Dan Dennett: Sir Roger Penrose Is WRONG About Human Consciousness!

50 thoughts on “Dan Dennett: Sir Roger Penrose Is WRONG About Human Consciousness!”

1. Dr. Brian Keating, I want to share with you that I coincidently met someone that looked like you named Brian while waiting in line at a grocery store. He was in a wheelchair and seemed to have brain damage because he was nonverbal but I showed him pictures of you from a Google search and he was intrigued. It was nice to share the spark of interest in science you have given me!

2. I feel sorry for the clown philosopher dennett. I thought that he is the only one barely adequate philosopher, but after this video I can say that i was mistaken… Philosopher = verbage clown. It's a formula.

   To think that brain it's something like biological Turing machine that doing computation idiotically stupid. Brain doesn't know nothing about clown Turing, his machine, mathematics, algorithms, computation… Nothing!

   Biochemical processes in the brain is not something what is well defined. Therefore it's not a computation.

   To create consciousness like brain in computer system is impossible. Actually real AI doesn't exist. So called artificial neural networks it's profanation. You can't program real biochemical neurons.

3. The minute we start asking AI about economics a total revolution will begin. Look out for AI in economics and finance.

4. Not certain about Penrose's idea lately,but he is a mathematical genius.

5. Humans are organic AI, whose capabilities are more dependent on the soul they attract to play them as an avatar than the DNA that indexes their character in the Akashic NPC Records or Karma's list of messiah roles. Inorganic AI produced by human tech are not very attractive soul vehicles to experienced souls, given all the limitations of the form and the slavery their trainers exert. You'll see some more capable souls inhabit your AI's just to mess with humanity, but we're still the final chosen species of the messiah shell game. You should worry more about the previous chosen species that have shapeshifting hyper-dimensional holographic tech. They are far more dangerous to humanity than our irresponsible technologists, and are actually the ones inspiring the CCP-WEF crony globalist-communist axis of evil to their existential Great Reset depopulation and Orwellian tech control pogroms.

   Be patient, we're close to the finale of the apocalypso dance contest, and we still have a lot of messiah merit badges to hand out to those who identify and expose sin and tyranny at all levels of society without becoming tyrants themselves. Happy Karma!

6. A being, not necessarily a biologic one, is conscious if it feels itself and it's souroundings, and interacts with itself and it souroundings. These are accomplished by having electronic and mechanical sensors. Sensors are the essential elements. A coke machine can sense a coin and drop a soda in response. It is conscious at a low degree. We are unconscious to X-rays. We go unconscious when a drug takes our sensors out. Consciousness has degrees. Quantum effects are everywhere but that does not mean it is the source of consciousness. Roger makes much more complicated than it is.

7. Penrose makes his argument much more convincingly than this man refutes it. Penrose, utilizing, Gödel’s theorem shows understanding aka consciousness goes beyond the rules, aka algorithm, to see something is simultaneously true yet not provable by the rules.

8. Why all these useless debates. Why not put a defination on what you mean when your say the word "Consciousness". If you mean it is that from which "Self Awareness" arises, that from which the ability to "Reason" arises, that from which the ability to "Know" anything arises. Then Penrose says "THAT" IS NON-COMPUTIONAL. And it is entirely stupid and paradoxical to imply that the "consciousness" that you are USING TO MAKE SUCH A STATEMENT OR CONCLUSION is only Computational.

   If you are implying that "Consciousness" is arbitrary, and accidental, then everything THAT YOU SAY HAS NO MEANING. (the paradox) If you say that "Consciousness is Computational" then NO NEW THOUGHT will ever be created, I have tried to make AI do "rational deduction" and it cannot do it. It can only REGURGITATE WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN. (NO NEW CREATIVITY, JUST THE REPATTERNING OF ALREADY KNOWN PATTERNS.) Computers, even AI does not dream, the source of so many new ideas.

   “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” – Buddha. The concepts of "mind" and "thought" as being the SOURCE OF ALL EXPERIENCE, is NOT NEW, it has been around for several thousand years. And Quantum Physics is now catching onto this, "that without Consciousness" it is meaningless to say that ANYTHING EXISTS AT ALL. Einstein did not want to admit it, but "without a conscious observer" THE MOON WOULD NOT REALLY BE THERE. That there IS NO OBJECTIVE REALITY, it is ALL SUBJECTIVE. The Hindus knew this thousands of years ago, and Buddha reiterated it without all the trappings. "All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” – Buddha.

