[fair_enough]

The OP's article does a lot more to disprove such a hypothesis by instead offering a more credible alternative explanation:

Neurons found in the CNS have tubles large enough to allow transport of ions and even relatively large polypeptides similar to, but more permissive than, the well-known gap junctions found between smooth muscle and cardiac muscle cells.

Penrose's hypothesis is crank science about quantum gravity messing with your CNS in a way comparable to "body thetans" in Scientology.

[sarchertech]

Penrose doesn’t hold the microtuble hypothesis strongly at all.

He’s very very careful to say that it’s just something he’d like to see tested and he has no idea whether it’s true or not.

That very much distinguishes it from Crank science.

[btilly]

In 1989, Penrose picked up Lucas' 1961 argument that no computer can possibly simulate intelligence. The argument rests on fundamental misunderstandings of logic, that are well-known among logicians. See, for example, https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1995-32-03/S0273-0979-1995... for an article explaining this, written some 30 years ago.

The fact that Penrose has maintained his misunderstandings for 30 years, demonstrates that, on this topic, he has been a crank for a long time. No matter his other accomplishments.

[russdill]

That's the problem with Penrose's thinking though. He's absolutely convinced that consciousness cannot boil down to something computable. So he reaches for the quantum shelf, but not just the quantum shelf, the quantum processes we don't yet understand since otherwise it'd just be something computable, but with more steps.

[BurningFrog]

Penrose may well be completely wrong about this, but I think he's easily done enough important science work to not be called a crank.

[Marazan]

You can be a genius in one field and a crank in another.

For example: Penrose.

[chvid]

Why is it crank science? He clearly states that it is hypothetical, speculative and open research.

[markhahn]

The main reason is because it's arbitrary.

His "speculation" is litereally: I think quantum is mysterious, and brains are mysterious, so there must be quantum in the brain. That's just silly - even if only because his opinions about mysteriousity is of no importance.

[oh_my_goodness]

I don't see that offering an alternative hypothesis disproves anything.

[tsimionescu]

By Occam's razor, it could be said that offering an alternative hypothesis that explains all facts equally well but is also simpler does "disprove" more complex hypotheses. For example, it is often said that Einstein's special theory of relativity disproved the idea of an aether - but special relativity is compatible with the existence of an aether with certain properties, it just is a completely unnecessary extra complication.

[Apocryphon]

Someone oughta notify Peter Watts

https://www.rifters.com/real/STARFISH.htm#references

[IdSayThatllDoIt]

This seems like a straw man argument.

That the brain uses electrical/chemical signals is crank science about subatomic particles messing with your aura in a way comparable to "body thetans" in Scientology.

If that were not so, electrical/chemical engineers could upgrade our brains with their knowledge of electricity/chemistry.

Scientific progress is thinking about stuff. And my Occam's razor is leaning toward "if just arithmetic could yield consciousness we would have figured it out by now".

[Noaidi]

Wow, this is such an odd response. There’s plenty of research that link microtubules to consciousness. I don’t understand this pushback other than one being sped in a certain scientific dogma that doesn’t allow new thoughts or questioning to creep in.

Just say that Penrose is a crank is way off chart in my opinion

[ben_w]

The word "consciousness" means at least 40 distinct things; some of those (e.g. brain being alive and functioning) are obviously connected to microtubles; others (e.g. qualia, which is what most understand Penrose invoked microtubles to explain) are so ill-defined as to be untestable and unfalsifiable.

That Penrose also seems to have a fundamental error in his understanding of the implications of Gödel's incompleteness theorems, doesn't help.

[exe34]

Penrose's theory is this: consciousness is really weird. quantum is really weird. there's got to be a connection.

Just because he is brilliant in one field doesn't mean he's remotely competent in every field.

[ljlolel]

Also microtubules with quantum…

[westurner]

But does this help explain Representational drift?

From "Concept cells help your brain abstract information and build memories" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42784396 :

> the regions of the brain that activate for a given cue vary over time

"Representational drift: Emerging theories for continual learning and experimental future directions" (2022) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095943882...

>> Future work should characterize drift across brain regions, cell types, and learning.

How do nanotubules in the brain affect representation drift?

There is EMF to cognition given that, for example, "Neuroscience study shows the brain emits light through the skull" (2025) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44697995

Aren't there certainly quantum effects in the EMF wavefield of and around the brain?

[soulofmischief]

The common understanding is that at the molecular scale that your nervous system operates, quantum effects are averaged out and don't lead to instability of neuronal activity.