this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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Physics
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My perspective is that someone's opinion is to be heard even if they have no expertise in a field. I am not saying their opinion should be more valued than one of an expert's, but i am not going to criticise or disregard them completely just because their field is something else.
What I am saying is we might simply miss out on some things if not for an opinion from someone in a different field. Even if that opinion is insane 90%, it might give us a push in a direction we haven't considered before. A biologist, a chemist, a physicist can look at a table and say different things about said table that hold true, without having an expertise in making tables.
That's not how any of this works. You see in science you have to actually do the work needed to support your hypothesis. And that hypothesis needs to be based on you understanding all the material that went into that hypothesis. Penrose hasn't done any of that. He doesn't have the expertise needed to form a good model for consciousness and he hasn't done the work to support that model.
In science, ideas that aren't supported by evidence are thrown in the trash not treated as worthy of further discussion. That's why we don't give astrology or young earth creationism the time of day. Because there is nothing to support them and a mountain of evidence against them. Just like there is nothing to support Penrose's ideas about consciousness.
Science is not a safe space. You have to actually defend your ideas against scrutiny.