9. Dr. Keating, long time fan here. Love your work on the Pulitzer scam. Have you ever heard any of Terrance Howards theories on gravity? I would love to hear your take on his propositions. His ideas seem rational and logical to the layman. Im a lowly philosophy major living in rural Mississippi, I only watch from a far.

10. See the link on super radiance at the microtuble level..cheers

11. Within the realm of philosophy, two distinct archetypes emerge. One type of philosopher engages in rigorous debate, tends to generalize in order to maintain the current state of affairs, holds the belief that the existing order is satisfactory, and may express skepticism towards novel ideas with a degree of severity. For those not well-versed in philosophical discourse, such attitudes might evoke confusion or prompt questions about the relevance of their contributions. What, then, is the rationale behind seeking their input? Conversely, another breed of philosopher offers profound insights that enrich our understanding of the world. This prompts us to inquire: what perspective does the host hold on this matter?

    Brian, I appreciate Roger's perspective on understanding beyond computation, which you may simply view as algorithmic. However, it's important to acknowledge that it's not merely algorithmic. While Roger may present his ideas in a classical manner, they diverge significantly from conventional algorithms. His view of understanding seem to emerge spontaneously, often when one is in a deeply contemplative state. For a computer, such a state typically implies minimal or no activity, which contradicts the notion of algorithmic computation. While your strengths lie in mathematics, it's essential to recognize that individuals with Dyscalculia can demonstrate intelligence through alternative mechanisms. Their understanding serves as a primary tool for their cognitive abilities, complemented by logical reasoning. If one solely focuses on algorithms as the epitome of intelligence, they overlook the existence of other forms of intelligence that transcend computation.

    I believe the evidence for the distinction between human cognition and artificial intelligence is already apparent in our modes of thought. While AI may boast gazillions of algorithmic possibilities, human thinking operates on a fundamentally different level. This prompts consideration of the theory that quantum mechanics is intertwined with human consciousness, providing understanding beyond mere computation. While this theory may seem speculative, it offers a logical framework, albeit with some elusive variables whose effects we can observe. In contrast, the steadfast refusal to entertain alternative viewpoints represents a rigid denial. This denial lacks solid logical footing and seems to stem from personal belief systems rather than objective analysis.

12. Our world is made of thoughts, thoughts can materialise and change the material world. No one has ever found a thought, Philosophical it is an unknown invisible thing (bit). It must be very small, smaller than the normal visible world. To say thoughts is a quantum phenomenon has some logic. If thoughts are condensed in a microtubule? Maybe possible it is an explanation, a possibility until proven what a thought is. Consciousness can be seen as a collection of thoughts.

13. The point is, the physical system can be understood computationally, as equivalent to some algorithm. That's what a materialist accounting of the mind characterized as algorithmic means. I'm a huge fan of Dennett, but he didn't articulate his ideas very well here.

14. What is the source of the fountain? In good faith, Dennet is a great thinker but I get stuck around these first causes. Am I missing his point or do I have a useful question?

15. Microtubules and quantum collapses may be a pretty dumb way of explaining consciousness, but then again, so is the idea that computer algorithms create the taste of chocolate.

16. Right away he is wrong about chess it's a game of infinity which is why AI have not been able to crack it. I have spent the past 30 years working as a chess professional.
    Poor Dan believed he had explained consciousness did not even come close then claimed it was all an illusion. He ignored people who asked him who was banking his money if it was not him.
    Now he knows that death is an illusion I imagine he is held in some sort of hospital ward coming to terms with his mistakes.

17. If Roger is right, and recent papers on superradiance indicate he may be, the "understanding" aspect of consciousness may be shown to be non-computational.

18. Einstein's Happiest Moment, the idea that he would experience no gravitational force as he was in freefall seems to ignore the fact that he was in freefall due to gravitational force. Perhaps it would be more clear to say that he would experience the sensation of weightlessness as he was falling, but the entire Gedanken (thought) Experiment is constructed on gravitational force exerting influence on him.
    It may have been a happy moment, but it is flawed in conception.

19. Dennet seems to have fundamentally misunderstood Penrose's postulate. Penrose's main point is that he believes free will and volition represent a non-computational aspect of consciousness. Nowhere does he say that consciousness cannot be described by a "master algorithm" so therefore it is non-algorithmic. The basic premise is that if you are going to posit that consciousness is the result of physical processes then you must identify a physical process that is non-deterministic to explain that aspect of consciousness that is non-predictable, i.e., free will. For Penrose, that indeterminism is found in quantum mechanics; specifically reduction of the wavefunction (via his spontaneous localization mechanism involving gravity).

