> "Penrose shows that materialism itself is now the faith of the 'gaps.' It is
> in the gaps of undiscovered and unprecedented 'non-computational' laws of
> physics and of uninvented and so-far unimaginable non-computational thinking
> machines that the 'missing science of consciousness' is forced to lurk. But
> what will happen if the gaps in our knowledge of physics are closed? What will
> happen if the laws of physics are known in their entirety and turn out not to
> have the characteristics that Penrose shows they must if they are to explain
> the mind of man? Then indeed will superstition be overthrown, the superstition
> of materialism...
>
I have a copy of Roger Penrose's _Shadows of the Mind_. I have only
skimmed it thus far. I hope to have time to read it over the Christmas
break. One of the first questions I asked myself regarding this
book is why is Roger Penrose devoting so much time in the pursuit of
cognitive sciences? Roger Penrose is an astrophysicist who along with
Stephen Hawkings developed mathematical theories of black holes and the
Big Bang singularities. What does this have to do with neurology and
the function of the brain?
Phillip Johnson discusses this with his usual brilliant insights in
his book _Reason in the Balance_, specifically chapter 3 _The Grand
Metaphysical Story of Science_.
Penrose and Hawkings embarked on an ambitious project to develop a
unified theory of the four fundamental forces of nature with the
ultimate goal of developing a Grand Unified Theory (GUT) of everything.
Sometimes called "the holy grail of physics", "the final theory", and
"the theory of everything." However, the hopes of ever achieving such
a level of omniscience ('the mind of God', says Hawkings) from the
premise that our brains, which produced this theory, is itself a member
of the closed cause-and-effect system which it describes is
self-referential and suffers from the Godelian type paradox.
Citing P. Johnson:
"In a sense Hawking's life is an archetype of the entire saga of science,
for science is the story of the power of the mind to penetrate the fog
of superstition and ignorance to discern the invisible reality beyond.
The story of the man Stephen Hawking, in the mythological dimension that
has so much to do with his immense popular success, is the story of mind
over matter.
The irony is that what this heroic mind ends up producing is a
reductionist science that reduces the mind itself to a trivial sideshow
in a materialist universe. Hawking does not address this problem directly,
but it surfaces in his book, for recognizes that a physical theory of
everything is inherently self-referential and hence potentially
incoherent. The enterprise of science assumes that human beings -
or scientists, at any rate - are rational beings who can observe nature
accurately and employ logical reasoning to understand the reality
behind the appearances. If a theory of everything exists, however,
the laws it describes determine even the theory. How then, wonders
Hawkings, can the scientists trust their own powers of reasoning?
How can they know that the laws of physics predict or permit the
discovery of a true theory?"
Later in the chapter citing Francis Crick, who also espouses a similar
reductionist view of the mind:
"The Astonishing Hypothesis is that 'You.' your joys and your sorrows,
your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity
and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly
of nerve cells and their associated molecules."
Phillip Johnson lampoons this by changing the text to first-person,
singular:
"Imagine the reaction of his publisher if Crick had proposed to begin
his book by announcing that 'I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my
science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of
nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and
their associated molecules.' Few browsers would be likely to read
further. The plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that
an implicit exception be made for the theorist."
Roger Penrose outlines four viewpoints of human consciousness in his
book _Shadows of the Mind_:
A) All thinking is computational; in particular, feelings of conscious
awareness are evoked merely by the carrying out of appropriate
computations.
B) Awareness is a feature of the brain's physical action; and whereas
any physical action can be simulated computationally, computational
simulation cannot itself evoke awareness.
C) Appropriate physical action of the brain evokes awareness, but this
physical action cannot be properly simulated computationally.
D) Awareness cannot be explained by physical, computational, or any other
scientific terms.
Penrose rejects A,B, and D. He rejects A and B because he believes that
there is more to us than computing machines but rejects D because it's
"religious." But he confesses:
"My own position is that questions of mind, though they lie very
uncomfortably with present-day scientific understanding should not be
regarded as being forever outside the realms of science. If science
is yet incapable of saying much that is of significance concerning
matters of the mind, then eventually science must enlarge its scope
so as to accommodate such matters, and perhaps even modify its very
procedures."
My hunch is that Penrose is attempting to straddle a fine line between
a science of the mind that is transcendent to avoid the problems of
self-reference, which would enable the development of a Grand Unified
Theory of everything, etc., but at the same time is not dualistic and
still within the realms of naturalistic science - albeit a modified
version of natural science that accommodates a transcendent mind.
If this is the case, he is destined to failure.
-jpt
--John P. Turnbull (jpt@ccfdev.eeg.ccf.org)Cleveland Clinic FoundationDept. of Neurology, Section of Neurological ComputingM52-119500 Euclid Ave.Cleveland Ohio 44195Telephone (216) 444-8041; FAX (216) 444-9401