From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Mar 24 1999 - 14:54:47 MST
"Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com> writes:
> Anders Sandberg wrote:
> >
> > It should be noted that their neurobiological arguments are also
> > considered bull by neuroscientists.
>
> Well, what I know of neurology goes down at most to neurotransmitters,
> vesicles, and the like - nowhere near microtubule dimers - so I can't
> judge on my own.
Exactly. This is why microtubules look so weird, and they have to
postulate downright odd ways for quantum coherency to spread. The
latest paper I saw contained gap junctions galore, and I'm fairly
certain they aren't *that* common in the brain.
> That said, unless somebody is screaming about a gross factual
> inaccuracy, I don't mind that other neurobiologists consider their
> conclusions wildly speculative or extremely improbable. Penrose and
> Hameroff are both established, respectable scientists and I'm very much
> inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to citing
> non-computable-looking facts about physics or neurology. Of course, I
> completely disagree with the way they draw their conclusions, but...
Neither of them is a neuroscientist (Hameroff comes closest, I think
he was opriginally an anesthesiologist), and both are definitely not
speaking about the areas where they are respectable. We shouldn't
trust people for being respectable established scientists, we should
look at their theories and the facts they presents.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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