5 ms·

Penrose is a dualist, he does not believe that function can be computed in our physical universe. He believes the mind comes from another realm and "pilots" us

Penrose is a dualist, he does not believe that function can be computed in our physical universe. He believes the mind comes from another realm and "pilots" us through quantum phenomenons in the brain.

falcor84 2y ago
Interesting. Does that fit with the simulation hypothesis? That the world's physics are simulated on one computer, but us characters are simulated on different machines, with some latency involved?
- mcgee21 2y ago
  Its all pop pseudoscience. Things exist. Anything that exists has an identity. Physics exists and other things (simulations, computing, etc.) that exist are subject to those physics. To say that it happens the other way around is poor logic and/or lacks falsifiability.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwawaymaths 2y ago
    eh, its possible that weird shit is happening in physics. however, there is no evidence that this is the case. its just vibes, really.
  - fsckboy 2y ago
    >Things exist oh, cogito existo sum! checkmate theists! dude, the simulation hypothesis does not mean things don't exist, it means they don't necessarily exist in the way you have, rather unimaginatively, imagined, and you have no way to tell. and Occam's Razor does not solve the problem.
    - mcgee21 2y ago
      > … and you have no way to tell. This is exactly my point. If we have no way to tell, what experiment could you possibly use to test whether we’re in a simulation or not? The simulation hypothesis lacks falsifiability and is pseudoscience.
      - fsckboy 2y ago
        the "it's not a simulation" hypothesis lacks falsifiability. also, falsifiability lacks falsifiability. don't make up complex axioms and then believe in them on faith. Occam's razor: if the universe can be simulated, then whatever form the simulation takes is the simpler explanation for the turtles all the way down. if the universe can't be simulated, explain how you know that.
bbor 2y ago
Which is—to use the latest philosophy lingo—dumb. To be fair to Penrose, the “Gödel’s theory about formal systems proves that souls exist” is an extremely common take; anyone following LLM discussions has likely seen it rediscovered at least once or twice. To pull from the relevant part of Hofstadter’s incredible I am a Strange Loop (a book also happens to more rigorously invoke Gödel for cognitive science): And this is our central quandary. Either we believe in a nonmaterial soul that lives outside the laws of physics, which amounts to a nonscientific belief in magic, or we reject that idea, in which case the eternally beckoning question "What could ever make a mere physical pattern be me?” After all, a phrase like "physical system" or "physical substrate" brings to mind for most people… an intricate structure consisting of vast numbers of interlocked wheels, gears, rods, tubes, balls, pendula, and so forth, even if they are tiny, invisible, perfectly silent, and possibly even probabilistic. Such an array of interacting inanimate stuff seems to most people as unconscious and devoid of inner light as a flush toilet, an automobile transmission, a fancy Swiss watch (mechanical or electronic), a cog railway, an ocean liner, or an oil refinery. Such a system is not just probably unconscious, it is *necessarily* so, as they see it. This is the kind of single-level intuition so skillfully exploited by John Searle in his attempts to convince people that computers could never be conscious, no matter what abstract patterns might reside in them, and could never mean anything at all by whatever long chains of lexical items they might string together. Highly recommend it for anyone who liked Gödel, Escher, Bach, but wants more explicit scientific theses! He basically wrote it to clarify the more artsy/rhetorical points made in the former book.
- jfengel 2y ago
  It feels really weird to say that Roger Penrose is being dumb. It's accurate. But it feels really weird. It's not uncommon for great scientists to be totally out of their depth even in nearby fields, and not realize it. But this isn't the hard part of either computability or philosophy of mind.
  - thrance 2y ago
    We really ought to stop mythicizing people into superhuman heroes/geniuses. Penrose is an authority in some fields of theoretical physics, but that doesn't give any value to what he has to say on consciousness or AI. On that topic, he has clearly adopted an unscientific approach: he wants to believe the soul exists and is immaterial and seeks evidence for it.
lupusreal 2y ago
I could be wrong but I don't think he's a dualist. He rejects human consciousness being computable on classical computers, like Turing machines, but thinks that quantum stuff is necessary. Quantum brains/computers are or would be computing in our physical universe, making him a materialist not a dualist. His big thing is using this quantum stuff to free his own mind from the confines of Gödel's theorems (I think for egotistical reasons.) Simultaneously, actual dualists flock to his theories because they think association with Penrose lends credibility to their religious stuff.

