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Read other letters about this article
This interview seems full of speculation with the only real science being based on pop science.
In computer science, I would suggest that the field is pretty evenly split on whether or not strong AI is possible. Personally I think that Godel's incompleteness theorems make it practically, if not logically, impossible.
Penrose's "The Emperor's New Mind" is referenced by Kauffman (although notably not the much more expansive "Shadows of the Mind").
Quantum coherence is just one hypothetical explanation for consciousness that Penrose posits. His general thrust is that there are hitherto undiscovered conceptual fields of physics/science that could potentially allow us to explain consciousness, but that currently we barely know where to start.
Kurt Godel similarly suggested the same (as well as suggesting we might eventually understand death and afterlife), basing his optimism on our ability to perceive vastly more a priori knowledge than we are currently aware of.
Personally I don't really buy into the quantum coherence thing. Its based on the probabilistic model of quantum mechanics, which I think is a fudge to cover up failings in boolean logic as applied to quantum mechanics. When quantum physics is eventually shown to be deterministic it will render this theory obsolete.
It's nice to have a biologist attempting to abandon positivism/materialism, and seeming to move slightly towards a more Platonistic perspective, but unfortunately Kauffman's attempts seem a little bit ham-fisted.
