Consciousness, Computation, and the Chinese Room
Roger Penrose · 2002
Abstract I shall begin by recalling what I perceive to be the four polarities of viewpoint that I enunciated in Shadows of the Mind (Penrose 1994: 12) with regard to the relationship between conscious thought and computation: All thinking is computation; in particular, feelings of conscious aware ness are evoked merely by the carrying out of appropriate computations. Awareness is a feature of the brain’s physical action; and whereas any physical action can be simulated computationally, computational simulation cannot by itself evoke awareness. Appropriate physical action of the brain evokes awareness, but this physical action cannot even be properly simulated computationally. Awareness cannot be explained in physical, computational, or any other scientific terms.