There are dozens of ideas. It’s ok if a researcher says, “I don’t know.”
Besides, Penrose has no idea either. He only adds an extra “quantum did it” layer between “this is what we know” and “this is how consciousness works.”
Claiming a brain is a quantum computer doesn’t answer any questions about consciousness.
xkforce@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Nonsense is still nonsense.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 7 months ago
…
He’s been focusing on it for like 20 years… And not on his own, he’s been working with psychologists and anesthesiologists. Dude is pretty much the only physicist working at understanding consciousness, he’s literally the expert
And that’s not even getting into how physics is technically outside his expertise. Dudes a mathematician, he just applied that to physics, then applied physics to brains.
He doesn’t claim to understand all of it, just like Einstein died before his shit was proven. Then Penrose showed up and worked with Hawking to prove a lot of Einstein’s theories.
Penrose 100% accepts he won’t live long enough to see his stuff finished. But he’s confident it’s in the right direction and if future generations keep working, some day we’ll actually understand what consciousness is.
But it’s not exactly easy man.
xkforce@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Penrose is a physicist. Thats where his expertise lies. He is not a neuroscientist, psychologist or any other profession that is relevant. He is NOT an expert in the area he has barged into. Being competent in one field DOES NOT translate into competence in others.
kebabslob@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 months ago
Yeah, and I would too. Wouldn’t ask you for advice though. What did Penrose do to you, anyway? Nobody should be barred from learning new fields just because they already know one. Biochemists benefit massively from AI but they’re backgrounds aren’t traditionally computer science
skye@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Okay but you can probably ask someone that is not a biologist to learn about certain aspects of the brain and how it works. While you can’t ask a plumber how the brain works for example, you can probably get his perspective on things related to blood flow (to some extent). Maybe you ask a chemist about certain chemicals in the brain and so on.
It might not be the best idea however to claim as a plumber that consciousmess is a series of pipes, but it’s fine to give a view of something through a different lens.
Hell, neither me or you are experts in any of this, or experts in something to do with debating scientists or socials in gneeral, but here we are giving perspectives anyway.