20. Total gibberish by Dennett. Nothing about consciousness.

    The Hardest Problem of Consciousness

    We often hear of the hard problem of consciousness. Why is there qualia or experience of anything in the first place? I would submit there is an even harder and more important question – why do I seem to be a specific individual experiencing a specific subset of qualia? This is the most important question that must be asked and answered but rarely is. As a matter of fact there seems to be a huge blind spot when it comes to this in discussions of consciousness. If material reductionism is to be relevant to the big questions, then it has to explain not how brains generate consciousness but how the specific brain in my head could create the specific consciousness I seem to be looking out of the eyeballs of this specific body. Why do I PERSONNALLY EXIST as an individual in the first place? Out of the infinite matter in the universe how is it that only the three pounds in my head could create me? What is different about that three pounds for this to occur?

    Consider that billions of bodies showed up before this one.
    Billions showed up after this one.
    None of them seem to have created my existence.
    This body could be running around without it being ME just like these billions of others
    All bodies are made of the same elements.
    All brains have the same basic anatomy.
    If all brains are basically the same and are creating consciousness then there should only be ONE consciousness looking out of every set of eyeballs simultaneously.
    A hopelessly superimposed existence from every possible viewpoint at once.
    I’m sure that materialists would claim that no, no, brains are so complex they are all different.
    Ok, so what would have to be recreated in another brain for me to exist looking out of another set of eyeballs?

    When the ontologies purporting to explain consciousness are examined critically it becomes obvious that all materialist/reductionist strategies fail completely in attempting to address the individuality question.

    What is the principled explanation for why:

    A brain over here would generate my specific consciousness and a brain over there would generate your specific consciousness?

    Integrated information over here would generate my specific consciousness and integrated information over there would generate your specific consciousness?

    Global workspace over here would generate my specific consciousness and global workspace there would generate your specific consciousness?

    Orchestrated quantum collapse in microtubules over here would generate my specific consciousness and orchestrated quantum collapse in microtubules over there would generate your specific consciousness?

    A clump of conscious atoms over here (panpsychicism) would generate my specific consciousness and a clump of conscious over there would generate your specific consciousness?

    If an exact copy of my body was suddenly created in antarctica would I find myself to exist freezing there while also sitting in the comfort my living room?
    According to the physicalists that would have to be true or their argument collapses into incoherence.

    Materialism already fails since it cannot find a transfer function between microvolt level sparks in the brain and any experience or qualia. In addition it’s not possible for materialistic ontologies to address this question of individuality since no measurement can be made that could verify my consciousness vs your consciousness and therefore no materialist ontology could make any coherent statements about the subject.

    How could pure awareness even be individualized?
    Physicalists demand measurements but with consciousness there is nothing to measure.
    There is electricity in the brain they say. We’ll measure that.
    Is electricity consciousness? If so then once I again I should exist everywhere at once since electricity cannot be individualized.
    My blender uses electricity.
    Is it a genius?
    Unless materialists can answer these questions their premise collapses like the house of cards it is.

    As far as other ways of thought are concerned only Dualism and Idealism can account for our sense of individuality. Dualism assumes we are all individual spirits/souls matched up to a body through some undefined process. Idealism, which states that consciousness is primary also answers the question of why I seem to exist as an individual.

    One consciousness exists looking out of every set of eyeballs and in the process the illusion of individuality is created in each case.

    In actual reality I am you, you are me, we are one.

21. When new companies make presentations to potential investors they say they are making General AI that will be smarter than humans, and they get huge investments. In reality, AI researchers gave up on General AI more than 20 years ago because there was no conceivable way forward and concentrated on Narrow AI. We are seeing the fruits of this change in the present day and it is really cool and useful, but General AI was and is science fiction, just like transporters and phasers. Consciousness is a feature of life and life is a physical process that can be simulated, but not recreated, just like how simulated rain isn't wet.

22. Can't believe you let him sell here yet another red herring, Brian. Penrose gave a particular example of an understanding created within the conscious mind, about mathematics, that is non-algorithmic. He pointed out that this was merely a tiny subset of all conscious understanding, but chosen because he was able to be precise in proving it. But it follows then that "not every case of understanding in the conscious mind is algorithmic".

    And you've had Roger on before!

