Tuesday, October 20, 2020
Anecdote on Penrose
I had nearly forgotten this offhand comment from two decades ago by a psychiatrist friend trained in England who had practiced most often in Canada before coming to my hospital late in his career. A brilliant and wise man, BTW. Penrose had come up in conversation with regards to some discovery in physics and my older friend noted with a twinkle "His father was smarter, you know. His mother, too. I studied under Lionel at University College in London." I had forgotten this until looking up something about Penrose and his deism related to that last post. My friend may well have been right, and Roger's deism may be related to his Quaker upbringing.
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12 comments:
Roger is not a deist as I understand the word. Perhaps you could explain.
I think the fairest explanation is that he is a hard Somethingist versus a Nothingist that many academics both inside and outside of physics and mathematics would be. Yet if you let him keep talking (or writing), deism keeps creeping in. My suspicion is he either wants to be a deist but can't fully justify it, or wants not to be a deist but uncomfortable ideas keep intruding.
Because he is smarter than I am, I don't like to leap to conclusions that I understand entirely.
He shows no signs that I have seen, about believing in a god. Very few theoretical physicists do.
Your suspicions are kinda funny. I think you may be the one with uncomfortable ideas. ;)
Again you believe the precise myth that traditional media has been insisting for decades, yet think you are the independent thinker.
Try not to be so predictable.
https://www.livescience.com/379-scientists-belief-god-varies-starkly-discipline.html
It was a quick google, BTW.
And I already know your response.
As one who spends a fair amount of time with theoretical physicists, for my own education, I know that the ones I pay attention to, generally do not believe in a god.
I can't read anything that does not like my ad blocker, as I will not turn it off, so I am spared that particular link. "It was a quick google" kinda says it all.
You are not too sure of yourself, are you?
Both Copithorn and Zach were way better at this. You need to up your gane.
Granite Dad still misses Copithorne
Penrose has a case of cognitive dissonance. Like a lot of physicists and mathematicians he has an overriding, religious, belief in cause and effect. There has to be a connecting rod else the motor won't work. Then he delved into the Devil's stew - artificial intelligence. After 3 books over 25 years he finally concluded that AI was impossible. But that belied the materialism that had been his religion. His position now is that some strange aspects of quantum mechanics are responsible for our seeming free will and intuition. Descartes had the answer 400 years ago with his Dualism, but that's old dead white male stuff that nobody pays attention to anymore.
Does anyone know why Copithorne stopped commenting?
I do not. I had concluded years ago that he came from around Laconia, and guessed that he was younger than I, perhaps even near my children in age. There are a few Copithornes in Belknap County, including one who is running for office as a Democrat at present. Several of them are heavily involved in liberal causes of one sort or another. A frustrating young man, but I did like him. I have to credit that while his general statements were enormously insulting to anyone not from his tribe, his personal comments exceeded mine in politeness.
This prompts a post.
A podcast that might interest you is the Numberphile. They posted an interview with Roger Penrose back in August.
https://www.numberphile.com/podcast/roger-penrose
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