[QuantumG]

[flagged]

[dang]

Please make your substantive points without calling names (and please don't post in the flamewar style generally). This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40337110.

[QuantumG]

Dang.

As we're detached, let me say that ycombinator used to be a place that attracted the best of the best. One could come here and talk to people who knew their shit and had something to say.

What happened?

[naasking]

The paper is not connected to Penrose.

[berkeleynerd]

I think free will is a bit like a sphere. There is no true sphere in nature, only a more or less accurate approximation. Likewise for free will, there is no such thing as true free will (tm) but there are better and worse approximations.

[easyThrowaway]

I'd like to think of it like pseudorandom vs random numbers generators. Does it really matter if it's a truly random algo if you can't actually see any difference within the constraints of its usage?

Likewise, our pseudo-free will is probably more than enough for having near-independent agency from the environment. Anything outside of that is probably already within the realms of metaphysics, which is unprovable by definition anyway.

[kunley]

I honestly think, everyone who uses the term "meatbag" should see a therapist sometimes. There is so much negativity in this term

[CalRobert]

I generally dislike the word as well, _however_ it sorta makes sense in this context since it makes sense to think about the composition of our brains (and bodies). We are, of course, meat.

[nnq]

At least Penrose himself has an excuse for this: he's actually intellectually honest and came to this from a mathematics first purely theoretical perspective - he might have been deluded by others' trashy science, but he didn't go on to delude others.

It's funny that while it's great to also keep this perspective open as an interesting theoretical avenue, and Penrose is worth appreciating as a very original thinker... all the "evidence" for quantum consciousness theories is probably pure junk sci =)

[QuantumG]

In which case go read fiction. There's plenty of it. Stop polluting the space with gibberish. A joke article with 50000 citations is no longer a joke.

What fiction? QNTM did a great job and it's all available for free. qntm.org

[0-_-0]

Yeah I'm a third into Penrose's book right now but I don't buy the argument. However I can see where he's coming from and he presents everything objectively, opinions are clearly highlighted as such.

[CooCooCaCha]

Yeah I put this in the same bucket as religion and freewill. These are things people cling onto because we so desperately want to feel special and magical.

It's similar to learning that the universe doesn't literally revolve around us.

[umvi]

> free will

Assuming free will doesn't exist, how would a world where free will does exist be any different? As far as I can tell, our current world is indistinguishable from a world with free will, therefore our world is equivalent to one with free will.