AGI, the Halting Problem and the Human Mind
Pat Flynn continues the conversation with Dr. Winston EwertAccording to Ewert, Ray Kurzweil’s famed Singularity is not possible because AI cannot create an intelligence greater than itself.
Read More ›TagRoger Penrose (on consciousness)
How Quantum Theory Relates To Consciousness
Experimental physicist Rob Sheldon explains the background to Hameroff and Penrose’s contested quantum consciousness theory, which is beginning to be tested“Penrose consciousness,” in Sheldon’s view, escapes the paradoxes of non-computable problems that plague the trendy Universal Turing Machine model of the brain.
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Can Roger Penrose Explain Consciousness Through Physics?
The Nobel Laureate physicist makes clear that he only wants a theory of human consciousness if the explanation comes down to physicsPerhaps the reason no theory of consciousness works is simply that the mind does not arise from molecules so theories of how that happens can’t work.
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A Neurosurgeon on Why Some People Function With Only Half a Brain
The study results are reassuring and they point to two larger truthsYesterday, we ran a story about a recent study in which 40 people who had half of their brains removed (hemispherectomy) as children — due to intractable epilepsy — did unexpectedly well on psychological tests. Some say that it’s easy to explain because the brain has so many redundant elements. But is that all we need to know? We asked pediatric neurosurgeon Michael Egnor for some thoughts on that approach and he replied: The means by which people with major parts of their brains removed maintain function are not understood. It’s nonsense to say, as some do, that “The brain is massively parallel and recursive and functions under network rules and laws.” That’s typical neuroscience gibberish. The fact is that Read More ›
The Physics of Consciousness: There IS Such a Thing?
There are no really good theories of consciousness but some physicists, including Roger Penrose, make a good stab at it. Jordan Peterson listensYes. Jordan Peterson talks to Roger Penrose about that: Dr. Peterson recently traveled to the UK for a series of lectures at the highly esteemed Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. This conversation was recorded during that period with Sir Roger Penrose, a British mathematical physicist who was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for “discovering that black hole formation is a robust predictor of Einstein’s general relativity.” Moderated by Dr. Stephen Blackwood. ___________ Chapters ___________ [0:00] Intro [1:00] Is Consciousness Computational? [3:20] Turing Machines [6:30] Determinism & the Arrow of Time [12:15] Consciousness & Reductionism [17:30] Emergent Randomness & Evolution [23:00] The Tiling Problem, Computation, & AI [29:30] Escher, Brains, Bach [39:00] Pattern Recognition & Intuition [45:30] Mathematical Representations Read More ›
Can Quantum Physics, Neuroscience Merge as Quantum Consciousness?
Physicist Marcelo Gleiser looks at the pros and cons of current theoriesThe problem is, if we assume that “the mind is nothing more than the brain,” there may be nothing we can discover about how it works.
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