Part 2: Sir Roger Penrose & Stuart Hameroff: What is Consciousness? (#248)

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Brian Keating

Science, Physics, Natural Sciences

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2022

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A conversation with Nobel Prize Winner and renowned mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose and anesthesiologist Dr. Stuart Hameroff about consciousness and quantum mechanics. Sir Roger Penrose and Dr. Stuart Hameroff have tackled one of the most vexing problems in science -- how does consciousness work? Their theories of consciousness were selected by the Templeton Foundation for study. We will discuss Is the brain a sophisticated computer or an intuitive thinking device? Following on from their conference in Tucson which pitted Integrated Information Theory (IIT) against Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR), Sir Roger Penrose OM and Stuart Hameroff discuss the current state of theories that might explain human consciousness and objections to them from FQXI and others. Sir Roger Penrose describe examples of ‘non-computability’ in human consciousness, thoughts and actions such as the way we evaluate particular chess positions which cast doubt on ‘Turing’ computation as a complete explanation of brain function. As a source of non-computability, Roger discuss his ‘objective reduction’ (‘OR’) self-collapse of the quantum wavefunction which is a potential resolution for the ‘measurement problem’ in quantum mechanics, and a mechanism for non-computable physics. Dr. Stuart Hameroff reviews neuronal and biophysical aspects of Orch OR, in which ‘orchestrated’ quantum vibrations occur among entangled brain microtubules and evolve toward Orch OR threshold and consciousness. The nature, feasibility, decoherence times and evidence for quantum vibrations in microtubules, their role and correlation with consciousness, effects upon them of anesthetic gases and psychedelic drug molecules will be discussed, along with Orch OR criticisms and predictions of microtubule quantum vibrations as therapeutic targets for mental and cognitive disorders. Be my friend: 🏄‍♂️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 🔔 Subscribe https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 📝 Join my mailing list http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php 🎙️ Listen on audio-only platforms: https://briankeating.com/podcast.php Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating Join Shortform through my link Shortform.com/impossible and you’ll receive 5 days of unlimited access and an additional 20% discounted annual subscription! Can you do me a favor? Please leave a rating and review of my Podcast! On Apple devices, click here, scroll down to the ratings and leave a 5 star rating and review The INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast https://apple.co/39UaHlB On Spotify it’s here on @audible_com it’s here and other ways to rate here: https://briankeating.com/podcast Please join my mailing list; click here https://briankeating.com/list for your chance to win real space dust!! A production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/ Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome everybody to a fascinating discussion with two eminent scientists
0:09.5	Sir Roger Penrose, winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics, and Dr. Stuart Hammeroff, who, unlike me, is a real doctor.
0:16.2	Like me, he puts people to sleep.
0:17.7	I do so in my lectures, he does so under anesthesiology, but we both share a fascination both with the work of Sir Roger and of the deepest questions known to the human mind, including the human mind itself.
0:30.0	So I hope you will enjoy this episode. This episode picks up where we left off yesterday. We're talking
0:35.3	about the Emperor's New Mind. We got into a state collapse. We were just about to talk about
0:39.7	Everready in many worlds theory. We get into that in this episode.
0:44.0	So the first episode, if you haven't listened to that, go back to part one,
0:47.0	wish Sir Roger a happy birthday and talked about the updates that he would make to Emperor's
0:51.4	new mind, if he could.
0:52.3	They booked that inspired me as a 15-year-old
0:54.4	to someday write a book for popular scientists,
0:56.5	which I did and which Roger endorsed amazingly.
0:58.9	So this episode you're going to hear about things
1:00.4	like alien intelligence, the simulation hypothesis, and we're even going to get into
1:04.3	the existential questions I love to ask my guests, including is there an afterlife?
1:08.8	How did life emerge on Earth?
1:11.5	And the answers to my patented fantastic four questions about things
1:16.8	they've changed their mind on what's the most magical form of technology and
1:20.3	how do they go into the impossible the name of this podcast so sit back relax enjoy
1:24.3	Don't forget to leave a rating and tune in tomorrow for some of you listening to this live or go up to the channel and find my conversation with Dr Sabina Hasenfelder.
1:34.6	And you can get that on YouTube live if you're listening to this before Tuesday the 8th of August.
	...

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