falcor84 2y ago

Interesting. Does that fit with the simulation hypothesis? That the world's physics are simulated on one computer, but us characters are simulated on different machines, with some latency involved?

mcgee21 2y ago
Its all pop pseudoscience. Things exist. Anything that exists has an identity. Physics exists and other things (simulations, computing, etc.) that exist are subject to those physics. To say that it happens the other way around is poor logic and/or lacks falsifiability.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
  eh, its possible that weird shit is happening in physics. however, there is no evidence that this is the case. its just vibes, really.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  >Things exist oh, cogito existo sum! checkmate theists! dude, the simulation hypothesis does not mean things don't exist, it means they don't necessarily exist in the way you have, rather unimaginatively, imagined, and you have no way to tell. and Occam's Razor does not solve the problem.
  - mcgee21 2y ago
    > … and you have no way to tell. This is exactly my point. If we have no way to tell, what experiment could you possibly use to test whether we’re in a simulation or not? The simulation hypothesis lacks falsifiability and is pseudoscience.
    - fsckboy 2y ago
      the "it's not a simulation" hypothesis lacks falsifiability. also, falsifiability lacks falsifiability. don't make up complex axioms and then believe in them on faith. Occam's razor: if the universe can be simulated, then whatever form the simulation takes is the simpler explanation for the turtles all the way down. if the universe can't be simulated, explain how you know that.

bbor 2y ago

Which is—to use the latest philosophy lingo—dumb. To be fair to Penrose, the “Gödel’s theory about formal systems proves that souls exist” is an extremely common take; anyone following LLM discussions has likely seen it rediscovered at least once or twice. To pull from the relevant part of Hofstadter’s incredible I am a Strange Loop (a book also happens to more rigorously invoke Gödel for cognitive science): And this is our central quandary. Either we believe in a nonmaterial soul that lives outside the laws of physics, which amounts to a nonscientific belief in magic, or we reject that idea, in which case the eternally beckoning question "What could ever make a mere physical pattern be me?” After all, a phrase like "physical system" or "physical substrate" brings to mind for most people… an intricate structure consisting of vast numbers of interlocked wheels, gears, rods, tubes, balls, pendula, and so forth, even if they are tiny, invisible, perfectly silent, and possibly even probabilistic. Such an array of interacting inanimate stuff seems to most people as unconscious and devoid of inner light as a flush toilet, an automobile transmission, a fancy Swiss watch (mechanical or electronic), a cog railway, an ocean liner, or an oil refinery. Such a system is not just probably unconscious, it is *necessarily* so, as they see it. This is the kind of single-level intuition so skillfully exploited by John Searle in his attempts to convince people that computers could never be conscious, no matter what abstract patterns might reside in them, and could never mean anything at all by whatever long chains of lexical items they might string together. Highly recommend it for anyone who liked Gödel, Escher, Bach, but wants more explicit scientific theses! He basically wrote it to clarify the more artsy/rhetorical points made in the former book.

jfengel 2y ago
It feels really weird to say that Roger Penrose is being dumb. It's accurate. But it feels really weird. It's not uncommon for great scientists to be totally out of their depth even in nearby fields, and not realize it. But this isn't the hard part of either computability or philosophy of mind.
- thrance 2y ago
  We really ought to stop mythicizing people into superhuman heroes/geniuses. Penrose is an authority in some fields of theoretical physics, but that doesn't give any value to what he has to say on consciousness or AI. On that topic, he has clearly adopted an unscientific approach: he wants to believe the soul exists and is immaterial and seeks evidence for it.

lupusreal 2y ago

I could be wrong but I don't think he's a dualist. He rejects human consciousness being computable on classical computers, like Turing machines, but thinks that quantum stuff is necessary. Quantum brains/computers are or would be computing in our physical universe, making him a materialist not a dualist. His big thing is using this quantum stuff to free his own mind from the confines of Gödel's theorems (I think for egotistical reasons.) Simultaneously, actual dualists flock to his theories because they think association with Penrose lends credibility to their religious stuff.