TechTakes

Orch-OR

Never heard of this thing but just reading through the wiki

An essential feature of Penrose's theory is that the choice of states when objective reduction occurs is selected neither randomly (as are choices following wave function collapse) nor algorithmically. Rather, states are selected by a "non-computable" influence embedded in the Planck scale of spacetime geometry.

Neither randomly nor alorithmically, rather magically. Like really, what the fuck else could you mean by "non-computable" in there that would be distinguishable from magic?

Penrose claimed that such information is Platonic, representing pure mathematical truths, which relates to Penrose's ideas concerning the three worlds: the physical, the mental, and the Platonic mathematical world. In Shadows of the Mind (1994), Penrose briefly indicates that this Platonic world could also include aesthetic and ethical values, but he does not commit to this further hypothesis.

And this is just crankery with absolutely no mathematical meaning. Also pure mathematical truths are not outside of the physical world, what the fuck would that even mean bro.

I thought Penrose was a smart physicist, the hell is he doing peddling this.

and it’s obvious Emergentism is bullshit because making machines smarter doesn’t make them conscious

This is like 101 of bad logic, "this sentence is false because I failed to prove it just now".

Throwing out emergentism because some linear algebra failed to replicate it is a pretty bad take.

You're right that consciousness and intelligence are not the same. Our language tends to conflate the two.

However, evolution created consciousness over billions of years by emergent factors and no source of specific direction besides being more successful at reproduction. We can likely get there orders of magnitude faster than evolution could. The big problem would be recognizing it for what it is when it's here.

The given link contains exactly zero evidence in favor of Orchestrated Objective Reduction — "something interesting observed in vitro using UV spectroscopy" is a far cry from anything having biological relevance, let alone significance for understanding consciousness. And it's not like Orch-OR deserves the lofty label of theory, anyway; it's an ill-defined, under-specified, ad hoc proposal to throw out quantum mechanics and replace it with something else.

The fact that programs built to do spicy autocomplete turn out to do spicy autocomplete has, as far as I can tell, zero implications for any theory of consciousness one way or the other.