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"A scientific world-view which does not profoundly come to terms with the problem of conscious minds can have no serious pretentions of completeness. Consciousness is part of our universe, so any physical theory which makes no proper place for it falls fundamentally short of providing a genuine description of the world. I would maintain that there is yet no physical, biological, of computational theory that comes very close to explaining our consciousness and consequent intelligence; but that should not deter us from striving to search for one...."

Phaedrus, you wrote: "this is definitively not Materialism and I do not disagree with Penrose. This is a rejection of Materialism."

I agree with your assessment. It looks to me like Penrose is saying, with Wolfram, with Evan Harris Walker, that we really do need a "new kind of science."

Here's Walker: "Maybe the way out of the Bell's theorem problem and the measurement problem in quantum mechanics is to stop denying the obvious answer. Quantum mechanics requires that we take into account the fact that conscious observers exist as unique entities, as a part of the total reality of the world. What we have to do now is find a way to understand what consciousness itself is.... Consciousness should have long since been the topic of reasoned scientific study, and yet it has largely been ignored....

"Bell's theorem was an effort to escape this obvious conclusion about quantum mechanics, and that effort failed. It failed because it was an attempt to design a universe that would leave out consciousness. The way out of our difficulty, the path we must take now, is to try to understand what was previously rejected. We must recognize that objective reality is a flawed concept, that state vector collapse does arise from some interaction with the observer, and that indeed consciousness is a negotiable instrument of reality. Our entire conception of reality must be rethought. We stand at the threshold of a revolution in thinking that transcends anything that has happened in a thousand years. Now the observer, consciousness, something self-like or mind-like, becomes a provable part of a richer reality than physics or any science has ever dared to envision."

Thank you oh so very much for your post, betty boop!

You always have a way of "summing it up" so everyone can see the issue:

We stand at the threshold of a revolution in thinking that transcends anything that has happened in a thousand years. Now the observer, consciousness, something self-like or mind-like, becomes a provable part of a richer reality than physics or any science has ever dared to envision.

Materialism is prejudicial and thus obstructs scientific progress because it presumes to know what lies behind the door. Physicalism makes no such presumption and suggests a new kind of science is needed to open it.