Consciousness is Not a Computation (Roger Penrose) | AI Podcast Clips
Why Hacker News recommends it
Pointed to in consciousness and AI threads as the best-known statement of Penrose's view, which commenters find interesting even when they disagree.
What it is
Clip from Lex Fridman's podcast with Roger Penrose in which Penrose argues that consciousness is not a computation. He discusses Godel-style arguments and the possible role of quantum effects in microtubules.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2020 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Recommends kebman · 2020-08 · on “A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness”
I think it was on this site that someone posted the very interesting perspectives on consciousness by Roger Penrose.[2] From that I found this video by Dr. Stuart Hameroff, M.D.: Microtubules & quantum consciousness.[1] Higly recommended. [1]: [LINK] [2]: [this video]
Recommends marius_k · 2020-12 · on “Ask HN: Best Talks of 2020?”
Consciousness is Not a Computation (Roger Penrose) | AI Podcast Clips [this video] Full episode: [LINK] I don't take Roger's view about consciousness for granted but it is very interesting nevertheless.
Recommends aamargulies · 2022-07 · on “Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?”
Roger Penrose talked about this with Lex Fridman. The anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff is looking into how anesthesia affects microtubules and the implications for consciousness. Penrose is intrigued by the symmetry of microtubules and the possibility for this symmetry to enable quantum coherence to be accessible biologically. His larger point is that consciousness is not a computation. [this video] Relevant part starts around 3:30.
Cites ulfbert_inc · 2022-06 · on “Consciousness is not computation”
It reminds me of this talk[1] and a conversation[2], both hinting at the possibility of the emergence of consciousness from a matter due to quantum properties/effects [edit] and having nothing to do with computation. [1] [LINK] [2] [this video]
Cites Galaxeblaffer · 2022-10 · on “Artificial Intelligence: The Revolution Hasn’t Happened Yet (2018)”
Randomly watched this yesterday [this video] where Roger Penrose argues that we're missing something fundamental about consciousness and his best bet is a structure called the microtubules. This talk reminded me of my own research into "AI" back in the 00's and that it's almost impossible to talk about AI since everybody has a different idea as to whay AI is, yes i know there's a pretty good classification ANI, AGI, ASI but most people don't know about this and think of AI as a machine that thinks like conscious human. I'd argue that we've solved or at least partly solved the part of AI that has to do with neural nets. We're still some way off utilizing the full potential of neural nets since our
Cites Mike_12345 · 2023-03 · on “Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early Experiments with GPT-4”
The question is whether consciousness is computable. Can a Turing machine be conscious? Probably not. [LINK] [this video]
Cites qrios · 2025-03 · on “Gödel's theorem debunks the most important AI myth – Roger Penrose [video]”
The question is answered in the full title: > "Gödel's theorem debunks the most important AI myth. AI will not be conscious" Same statement from Penrose here with Lex Friedman: "Consciousness is Not a Computation" [1]. [1] [this video]
Critical coef2 · 2025-03 · on “Gödel's theorem debunks the most important AI myth – Roger Penrose [video]”
It's sad to see the interviewer wasting the opportunity to interview Penrose. I found Lex Fridman does a much better job: [this video]