Talk:The Emperor's New Mind

message: For me, the current article misses the mark. The Emperor's New Mind does contain much interesting background material on computation, physics, mathematics, and other topics, but all this background material is simply to prepare the reader to understand Penrose's main argument. The main argument boils down to this: the human brain may exploit certain quantum mechanical phenomena, key to intelligence and/or consciousness, that effectively make the brain's activity uncomputable, and hence beyond the reach of Turing machines/classical computers. To allow for this, Penrose suggests that current models of quantum physics are flawed, and hints at how they might be modified.
Although Penrose's expertise and authority on physics is undisputed, many have found the ideas suggested in The Emperor's New Mind unconvincing and unnecessary, though admittedly plausible. Furthermore, even if Penrose turned out to be right, there is no reason why quantum computers would not be able to exploit the same quantum phenomena that the brain does, and thus become just as intelligent as humans. Thus, The Emperor's New Mind is really an argument against strong AI in classical computers, not against strong AI in artificially created systems.
Regarding the followup book Shadows of the Mind, in chapter 2 of that book, Penrose presents an argument that appears to prove that the reader has some insight that a computer could not have.  However, there is a subtle mistake in his argument, and I vaguely remember something written by Hofstadter where he succintly points out the mistake.  I can't find a reference to what Hofstadter wrote, however I think there have been other reviewers of Shadows of the Mind.  A quick web search turned up a detailed review by David J. Chalmers at 
MichaelMcGuffin 12:49, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Yeah, I had similar issues with Penrose's book.  I felt that some of the chapters were completely unnecessary (he didn't really connect his famous tiles to the topic at hand), and some chapters were in subjects that were outside his expertise (the chapters on biology were unenlightening).
He also summarized his arguments at the end with 'ask a computer how it feels', which is a pretty inane argument.  Don't claim to be making a scientific argument and then get philosophical!
All in all, I didn't find the arguments to be very strong.  I guess it's a hard position to take, though.  If you state that it is impossible for a machine to be intelligent because it cannot perform x, you then have to define x.  Then someone will build a machine that specifically does x.  Like playing chess.
Anyway...just my two cents
-t.
[note:--just noticed I didn't sign this back when i wrote it.  sorry, i was probably still learning the ropes.  in any case, this is tristanreid, the same user as below]
*Penrose does make it fairly clear that if you make a machine that achieves x, you can then apply that same argument to the new machine, so that it can not do, say, x2. If you then make a machine that achieves x and x2, then the same argument again shows it can not achieve, say, x3. So there is no machine that can ever encompass all of the possible non-computable truths, because for every machine, there is an x which it can not do. It is the existance of an x for every single sufficiently complex machine that forbids a sufficiently complex machine from achieving all x's. Remy B 13:54, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  I seem to recall both emotions and Godel's incompleteness theorom as well 

message: Since this article is about a British writer, should it use British English, hence "modelled" rather than "modeled"? I'm not so fussy as to actually go ahead and make the change and tread on anyone's toes, just interested how the language policy is generally applied in this kind of situation. — PhilHibbs | talk 16:15, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  US or Brit spelling? 

message: This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:29, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: Penrose deserves more fame than he has enjoyed. TENM is a fine ramble through his fine mind, and the book is a smorgasborg for the intellect. In particular, chpt. 6 of TENM is a rare but worthy attempt by a first rate mind to explain quantum theory to educated lay readers. Penrose likes cooking up smorgasborgs for intelligent nonspecialists, and his next effort of this nature was the monumental The Road to Reality. Once again, a wonderful ramble through a great mind, but yet again a book that failed to deliver on its promise because of the author's lack of passion for particle physics and quantum field theory. They simply aren't his strongest subjects. Penrose is no expert on theoretical computer science and the theory of algorithms either. He most definitely is not neurologist. The central argument of TENM was anticipated in important respects by John Lucas (philosopher) in 1961; see here for a recent discussion by Lucas.123.255.31.114 (talk) 05:38, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  We can learn much from TENM, but not about the human intellect. 

message: Wooooah, there. That's a massive accusation to add, unsourced, and without any discussion. There needs to be a source for this statement, not to mention an opposing view. It seems unlikely the guy would win an award for a book no one thinks is right. I'm deleting it unless someone comes up with a pretty good source. Joker1189 (talk) 20:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The source was provided with the edit: L.J.Landau (1997) "Penrose's Philosophical Error"  http://www.mth.kcl.ac.uk/~llandau/Homepage/Math/penrose.html Spot (talk) 03:08, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think that almost any person with a background on quantum information or theoretical computer science would criticise Penrose's position much. Scott Aaronson dedicated one lecture to discuss the topic with CS students. His exposition of the subject is great to read, yet I do not think we need Scott here to realise that Penrose does not expose right the differences between: computability and efficiency; quantum computers and brains. And, anyway, we all know that anything computable classically is quantum computable. It would be great if a significant number of references were added to the article, but I am personally against citing just Scott's lecture.  Garrapito (talk) 20:51, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The book's thesis is considered erroneous by experts in the fields of philosophy, computer science, and robotics." 

message: Why is Raymond Smullyan in the "see also"? I haven't read any of his philosophy books, but the wiki article "Raymond Smullyan" doesn't mention any connection to the contents of this article.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.240.204.182 (talk) 19:04, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Raymond Smullyan