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Those are indeed fascinating, but what could be more interesting than the relation between consciousness and the Universe? Maybe you're preference is for the mo

Those are indeed fascinating, but what could be more interesting than the relation between consciousness and the Universe? Maybe you're preference is for the more solid ground of confirmed science, which is understandable, maybe you didn't have the patience to follow his thinking, which is ok too, but why go the extra step and caricature his arguments like this?

kortilla 6y ago
Once you move into the realm of untestable vague hand waving statements, it’s not really even science anymore. Philosophical discussions that dress up like science are infuriating for anyone who went in looking for science.
- pegasus 6y ago
  It's not dressing up as science, though. I understand that for someone who appreciates science, but not philosophy, the book turning out as straddling those two fields might be a letdown. But that's not the authors fault since those books are not presented as academic research, but only informed by it. Infuriating for me are philosophical discussions which don't draw substantially on science.
  - Angostura 6y ago
    I felt let down by Penrose, because the book was dressed up as sonething it was not. By comparison Dennett and Pinker and Hofstadter were much more satisfying.
SamBam 6y ago
My undergraduate degree was in Cognitive Science. I took a large amount of neuroscience, psych, and philosophy. Discussing consciousness was the part I loved the most, and I had plenty of patience for plenty of writers. My dismissal of his work on consciousness was based on those grounds. I think my "caricature" was fairly accurate, but if you think different that's fine, if you can elaborate. The part I forgot above was that I also dismissed it on the basis of math, which is surprising given that Penrose is a greater mathematician than I'll ever be, but his whole reason to evoke "quantum" was that a Newtonian-based brain could not know that a "Gödel sentence" was true, so our brains must be non-Newtonian. It was absurd on the face of it (our brain's belief about statements don't constitute a formal logic), and was also well-criticized by other mathematicians, whose names I'd have to dredge out of my 20-year old essays.
- tildedave 6y ago
  As someone who took a number of mathetical logic classes between undergrad/graduate I always found this Gödel-sentence argument on the face-laughable, since the logical inconsistency was so easy to repair. My favorite critique of this was Hans Moravec's dialogue between Penrose and a robot AI, having resurrected his brain long past humanity's extinction: http://www.calculemus.org/MathUniversalis/NS/10/10moravec.html http://www.calculemus.org/MathUniversalis/NS/10/10moravec.ht...
  - theinfinity 6y ago
    Penrose has himself replied to this critique (among others): http://www.calculemus.org/MathUniversalis/NS/10/01penrose.html http://www.calculemus.org/MathUniversalis/NS/10/01penrose.ht....
  - ianai 6y ago
    Have a link for the correction to the Gödel-sentence argument? I’m curious to read more.
- pegasus 6y ago
  Yes, I'm aware of the criticism and it might be that only a few of his speculations find ground in reality, or even none at all. Still, these dismissals are unfair and rouhghly equivalent to saying that for example, Darwin's "Origin of the Species" boils down to "life-forms are groovy".

kortilla 6y ago

Once you move into the realm of untestable vague hand waving statements, it’s not really even science anymore. Philosophical discussions that dress up like science are infuriating for anyone who went in looking for science.

pegasus 6y ago
It's not dressing up as science, though. I understand that for someone who appreciates science, but not philosophy, the book turning out as straddling those two fields might be a letdown. But that's not the authors fault since those books are not presented as academic research, but only informed by it. Infuriating for me are philosophical discussions which don't draw substantially on science.
- Angostura 6y ago
  I felt let down by Penrose, because the book was dressed up as sonething it was not. By comparison Dennett and Pinker and Hofstadter were much more satisfying.

SamBam 6y ago

My undergraduate degree was in Cognitive Science. I took a large amount of neuroscience, psych, and philosophy. Discussing consciousness was the part I loved the most, and I had plenty of patience for plenty of writers. My dismissal of his work on consciousness was based on those grounds. I think my "caricature" was fairly accurate, but if you think different that's fine, if you can elaborate. The part I forgot above was that I also dismissed it on the basis of math, which is surprising given that Penrose is a greater mathematician than I'll ever be, but his whole reason to evoke "quantum" was that a Newtonian-based brain could not know that a "Gödel sentence" was true, so our brains must be non-Newtonian. It was absurd on the face of it (our brain's belief about statements don't constitute a formal logic), and was also well-criticized by other mathematicians, whose names I'd have to dredge out of my 20-year old essays.

tildedave 6y ago
As someone who took a number of mathetical logic classes between undergrad/graduate I always found this Gödel-sentence argument on the face-laughable, since the logical inconsistency was so easy to repair. My favorite critique of this was Hans Moravec's dialogue between Penrose and a robot AI, having resurrected his brain long past humanity's extinction: http://www.calculemus.org/MathUniversalis/NS/10/10moravec.html http://www.calculemus.org/MathUniversalis/NS/10/10moravec.ht...
- theinfinity 6y ago
  Penrose has himself replied to this critique (among others): http://www.calculemus.org/MathUniversalis/NS/10/01penrose.html http://www.calculemus.org/MathUniversalis/NS/10/01penrose.ht....
- ianai 6y ago
  Have a link for the correction to the Gödel-sentence argument? I’m curious to read more.
pegasus 6y ago
Yes, I'm aware of the criticism and it might be that only a few of his speculations find ground in reality, or even none at all. Still, these dismissals are unfair and rouhghly equivalent to saying that for example, Darwin's "Origin of the Species" boils down to "life-forms are groovy".