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Yeah, of course you're doing him a disservice. Maybe try reading it a second time (and third too, why not), with more patience. It definitely doesn't boil down

Yeah, of course you're doing him a disservice. Maybe try reading it a second time (and third too, why not), with more patience. It definitely doesn't boil down to what you just said.

iainmerrick 6y ago
I also read the book and disliked it for exactly the same reason (and I say this as a big Penrose admirer, both before and after). Can you give us at least an idea of what bits we might be missing?
- pegasus 6y ago
  See my reply on a sibling comment. Also, it's one of very few popular books that goes deep on the subject of Goedel's Theorem and the limit discoveries in logic and computability. A subject that in my view deserves to be more in our collective consciousness than even Quantum Physics since it's implications are likely to be even more profound.
  - iainmerrick 6y ago
    If I remember right, that section didn’t differ substantially from Lucas’s argument, which I thought had already been effectively rebutted (eg in Godel, Escher, Bach). But maybe I’ll take another look and see if that’s fair.
tasty_freeze 6y ago
> why not Because free time is finite. If they read it three times and still decided it verbosely failed to make its case, why not read it two or three times more? Can you cite a point or two where you think Penrose makes a strong case above and beyond "consciousness and quantum theory are both mysterious and are therefore probably connected?"
- pegasus 6y ago
  Of course. He talks about research on quantum effects in microtubules, for example. Of how the concepts of computability and consciousness relate, how quantum physics drags in this concept of consciousness into science hitherto imagined purely objective. There are so many interesting connections, which might well be directions science will investigate in the years to come. That's a big part of what the whole book is about. The other part is where he describes how quantum physics, logic and consciousness are weird. That's basically just science popularization, coming from a top mind in both math and physics. To me, that's already enough to justify the price of admission: the time and mental effort of going through the book at a pace that assures comprehension, which does take some patience.
Angostura 6y ago
I don't suppose you would care to take a stab at summarising the conclusion would you? there's a nice wide margin for you to write in.
- pegasus 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_the_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_the_Mind

Yeah, of course you're doing him a disservice. Maybe try reading it a second time (and third too, why not), with more patience. It definitely doesn't boil down to what you just said.

iainmerrick 6y ago

I also read the book and disliked it for exactly the same reason (and I say this as a big Penrose admirer, both before and after). Can you give us at least an idea of what bits we might be missing?

pegasus 6y ago
See my reply on a sibling comment. Also, it's one of very few popular books that goes deep on the subject of Goedel's Theorem and the limit discoveries in logic and computability. A subject that in my view deserves to be more in our collective consciousness than even Quantum Physics since it's implications are likely to be even more profound.
- iainmerrick 6y ago
  If I remember right, that section didn’t differ substantially from Lucas’s argument, which I thought had already been effectively rebutted (eg in Godel, Escher, Bach). But maybe I’ll take another look and see if that’s fair.

tasty_freeze 6y ago

> why not Because free time is finite. If they read it three times and still decided it verbosely failed to make its case, why not read it two or three times more? Can you cite a point or two where you think Penrose makes a strong case above and beyond "consciousness and quantum theory are both mysterious and are therefore probably connected?"

pegasus 6y ago
Of course. He talks about research on quantum effects in microtubules, for example. Of how the concepts of computability and consciousness relate, how quantum physics drags in this concept of consciousness into science hitherto imagined purely objective. There are so many interesting connections, which might well be directions science will investigate in the years to come. That's a big part of what the whole book is about. The other part is where he describes how quantum physics, logic and consciousness are weird. That's basically just science popularization, coming from a top mind in both math and physics. To me, that's already enough to justify the price of admission: the time and mental effort of going through the book at a pace that assures comprehension, which does take some patience.

Angostura 6y ago

I don't suppose you would care to take a stab at summarising the conclusion would you? there's a nice wide margin for you to write in.

pegasus 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_the_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_the_Mind