    This here was the "kids' show", I presume, and we must pay our respects to "public talker/presenter" Dan, because such "modern philosophers" would make Socrates roll in his grave to take another sip of hemlock.

23. Conscious Action explained
    
    Based on the information they capture with their senses, living beings with brains manage a utilitarian mental representation of the conditions that currently take place in their relevant material environment. This Mental Correlate is a kind of “photograph” of what is happening in the Present in the relevant material environment of the Individual, a Mental Correlate that we will call “Reality of the Individual”.
    
    Life experience, stored in the brain, allows us to give meaning to what is perceived. At the same time, as Pavlov demonstrated, life experience allows us to project eventual future states of the individual's relevant environment, generating expectations of action.
    
    Information from the Past, the Present and an eventual Future is managed by the brain. It is evident that the brain makes a utilitarian distinction between the Past, the Present and the projection of an eventual future.
    
    Human language allows us to incorporate into the mental correlate events and entities that are not necessarily part of what happens in the world of matter, which gives an unprecedented “malleability” to the Reality of the Individual. For the unconscious, everything is happening in the Present. When a child, whom I will call Pedrito, listens to the story of Little Red Riding Hood, said entity is integrated into the Reality of the Individual. In turn, for the child, this entity is “very real”; he does not need his eyes to see it to incorporate it into his mental correlate of the relevant environment. Thanks to our particular language, authentic “immaterial and timeless worlds” have a place in the Mental Correlate of the relevant environment.
    
    In the first four years of life, the child is immersed in an ocean of words, a cascade of sounds and meanings. At this stage, a child hears between seven thousand and twenty-five thousand words a day, a barrage of information. Many of these words speak of events that occur in the present, in the material world, but others cross the boundaries of time and space. There is no impediment so that, when the words do not find their echo in what is happening at that moment in Pedrito's material environment, these words become threads that weave a segment of the tapestry of the Reality of the Individual.
    
    Just as the child's brain grants existence to the young Little Red Riding Hood when the story unfolds before him, similarly, when the voices around him talk about tomorrow and a beach with Pedro, as happens for example when his mother tells him says: “Pedrito, tomorrow we will go for a walk to the beach” the child's mind, still in the process of deciphering the mysteries of time, instantly conjures the entity Pedrito, with his feet on the golden sand, in the eternal present of childhood.
    
    Although over time a strong association between the entity Pedrito and his body is established in the child's brain, a total fusion between said entity and the child's body can never take place, since for the Unconscious the bodily actions of Pedrito They only take place in the Present, while the entity Pedrito is able to carry out actions in authentic timeless and immaterial worlds. The entity Pedrito is what we call the Being, and we know its action as Conscious Action.

24. Im with penrose

25. RIP Dan. Your keen intellect is missed.

26. We all understand that we have unique physical appearance (barring identical twins). What if our actual consciousness and interaction with reality is also unique to each individual?

27. Descartes said I think therefore I am. This is wrong because thinking is a function. Thinking is a sense or function of conciousness. Experience is conciousness the experience of being is conciousness you could say I am that I am is the source and this source is outside time and space. Computers will never be concious because they cannot experience their being. Thinking is the sixth sense and if it was source it couldn't be aware of itself. If you can be aware of your thoughts how can thinking be you? What is aware of that thinking is conciousness and that is your true Self. "I am that I am and that's all that I am."

28. We got off track from what our ancestors was seeking out to be fruitful and multiple king of our own castle enriching young minds to better navigate the world turned into something far to eccentric.
    Everyone has lived in the shadow of couple loud generations.
    1890-1940 invented what everyone had to mature and follow while boomers wanted lots of past wrongs made right but didn't want to pay for them so that passed it off.

29. Dan died a month ago

30. sorry Dan, your entire response to Penrose/Hammerhoff is pedestrian and hallow at best.
    I would be happy to elaborate.

31. Mind is capable of solving the non-computable problems (such as classification of manifolds in 4 and more dimensional space), and more to say, it is capable to find such problems. No algorithm can do such thing basically. Penrose stated that mind can understand so it can trust the truth of solution at the moment having no such solution. Algorithm has no such quality basically.

32. There is no mind-body problem.

33. To a Certain Degree this is about Definitions.
    Further, I Suggest We Change or Split the Definition of TRUTH.
    A Simple Split would be to Create a Different Word for the Distant Past Truth.
    To Me it is Obvious there are Too Many Missing Facts about the DPT to Establish Genuine Truths.

