• the fundamental difference between artificial and human intelligence • how humans should best work with artificial intelligence (AI) • insights on the nature of consciousness • new approaches to treatment of mental and cognitive disorders • a novel type of telescope to image dark matter and the distant Universe • sensors to discover natural resources and dangers in the earth’s crust • a resolution of the Schrödinger’s Cat paradox
London - March 14, 2017 The ‘Sir Roger Penrose Institute for the Study of Consciousness, Creativity, and the Physics of the Universe’ was announced March 14, 2017 by co-founder James Tagg following a talk by Sir Roger on his latest book ‘Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe’ at the Royal Institution in London.
Sir Roger’s ideas on the importance of quantum effects in human consciousness were intriguing and inspirational when first described 30 years ago, but drew sceptical criticism – particularly to the suggestion that exotic/functional quantum effects could be present in living tissue at warm temperatures. However, new discoveries in biology show that exotic/functional quantum effects are present in living systems, for example photosynthesis in plants and potentially some forms of bird navigation depend upon them. Also, recent developments allow us to probe neurons at scales that might reveal quantum behaviour and to produce sensors capable of measuring the interplay between quantum and relativistic effects. As a result, a group of scientists, entrepreneurs and philanthropists are joining forces with Sir Roger to develop and experimentally test these theories in a new Institute.
Practical experiments are planned which should lead to the development of:
-biomedical technologies to study deeper level, quantum vibrational processes inside neurons to improve understanding of brain functions and treatment of brain disorders.
-computational technologies to better allow computers and humans to work together.
-sensor technologies to detect subtle gravitational effects to peer into the earth, detecting natural resource and providing early warning of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions; or out into space to give a picture of the early universe and the distribution of dark matter.
Web: www.penroseinstitute.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/penroseinstitute/
Sir Roger Penrose
Sir Roger Penrose, Emeritus Professor at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, winner of the Copley Medal and the Wolf Prize in Physics, which he shared with Stephen Hawking, has made profound contributions encompassing geometry, black hole singularities, the unification of quantum mechanics and general relativity, the structure of space-time, nature of consciousness and the origin of our Universe. His geometric creations, developed with his father Lionel, inspired the works of MC Escher, and the Penrose Steps have been featured in several movies. His tilings adorn many public buildings, including the Oxford Mathematics Institute and will soon decorate the San Francisco Transit Terminal. Their fivefold symmetry, which was initially thought impossible or a mathematical curiosity, has now been found in nature. In 1989 Penrose wrote The Emperor’s New Mind which challenged the premise that consciousness is computation and proposed new physics to understand it. Web: https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/people/roger.penrose Wikipedia: https://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose
Co-founder James Tagg
Institute co-founder (with Sir Roger) James Tagg is an inventor and entrepreneur who built the world’s first flat panel touchscreens, now found in almost every mobile device. He sent the first text message over IP and made the first VoIP call on a mobile phone. More recently he invented the eSIM allowing mobile devices to work securely without the need for a removable security chip. In 2006, he founded Truphone, the world’s first global mobile network and one of Europe’s largest venture-backed start-ups. James holds over 200 patents, studied Physics and Computer Science at Manchester University, and Engineering at Cambridge University and wrote Are the Androids Dreaming Yet? Communication, Creativity and Free Will which explores the difference between human and artificial intelligence. Web: www.jamestagg.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JamesPTagg Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/jamestagg
Scientific Advisers
Professor Ivette Fuentes of the University of Nottingham studies the overlap between quantum mechanics and general relativity, working toward testing of another Penrose conjecture – that quantum superposition decays, and Schrödinger’s Cat can only fleetingly inhabit a nether world of being simultaneously alive and dead. Fuentes works in the exotic world of Bose-Einstein Condensates (BECs), a special type of matter that can detect gravitational waves. Her ground-breaking device is sensitive to both quantum and relativistic effects and can work on the desktop in a physics laboratory. Such sensors may have extraordinary practical applications and shed light on fundamental questions in physics. https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/mathematics/people/ivette.fuentes
Professor Erik Viirre MD, PhD is a physician and scientist at University of California, San Diego specializing in disorders of acceleration and gravity senses in the vestibular system, crucial for balance and conscious visual experience of the world, and impaired in migraine, tinnitus and brain trauma. He has helped develop Virtual Reality displays that scan lasers directly into the eyes, and brain monitoring techniques, for which he has 5 patents. A professional in aviation and space, he was the Chief Medical Officer of Zero G, the airline that provides weightlessness, and the team lead for missions to take Stephen Hawking, 4 paraplegic children and notable celebrities into Microgravity. A Professor of Neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego, he is the Associate Director of the Arthur C Clarke Center for Human Imagination, where he leads efforts to understand and inspire imagination. http://www.profiles.ucsd.edu/erik.viirre http://www.imagination.ucsd.edu
Professor Stuart Hameroff MD is a physician anesthesiologist at the University of Arizona known for his studies of consciousness, microtubules and mechanisms of anesthetic action. In 1994 he organized the interdisciplinary conference ‘Toward a Science of Consciousness’, now simply ‘The Science of Consciousness’, held annually ever since. In 1997 Hameroff co-founded The Center for Consciousness Studies’ at the University of Arizona which he now directs. In 1995 Hameroff and Roger Penrose introduced the ‘Orch OR’ theory positing that consciousness depends on orchestrated quantum processes in microtubules within brain neurons. The quantum processes (‘objective reductions’) are Penrose’s proposed solution to the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, relativistic, and proposed to upwardly influence neuronal and brain activities via microtubule vibrations. Recent evidence supports quantum resonances in microtubules, and suggests anesthetics act on microtubules to prevent consciousness. http://www.quantumconsciousness.org http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu https://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Hameroff https://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction
UK Press Contact Details Email: [email protected] Phone: +44 7408 802016 or +1 (858) 224-2750
RSS