Roger Penrose

Notes

Roger Penrose (born 1931), British mathematical physicist and Nobel laureate (2020) for his work on black holes. In The Emperor's New Mind (1989) and Shadows of the Mind (1994) he argued from Gödel's theorem that human understanding cannot be algorithmic, and with the anaesthetist Stuart Hameroff proposed that consciousness arises from quantum effects in neuronal microtubules ("Orch-OR"). A great physicist whose theory of mind I think is wrong for the reasons set out under Substrate Independence: the Gödel argument assumes mathematicians are infallible, and the quantum effects decohere far too fast to matter.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose

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Fine-Tuning Argument

The constants of physics and the initial conditions of the universe fall within the narrow ranges that permit life. The cosmological constant is said to be tuned to one part in 10^120; the initial entropy, on Roger Penrose's estimate, to o…

Substrate Independence

Penrose and the quantum microtubules. Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff propose that consciousness depends on non-computable quantum effects in the microtubules of neurons. Three problems. First, the argument from Gödel's theorem, that hum…

Max Tegmark

Max Tegmark (born 1967), Swedish-American physicist at MIT, cosmologist and co-founder of the Future of Life Institute. Appears here for his 2000 calculation that quantum coherence in the brain decoheres on timescales around ten trillion t…