Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Roger Penrose Says Physics Is Wrong, From String Theory to Quantum Mechanics

discovermagazine.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 112 posts

Re: Roger Penrose Says Physics Is Wrong, From String Theory to Quantum Mechanics

#31

Post by Create »

ceejayoz wrote: post #19
stefantalpalaru wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to start by looking up the way sperm is being produced. It will help you clear the confusion with the link between the mother's age and birth defects.

Age of the father does have an effect, actually. http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/news/20030... edit: Also, as someone who's had to use sperm donation to conceive... > Wonder if that's his kid? is pretty offensive. It's his kid, whether he's the genetic father or not.

Although citation is needed, if I remember correctly, because of lacking healthy young Japanese men after WWII, ageing fathers' sperm contributed to at least as much to newborn malformations as the nuclear fallout.

But the thread also tells you about the euphemism under the guise of 'ego' in the article, and how society today is structured (ie. power of the old vs. youth in our times). At his age, he should clearly let go, by all standards, even if it so difficult. To quote a famous speech from another control freak who at least knew all about this, luckily Nature has provisions because it "clears out the old, to make room for the new. Right now the new is you. But you won't always be."

Re: Roger Penrose Says Physics Is Wrong, From String Theory to Quantum Mechanics

#32

Post by natep »

planetguy wrote: post #28
snowwrestler wrote: post #17

Of course it's wrong; all scientific theories are provisional approximations, and the conflicts between quantum mechanics and general relativity are well known. The hard part is proposing an alternative theory that fits all the known evidence. Quantum mechanics and general relativity both match a ton of observations; anything that is going to replace them will need to at least match the same set of evidence at least…

You seem to be engaging more with the headline writer than with Penrose. They're both, perhaps, wrong, but Penrose is wrong in a far more interesting way. Penrose doesn't just think quantum mechanics is wrong in the sense that it can't quite be lined up with general relativity, he thinks that quantum mechanics and consciousness are the same problem and that we can't understand one without the other. Now, to me this s…

I don't see that as an accurate description of how Penrose is thinking about the problem (disclaimer: I've only read this interview, and not any of his books). I think he's saying that

1. Everything about QM other than its extremely accurate predictions is wrong

2. We don't have a theory that explains consciousness

And since he is looking for a unified theory, he wants his theory to encompass all of general relativity, the current domain of QM, and consciousness. He certainly understand current QM theory better than most of its detractors (AFAICT from this interview)

Re: Roger Penrose Says Physics Is Wrong, From String Theory to Quantum Mechanics

#33

Post by baddox »

planetguy wrote: post #28
snowwrestler wrote: post #17

Of course it's wrong; all scientific theories are provisional approximations, and the conflicts between quantum mechanics and general relativity are well known. The hard part is proposing an alternative theory that fits all the known evidence. Quantum mechanics and general relativity both match a ton of observations; anything that is going to replace them will need to at least match the same set of evidence at least…

You seem to be engaging more with the headline writer than with Penrose. They're both, perhaps, wrong, but Penrose is wrong in a far more interesting way. Penrose doesn't just think quantum mechanics is wrong in the sense that it can't quite be lined up with general relativity, he thinks that quantum mechanics and consciousness are the same problem and that we can't understand one without the other. Now, to me this s…

I don't understand why some researchers are so quick to blame our failure to understand consciousness on the fact that consciousness is a quantum phenomenon. I was under the impression that we're still nowhere near fully understanding the brain even from a classical perspective.

Re: Roger Penrose Says Physics Is Wrong, From String Theory to Quantum Mechanics

#34

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

snowwrestler wrote: post #17

Of course it's wrong; all scientific theories are provisional approximations, and the conflicts between quantum mechanics and general relativity are well known. The hard part is proposing an alternative theory that fits all the known evidence. Quantum mechanics and general relativity both match a ton of observations; anything that is going to replace them will need to at least match the same set of evidence at least…

"Put another way--when one theory replaces another, it must be fully contain the previous theory."

