[soco]

> This naming-proposal couldn't possibly cause any problems down the line...

Your worries are a bit late, there's already a huge amount of new age conspiracy bull about quantum healing with wave function collapse, microtubule alignment and biophotons - quality all-you-can-eat word salad buffet.

[rockskon]

Don't underestimate the capacity for the problem to get significantly worse.

[CuriouslyC]

Blame Roger Penrose for the microtubule bullshit. Ironically, he's the opposite of new age, dude won a Nobel prize.

[an0malous]

Maybe, just maybe, an eminent physicist who won the Nobel Prize knows more than us. At the very least his ideas deserve consideration instead of ridicule and dismissal.

Also as far as I know, Penrose’s main argument is that consciousness can not be computational. If you can’t argue against an idea with reason and resort to name calling, you’re not being rational you’re just being dogmatic and censoring ideas.

[bawolff]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease

[an0malous]

Again, if you disagree with Penrose’s idea, just explain your disagreement. It’s so ironic how you’ll call it bullshit and link to some pop culture skeptic idea with no scientific backing to try and undermine an idea in defense of “real science”

> Another approach is to follow that word, heresy. In every period of history, there seem to have been labels that got applied to statements to shoot them down before anyone had a chance to ask if they were true or not. "Blasphemy", "sacrilege", and "heresy" were such labels for a good part of western history, as in more recent times "indecent", "improper", and "unamerican" have been.

https://paulgraham.com/say.html

[bawolff]

I'm disagreeing with the notion that someone "who won the Nobel Prize knows more than us". History suggests otherwise.

Surely you must appreciate the irony when your primary argument is an appeal to authority, while on the other hand you dismiss everyone who is unconvinced as "dogmatic".

As for Penrose's specific ideas, i'm not familiar enough with them or the field to make an informed judgement. Hence i would defer to other experts in that field, who as far as i understand are unconvinced. However, the fact he previously won a nobel does not lead me to give him any more credence than i would anyone else. If anything its a negative signal.

That said, if i was going to bite:

> Penrose’s main argument is that consciousness can not be computational. If you can’t argue against an idea with reason

The onus is on Penrose to show consciousness is non-computational. Preferably with some sort of experiment (or are we in the realm of pure philosophy here? Arguing how many angels are dancing on the pin). Science is about creating hypotheses and testing them. Admiteddly im not super well-read on this topic, but i don't think this theory has yielded testable predictions not explainable by other theories that have been verified.

[an0malous]

> Hence i would defer to other experts in that field, who as far as i understand are unconvinced.

This is also an appeal to authority.

Plus I’m not arguing that Penrose is correct, I’m arguing that it’s unscientific to call a theory bullshit because it sounds “woo” or “new age.” It should be debated on its merits, and yes I did make an appeal to authority for the same reasons you did: it’s a useful heuristic if we don’t have the capacity to evaluate every idea on its merits.

> However, the fact he previously won a nobel does not lead me to give him any more credence than i would anyone else. If anything it’s a negative signal.

So you’re saying that being a Nobel laureate is a counter signal for scientific credibility?

> The onus is on Penrose to show consciousness is non-computational. Preferably with some sort of experiment (or are we in the realm of pure philosophy here? Arguing how many angels are dancing on the pin).

I mean there’s the whole field of mathematics and most of modern physics that use mathematical proofs instead of experiments, including the main article this thread is on. I don’t disagree that an experiment would be ideal, but again, my point was not to argue that Penrose is correct but that it’s unscientific and akin to religious dogma to call his theory bullshit because it sounds like a “new age” idea.

[CamperBob2]

Again, if you disagree with Penrose’s idea, just explain your disagreement.

We can now simulate every aspect of consciousness except for long-term memory consolidation, to the extent that you can't tell if you're talking to a conscious person or a computer. The existence of LLMs means that no quantum woo is necessary to explain consciousness. Our brains just do the same thing by different means.

In short, Penrose's argument is a religious one, not a scientific one.

[an0malous]

You’re conflating consciousness with intelligence. Consciousness is subjective experience, there’s no way to know if any other people, much less machines, are conscious.

[CamperBob2]

Penrose's argument isn't rational itself, so I don't see why a rational argument should be required in order to dismiss it. As CuriouslyC points out, quantum consciousness is the equivalent of Newton's dalliances with alchemy and astrology.

[an0malous]

Maybe you could briefly describe and steelman his argument as a show of good faith instead of just denouncing it because it’s “equivalent with alchemy and astrology.” My understanding is that it’s very rational, it’s based on mathematical proofs.

[BobaFloutist]

Mathematical proofs don't really apply to anything outside of math, since they require a certainty in your assumptions that's not replicable in the real world. At the end of the day, all a mathematical proof can tell you is "If P then Q," which just shifts the question from Q to P.

[CamperBob2]

That's not how this works. Why don't you ask me to steelman Newton, too?

As for models, the map is not the territory. There is no valid mathematical model that proves that quantum woo is a prerequisite for consciousness. If Penrose thinks otherwise, Penrose is wrong. He can go get a Vitamin C shot from Linus Pauling, debate the relationship between HIV and AIDS with Kary Mullis, or talk race relations with William Shockley.

[markhahn]

this fallacy is called "appeal to authority".

[CuriouslyC]

I didn't say all his theories were garbage, though the theories inspired by them developed by laypeople almost certainly are. I just don't find his argument compelling enough on its face to warrant holding them up as real progress.

Also, remember that Isaac Newton was deep into alchemy and religious prophecy. Just because you have one good idea and you're smart enough to follow it to its logical conclusion doesn't mean every idea you have is good.

[2b3a51]

You could turn that idea over: Newton's alchemical researches may have given him the courage to posit action at a distance. Universal gravitation was very controversial and was not at all accepted initially. Descartes spent pages and pages building theories of vortex action to explain forces.

[marcosdumay]

Let he go first and start arguing for this one with reason. If he insists on using discredited ideas that are known not to lead to the results he insists on, name-calling is an appropriated response.