Re: When Humans are Obsolete (MSNBC)

Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
24 Mar 1999 22:54:47 +0100

"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.

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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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