This is certainly our hope and desire, but I think you're taking it too far. For example, if we took what you're saying as some sort of prescriptive rule that is improper to violate, we wouldn't have found quantum theory in the first place!

So I think it's important to allow proliferation of theories that explain portions of the evidence, because that explores the space in which we might hope to find a unifying theory.

Re: Roger Penrose Says Physics Is Wrong, From String Theory to Quantum Mechanics

#36

Post by Symmetry »

maxharris wrote: post #7
zmj wrote: post #6

It's so sad to see old age claim a great mind.

I don't understand what you mean. His intellect certainly shines through in the interview, especially in the latter part where he talks about physics.

Really? I thought that the parts about physics were really disappointingly fuzzy. Especially: "physicists have to say, well, somehow your consciousness takes one route or the other route without your knowing it." I think that its sort of shocking that he could fail to understand the arguments of his opponents so badly as to end up saying something so ridiculous.

Re: Roger Penrose Says Physics Is Wrong, From String Theory to Quantum Mechanics

#37

Post by planetguy »

natep wrote: post #32
planetguy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be engaging more with the headline writer than with Penrose. They're both, perhaps, wrong, but Penrose is wrong in a far more interesting way. Penrose doesn't just think quantum mechanics is wrong in the sense that it can't quite be lined up with general relativity, he thinks that quantum mechanics and consciousness are the same problem and that we can't understand one without the other. Now, to me this s…

I don't see that as an accurate description of how Penrose is thinking about the problem (disclaimer: I've only read this interview, and not any of his books). I think he's saying that 1. Everything about QM other than its extremely accurate predictions is wrong 2. We don't have a theory that explains consciousness And since he is looking for a unified theory, he wants his theory to encompass all of general relativit…

I've skimmed one or two of his books. There's no doubt that he knows his physics better than most physicists.

However I'm not sure what you're saying he's saying differs from what I'm saying he's saying. In both cases, the basic argument is that since we don't understand physics and we don't understand quantum mechanics then they might be related.

Now, that's not a conclusive proof that they're related but it might be true. If you look around the office and note that everybody is here except Alice and Bob, then you could hypothesize that maybe Alice and Bob are off somewhere together in a stationery cupboard smooching. On the other hand, maybe they're independently missing for totally different reasons. Personally I think Bob is at home with a cold and Alice is visiting her grandmother in Keokuk, but if Penrose wants to start flinging stationery cupboard doors open to look for them then that's fine with me.

(I may have overdone this analogy.)

Re: Roger Penrose Says Physics Is Wrong, From String Theory to Quantum Mechanics

#38

Post by lusr »

Whodi wrote: post #26
planetguy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how old you are, but I'm pretty sure Penrose overtook you by the time he was your age.

Haha, that's an understatement, I'm sure he was light years ahead of me as early as 10. It's just inspiring to know that one can struggle with some of the basics and rebound to do great things.

I always felt I was slower than the other kids, but later I realised I was attempting to structure and understand the information whereas they were just regurgitating it. Once I did understand the information I could apply it far better than the others in class, and extend my understanding into new areas. That's just one reason someone may be "slower".

Re: Roger Penrose Says Physics Is Wrong, From String Theory to Quantum Mechanics

#40

Post by Symmetry »

A rather depressing interview. I enjoyed a lot of the explanations of Physics in *The Emperor's New Mind", but even there I could see big holes in his arguments about consciousness. For example, he talks about how its impossible to make an algorithm tile a grid in a certain way, but I had a screensaver which in fact did what he was saying was impossible. Here I just feel sort of sad and lost.

I think my least favorite line was probably this: "The trouble is, what can you do with it? Nothing. You want a physical theory that describes the world that we see around us." If you're going to use that to reject theories about the reality of the wave function, astronomers in the Renaissance would have been equally justified in rejecting the heliocentric system on account of it being at odds with what they saw around them, or Greek astronomers rejecting the notion that the world was round.

Post reply on HN