How does Penrose's ideas in "Shadow of the mind" hold up more than twenty years later?

Question

In the book Shadow of the mind, Penrose argues that Human consciousness is strictly non computational based on some logic arguments. I have talked to some peers related to logic, and they seem to have dismissed Penrose on being a crank here, but, where unable to provide evidence for what exactly in the book is crankery. There is also a related post on the site here about this.

My question is, has there been any study on the ideas in the book which validates or invalidates it? How are it's views considered today?

Answer 1

The paper of Koch and Hepp from 2007 Quantum mechanics in the brain reviews in particular the approach by Hameroff and Penrose (1996), which Penrose also popularizes in his book 'Shadows of the mind'. Koch and Hepp close the abstract of their paper

Neurobiologists and most physicists believe that on the cellular level, the interaction of neurons is governed by classical physics. A small minority, however, maintains that quantum mechanics is important for understanding higher brain functions, e.g. for the generation of voluntary movements (free will), for high-level perception and for consciousness. Arguments from biophysics and computational neuroscience make this unlikely.