Which. Yeah, has been a pretty bad thing for people in understanding those. :(
You're a little late here, "magic" is already a fairly well known term in quantum computing literature. There's "magic states" and protocols for "magic state distillation" and "magic state injection", there's "shallow magic depth circuits", etc.
"The best kind of science is magic, and the best kind of magic is science."
Would gravity or spacetime under these definitions behave differently and yield something we can observe?
Or is this fancy math modeling that looks nice on paper, but that we won't be able to test until we become a Kardashev type III civilization?
Without tests it’s just pretty math that can be coaxed into agreeing with reality but that proves nothing.
Physicists try to indirectly test all the time via cosmological observations but that is extremely hard and limited to what you can infer and how well you can eliminate other explanations or sources of error.
If it is competing against another model that does both that and offers new testable hypothesis (which experiments match), the other model is the clear winner. But lacking that, if no other model explains all existing data, is new testability really necessary when it is the only model that currently explains all existing tests?
That said, aren't most of theoretical models only contenders for such, as in they haven't been expanded to actually explain all testing results, only that, as far as they have been expanded, there are no contradictions yet? So they need physicists to expand them, but if the model is wrong, the effort might largely be wasted, and we have some models that there is disdain for not because they contradict existing experiments, but because they have eaten too many careers without showing value in return?
Your worries are a bit late, there's already a huge amount of new age conspiracy bull about quantum healing with wave function collapse, microtubule alignment and biophotons - quality all-you-can-eat word salad buffet.
Also as far as I know, Penrose’s main argument is that consciousness can not be computational. If you can’t argue against an idea with reason and resort to name calling, you’re not being rational you’re just being dogmatic and censoring ideas.
Also, remember that Isaac Newton was deep into alchemy and religious prophecy. Just because you have one good idea and you're smart enough to follow it to its logical conclusion doesn't mean every idea you have is good.
> Another approach is to follow that word, heresy. In every period of history, there seem to have been labels that got applied to statements to shoot them down before anyone had a chance to ask if they were true or not. "Blasphemy", "sacrilege", and "heresy" were such labels for a good part of western history, as in more recent times "indecent", "improper", and "unamerican" have been.
Surely you must appreciate the irony when your primary argument is an appeal to authority, while on the other hand you dismiss everyone who is unconvinced as "dogmatic".
As for Penrose's specific ideas, i'm not familiar enough with them or the field to make an informed judgement. Hence i would defer to other experts in that field, who as far as i understand are unconvinced. However, the fact he previously won a nobel does not lead me to give him any more credence than i would anyone else. If anything its a negative signal.
That said, if i was going to bite:
> Penrose’s main argument is that consciousness can not be computational. If you can’t argue against an idea with reason
The onus is on Penrose to show consciousness is non-computational. Preferably with some sort of experiment (or are we in the realm of pure philosophy here? Arguing how many angels are dancing on the pin). Science is about creating hypotheses and testing them. Admiteddly im not super well-read on this topic, but i don't think this theory has yielded testable predictions not explainable by other theories that have been verified.
This is also an appeal to authority.
Plus I’m not arguing that Penrose is correct, I’m arguing that it’s unscientific to call a theory bullshit because it sounds “woo” or “new age.” It should be debated on its merits, and yes I did make an appeal to authority for the same reasons you did: it’s a useful heuristic if we don’t have the capacity to evaluate every idea on its merits.
> However, the fact he previously won a nobel does not lead me to give him any more credence than i would anyone else. If anything it’s a negative signal.
So you’re saying that being a Nobel laureate is a counter signal for scientific credibility?
> The onus is on Penrose to show consciousness is non-computational. Preferably with some sort of experiment (or are we in the realm of pure philosophy here? Arguing how many angels are dancing on the pin).
I mean there’s the whole field of mathematics and most of modern physics that use mathematical proofs instead of experiments, including the main article this thread is on. I don’t disagree that an experiment would be ideal, but again, my point was not to argue that Penrose is correct but that it’s unscientific and akin to religious dogma to call his theory bullshit because it sounds like a “new age” idea.
We can now simulate every aspect of consciousness except for long-term memory consolidation, to the extent that you can't tell if you're talking to a conscious person or a computer. The existence of LLMs means that no quantum woo is necessary to explain consciousness. Our brains just do the same thing by different means.
In short, Penrose's argument is a religious one, not a scientific one.
Indeed. Thinking is not the same as experiencing thinking.
> there’s no way to know if any other people, much less machines, are conscious.
Or even ourselves :D
"Consciousness is just an illusion" "If so, who's experiencing the illusion?" "Yes"