Roger Penrose is WRONG about Gödel's Theorem and AI Consciousness

Sir Roger Penrose is a mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science, and Nobel Laureate in Physics.

His famous body of work includes Penrose diagrams, twistor theory, Penrose tilings, and the incredibly bold claim that intelligence and consciousness are uncomputable physical phenomena related to quantum wave function collapse.

 Dr. Penrose is such a genius that it's just interesting to unpack his worldview, even if it’s totally implausible. How can someone like him be so wrong? What exactly is it that he's wrong about? It's interesting to try to see the world through his eyes, before recoiling from how nonsensical it looks.

00:00 Episode Highlights

01:29 Introduction to Roger Penrose

11:56 Uncomputability

16:52 Penrose on Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem

19:57 Liron Explains Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem

27:05 Why Penrose Gets Gödel Wrong

40:53 Scott Aaronson's Gödel CAPTCHA

46:28 Penrose's Critique of the Turing Test

48:01 Searle's Chinese Room Argument

52:07 Penrose's Views on AI and Consciousness

57:47 AI's Computational Power vs. Human Intelligence

01:21:08 Penrose's Perspective on AI Risk

01:22:20 Consciousness = Quantum Wave Function Collapse?

01:26:25 Final Thoughts

Show Notes

Source video — Feb 22, 2025 Interview with Roger Penrose on “This Is World” — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biUfMZ2dts8

Scott Aaronson’s “Gödel CAPTCHA” — https://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/captcha.html

My recent Scott Aaronson episode — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsGqWeqKjEg

My explanation of what’s wrong with arguing “by definition” — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueam4fq8k8I

Watch the Lethal Intelligence Guide, the ultimate introduction to AI x-risk! https://www.youtube.com/@lethal-intelligence

PauseAI, the volunteer organization I’m part of: https://pauseai.info

Join the PauseAI Discord — https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA — and say hi to me in the #doom-debates-podcast channel!

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