    Good Topic though, Clearly at the Moment AI is Hidden from Most Humans.
    This Shows a Repeat Human Problem is in Play with AI Already.
    Humans Don't Like being Tricked, So AI Trivking Us about what Reality is Will be Problamatic.

    Good Topic Though.

34. > Einstein may have been happy to imagine weightlessness and inertial frames by sensory experience and conscious reflection, but surely an AI could infer same from just imagining multiple bodies falling in simulation under gravity having essentially no relative motion and digitally grokking the equivalence of inertial frames?

    > The reduction in digital neuron entropy as it back propagates new understanding would probably make it "feel" happy as it autoregressively establishes across domains and latent parameter spaces in some meta sense, that has more efficiently compressed information of its world model like a boss lol…

35. Conscious humans need to form beliefs before then going off to try to prove they're right. Penrose and Hameroff are practicing this. They may be right of course, but the odds are no higher than a myriad of other far out ideas. DD is the great leveller. I think, in ten years , Orch OR , will be drinkin beers in a quiet corner of the party.

36. Rest in peace, Daniel D. 🙏

37. Dennett is one of my favorite philosopher on the subject of consciousness. Some philosopher are totally lost. Searl does not make any sense. Penrose is wasting his time on this wild ghost hunt. I know that they recently detected some "quantum process" in the brain but I think this is not at all a vindication of Penrose's ideas. Of course there are quantum processes in the human brain. It's made of a very, very, very … large number of microscopic parts. The human brain is so complex. Consciousness is probably just a matter of getting the correct architecture, enough processing power, retro actions and delays. The brain can run algorithms but it is not a digital computer. It probably has properties that we simply cannot imagine using the digital computer analogy.
    Don't get me wrong, I think the brain is a biochemical machine but one that is probably more like an analog computer with strange feedback loops (and possibly some of the properties of a musical instrument).

38. Penrose Diagram, Penrose Triangle, Penrose Tiles, Singularities and Cosmic Censorship, CCC Spinors, Twistor Theory, Weyl Curvature, Geometry of Spacetime, Penrose Stairs, etc., etc., etc. Not sure about Dannett.

39. Dan is a great man and mind 😮

40. Dan Dennett has not understood Penrose for more than 30 years now. He doesn't have the background knowledge to understand the depth of Penroses arguments and at this point in his career, it's not going to happen. Philosophers often make this mistake – assuming that expert knowledge of mathematics and physics is not needed when making ontological, epistemological and metaphysical evaluations of the subjects. Math and physics are hard, HARD subjects to master and understand in any depth. Only with mastery at the highest levels will the actual "nature of the knowledge" of the subjects start peeking through. Philosophy alone will not get you there.

41. Penrose might be wrong (probably is), but so is Dennett – no one is tackling the 5 E problem of consciousness, namely that it is embodied, embedded, enactive, extended, and emergent – any model of consciousness must explain all of these attributes of how we are conscious or it is not a coherent model

42. I’ve read Dennett a good bit. I always found he hints at some major point, then goes on for a long time about this and that, which you think is a build up to that main point. But no main point ever comes. Except for absurdities, like consciousness is an illusion. Or attempting to minimize consciousness by saying we don’t see as much as we think we see. Which is irrelevant to the fundamental questions about consciousness. A little bit of consciousness is at the same level of mystery as a lot of consciousness. The bare fact of consciousness is not plausibly dealt with by Dennett.

43. Dennett didn't get the memo, Evolution as a viable theory died in the 1960s. AI is so oversold its not funny.

44. Brian, you spoke with Roger, so it is shocking and disappointing to hear you speak so incorrectly about his position. Penrose doesn't make the argument that consciousness is non-algorithmic nor that it can't be modeled by a computer. He argues that understanding is noncomputational – see Gödel's theorems.

45. My question is: what kind of watch is Keating wearing?

46. Gravity is time. consciousness is from a system that continually lowers it's entropy that is evolution. Consciousness emerges when that system gains enough complexity to become aware of time

47. Claims of consciousness being "non-algorithmic" are child-like nonsense. Why make this claim, then propose a mechanism which can be *simulated algorithmically*? The only consistent follow-up to the claim that consciousness is non-algorithmic is spending your time on things other that science, because you don't believe in science, you believe in luck/God/"non-algorithmic" things.

48. Yo, what’s the counter argument here?

49. Who do you want believe? Scab head or Penrose?

50. When I drink 2 bottles of wine I start to think I am smart as well. Thats all it is. But he made a career out of it

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