the standard of discussion we ask users to abide by here. Please make your points directly and without such cheap insinuations.
Crito 9y ago
> I know that he disagrees the human mind is bound by physical laws. Last I heard, Penrose appeals to quantum woo to claim that the human mind isn't strictly algorithmic. But sources of quantum randomness isn't enough to push you into dualism, quantum shit is part of our physical universe and while there is no proof that the human mind critically exploits quantum phenomena for it's computation, we can certainly build machines that have RNGs exploiting quantum randomness.
- cbennett 9y ago
  > Penrose appeals to quantum woo to claim that the human mind isn't strictly algorithmic. Penrose doesn't appeal to quantum woo, he has a quite well articulated set of assumptions and arguments , related to loop quantum gravity [1], about how objective collapse of the wave function may occur at bio-physically feasible decoherence times. Now, whether you think his biophysical theories of consciousness are valid, or even required (whether you buy the microtubules argument/hypothesis), is one thing. But stating that Penrose- arguably the 20th century's foremost mathematical physicist- is a practicioner and/or a spreader of 'quantum woo'-- that belies a level of mis-informantion so catastrophically high that it renders your quoted statement indistinguishable from a pure ad-hominem. [1] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Loop_quantum_gravity https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Loop_quantum_gravity
  - Chronos 9y ago
    LQG is not believed to allow hypercomputation, i.e. the solving of Turing-uncomputable problems. Penrose's entire argument is based on the idea that the human brain is a hypercomputer, which is why it cannot in principle be simulated by a computer (or any other machine). It's worth noting that Penrose's field of expertise is General Relativity, not quantum physics, and definitely not Computer Science / philosophy of computation. I see the situation with Penrose as equivalent to Linus Pauling's unfortunate foray into Vitamin C pseudoscience late in his life.
    - manyoso 9y ago
      Penrose' claim is much simpler. He thinks that gravity playing a role in wave function collapse will show that non-quantum computers are incapable of accurately modeling quantum gravity. IOW, he thinks gravity will end up showing the physical Church-Turing thesis to be false. Say what you will about Penrose, but can you seriously deny that he is one of the world's foremost experts on gravity?? You might not like his conclusion, but to say that he is out of his element here is ridiculous. Are you in your element when discussing gravity causing wave function collapse? Who do you think would be more in their element on this subject than Penrose??

by Udo 9y ago

manyoso 9y ago

Then I am sorry to say you have no idea what you are talking about. Penrose nowhere claims the human mind is not bound by physical laws. Cite one place where he says anything like this or go home.

simonh 9y ago
He argues that quantum magic enables human minds to do things that formal computer systems cannot do. I'm not sure what his position is on computers that incorporate quantum magic though.
- Udo 9y ago
  I suspect the argument manyoso is setting up here is based on sophistry around the concept of "physical laws". His stance is most likely that quantum woo is part of the physical laws, in the same way a fundamentalist religious person would assert that the content of a holy book is part of the physical laws. What I - and I hope most people - mean by the phrase is different though, it's the body of actual physical laws that have been shown scientifically. > I'm not sure what his position is on computers that incorporate quantum magic though. Interesting thought experiment. I suspect he would be fine with those in theory, however since he already declared this special connection to the supernatural for humans it'd be interesting what computer components he would consider equivalent. But the beauty of his position is that, in the event of a generally intelligent computer emerging, he could always claim that any given nanoscale computing component is the silicon analogue of "quantum microtubules" (which was his woo-related organelle of choice in neurons). It's not like he ever has to prove his claims in order to be taken seriously.
  - manyoso 9y ago
    It is not quantum woo and it is not quantum magic. Objective collapse theories are the complete opposite of what you are disparaging. Objective collapse theories are more physical than what we currently have. Few people have made more contributions in the twentieth century to actual physics than Penrose. He is one of the world's leading experts on general relativity and his objective collapse theory is nothing more that when quantum gravity is understood that gravity will play a role in the collapse of the wavefunction. To describe Penrose as engaging in 'quantum woo' or 'quantum magic' is grossly inappropriate. It just gives evidence that you don't understand what he is proposing. See Scott Aaronson for what an rebuttal to Penrose looks like not the ham fisted straw man takedowns from the likes of people in this comment section.
    - Chronos 9y ago
      Penrose is not just arguing for objective collapse. Penrose is arguing for something computationally more powerful than objective collapse.
      - manyoso 9y ago
        If gravity plays a role in wave function collapse that will pose serious questions for the Church-Turing hypothesis. It might very well make it impossible for non-Quantum computers to accurately model quantum gravity. Penrose does not argue for "something computationally more powerful than objective collapse" rather, he argues that the physical Church-Turing thesis is false due to quantum gravity. Something he is an expert on, btw.
        Chronos 9y ago
        "gravity plays a role in wave function collapse that will pose serious questions for the Church-Turing hypothesis" Says who? Penrose is blacklisted, cite someone else.
  - dang 9y ago
    > I suspect the argument manyoso is setting up here is based on sophistry around the concept of "physical laws". His stance is most likely that quantum woo is part of the physical laws, in the same way a fundamentalist religious person would assert that the content of a holy book is part of the physical laws. That falls far below the standard of discussion we ask users to abide by here. Please make your points directly and without such cheap insinuations.

Crito 9y ago

> I know that he disagrees the human mind is bound by physical laws. Last I heard, Penrose appeals to quantum woo to claim that the human mind isn't strictly algorithmic. But sources of quantum randomness isn't enough to push you into dualism, quantum shit is part of our physical universe and while there is no proof that the human mind critically exploits quantum phenomena for it's computation, we can certainly build machines that have RNGs exploiting quantum randomness.

cbennett 9y ago
> Penrose appeals to quantum woo to claim that the human mind isn't strictly algorithmic. Penrose doesn't appeal to quantum woo, he has a quite well articulated set of assumptions and arguments , related to loop quantum gravity [1], about how objective collapse of the wave function may occur at bio-physically feasible decoherence times. Now, whether you think his biophysical theories of consciousness are valid, or even required (whether you buy the microtubules argument/hypothesis), is one thing. But stating that Penrose- arguably the 20th century's foremost mathematical physicist- is a practicioner and/or a spreader of 'quantum woo'-- that belies a level of mis-informantion so catastrophically high that it renders your quoted statement indistinguishable from a pure ad-hominem. [1] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Loop_quantum_gravity https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Loop_quantum_gravity
- Chronos 9y ago
  LQG is not believed to allow hypercomputation, i.e. the solving of Turing-uncomputable problems. Penrose's entire argument is based on the idea that the human brain is a hypercomputer, which is why it cannot in principle be simulated by a computer (or any other machine). It's worth noting that Penrose's field of expertise is General Relativity, not quantum physics, and definitely not Computer Science / philosophy of computation. I see the situation with Penrose as equivalent to Linus Pauling's unfortunate foray into Vitamin C pseudoscience late in his life.
  - manyoso 9y ago
    Penrose' claim is much simpler. He thinks that gravity playing a role in wave function collapse will show that non-quantum computers are incapable of accurately modeling quantum gravity. IOW, he thinks gravity will end up showing the physical Church-Turing thesis to be false. Say what you will about Penrose, but can you seriously deny that he is one of the world's foremost experts on gravity?? You might not like his conclusion, but to say that he is out of his element here is ridiculous. Are you in your element when discussing gravity causing wave function collapse? Who do you think would be more in their element on this subject than Penrose??