Roger Penrose famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

Consciousness ... is the phenomenon whereby the universe's very existence is made known.
-- Roger Penrose

#Science #Consciousness #Made
Intelligence cannot be present without understanding. No computer has any awareness of what it does.
-- Roger Penrose

#Understanding #Doe #Computer
It is always the case, with mathematics, that a little direct experience of thinking over things on your own can provide a much deeper understanding than merely reading about them.
-- Roger Penrose

#Reading #Thinking #Understanding
We have a closed circle of consistency here: the laws of physics produce complex systems, and these complex systems lead to consciousness, which then produces mathematics, which can then encode in a succinct and inspiring way the very underlying laws of physics that gave rise to it.
-- Roger Penrose

#Law #Circles #Consistency
I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance.
-- Roger Penrose

#Design #Purpose #Chance
Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense.
-- Roger Penrose

#Physics #Mechanic #Quantum
Understanding is, after all, what science is all about — and science is a great deal more than mindless computation.
-- Roger Penrose

#Understanding #Mindless #Deals
I imagine that whenever the mind perceives a mathematical idea, it makes contact with Plato's world of mathematical concepts... When mathematicians communicate, this is made possible by each one having a direct route to truth, the consciousness of each being in a position to perceive mathematical truths directly, through the process of 'seeing'.
-- Roger Penrose

#Plato #Ideas #Mind
our present picture of physical reality, particularly in relation to the nature of time, is due for a grand shake up
-- Roger Penrose

#Reality #Relation #Shakes
With thought comprising a non-computational element, computers can never do what we human beings can.
-- Roger Penrose

#Science #Elements #Computer
It is hard to see how one could begin to develop a quantum-theoretical description of brain action when one might well have to regard the brain as "observing itself" all the time!
-- Roger Penrose

#Brain #Might #Action
It may well be there is something else going on in the brain that we don't have an inkling of at the moment.
-- Roger Penrose

#Brain #May #Moments
Do not be afraid to skip equations (I do this frequently myself).
-- Roger Penrose

#Equations #Skip
There are considerable mysteries surrounding the strange values that Nature's actual particles have for their mass and charge. For example, there is the unexplained 'fine structure constant' ... governing the strength of electromagnetic interactions.
-- Roger Penrose

#Example #Strange #Mystery
Ambition, idly vain; revenge and malice swell her train.
-- Roger Penrose

#Revenge #Ambition #Vain
If you didn’t have any conscious beings in the world, there really wouldn’t be morality but with consciousness that you have it.
-- Roger Penrose

#Motherhood #World #Morality
My own way of thinking is to ponder long and I hope deeply on problems and for a long time which I keep away for years and years and I never really let them go.
-- Roger Penrose

#Thinking #Years #Long
What right do we have to claim, as some might, that human beings are the only inhabitants of our planet blessed with an actual ability to be "aware"? The impression of a "conscious presence" is indeed very strong with me when I look at a dog or a cat or, especially, when an ape or monkey at the zoo looks at me. I do not ask that they are "self-aware" in any strong sense (though I would guess that an element of self-awareness can be present). All I ask is that they sometimes simply feel!
-- Roger Penrose

#Dog #Strong #Zoos
No doubt there are some who, when confronted with a line of mathematical symbols, however simply presented, can only see the face of a stern parent or teacher who tried to force into them a non-comprehending parrot-like apparent competence--a duty and a duty alone--and no hint of magic or beauty of the subject might be allowed to come through.
-- Roger Penrose

#Teacher #Parent #Magic
Some years ago, I wrote a book called the Emperor’s New Mind and that book was describing a point of view I had about consciousness and why it was not something that comes about from complicated calculations.
-- Roger Penrose

#Book #Thinking #Views
It seems to me that we must make a distinction between what is "objective" and what is "measurable" in discussing the question of physical reality, according to quantum mechanics. The state-vector of a system is, indeed, not measurable , in the sense that one cannot ascertain, by experiments performed on the system, precisely (up to proportionality) what the state is; but the state-vector does seem to be (again up to proportionality) a completely objective property of the system, being completely characterized by the results it must give to experiments that one might perform.
-- Roger Penrose

#Reality #Giving #Doe
I'm pretty tenacious when it comes to problems.
-- Roger Penrose

#Problem #Tenacious
People think of these eureka moments and my feeling is that they tend to be little things, a little realisation and then a little realisation built on that.
-- Roger Penrose

#Thinking #People #Feelings
But I think it is a serious issue to wonder about the other platonic absolutes of say beauty and morality.
-- Roger Penrose

#Beauty #Pregnancy #Thinking

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