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My undergraduate degree was in Cognitive Science. I took a large amount of neuroscience, psych, and philosophy. Discussing consciousness was the part I loved th
by 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 agoAs 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 agoPenrose 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 agoHave a link for the correction to the Gödel-sentence argument? I’m curious to read more.
- pegasus 6y agoYes, 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".