In this interview with Robert Lawrence Kuhn for the PBS series Closer to Truth, Penrose details a somewhat mind-boggling idea he’s advanced known as the ‘conformal cyclic cosmology’ hypothesis, which proposes that our Universe is just one in an infinite series.įor more on the prospect of a before, before the Big Bang, watch Aeon Video’s interview with Tim Maudlin, a professor of philosophy at New York University. The UK mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, a professor emeritus at Oxford University and co-recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics, is a convert to the camp of thinkers entertaining the notion of a pre-Big Bang state. In the ensuing decades, an obvious and yet still deeply unsettled question has emerged at the core of cosmology: what happened before it? While many scientists hold firm that there’s no decent evidence to support the notion that anything existed before the Big Bang, new hypotheses have cracked open the door for the possibility. However, this revolution also ties in with the revolution that’s required to get to grips with the nature of consciousness - in which both quantum mechanics and gravity, according to Penrose, must play a role at the level of the brain’s microtubules (see here).Since the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965, the Big Bang theory has been the dominant model of our Universe’s origin. Primarily, that revolution is required to square relativity theory and quantum mechanics (see here). He’s correct primarily because Penrose has himself often talked about the need for such a revolution. In any case, Dennett is correct to argue that a “revolution in physics” is required in order to sustain Penrose’s scepticism about sAI. (Other evolutionary theorists have “no need for the hypothesis of consciousness”.) What about sAI squaring with biology or natural selection?ĭennett is on safer ground here in the simple sense that some evolutionary theorists do indeed talk about intelligence and life. That may be true though it is hard to decipher how any talk (by AI theorists) of intelligence, consciousness or life could contradict anything in physics. Of course it can now be said that nothing in sAI actually and clearly contradicts anything in physics. So in that sense, strong AI isn’t really in tune with physics at all. Thus when AI theorists talk about intelligence, consciousness and life, they’re essentially going beyond physics. Physics ( as physics) has nothing to say about intelligence, let alone about consciousness or even life. ![]() What Penrose argues, on the other hand, does clash with both. That is, it seems that nothing in sAI clashes with either physics or biology. “hat has seen… is that the only way you’re going to show that the idea of strong artificial intelligence is wrong is by overthrowing all of physics and most of biology!” 2 He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, an emeritus fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and an honorary fellow of St John's College. In any case, the main position that Dennett upholds is that strong AI is actually entirely in tune with both physics and biology whereas Penrose’s position seems to be at odds with these disciplines. Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS HonFInstP (born 8 August 1931) 1 is an English mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |