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Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness
A New York Times bestseller when it appeared in 1989, Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind was universally hailed as a marvelous survey of modern physics as well as a brilliant reflection on the human mind, offering a new perspective on the scientific landscape and a visionary glimpse of the possible future of science. Now, in Shadows of the Mind, Penrose offers another exhilarating look at modern science as he mounts an even more powerful attack on artificial intelligence. But perhaps more important, in this volume he points the way to a new science, one that may eventually explain the physical basis of the human mind. Penrose contends that some aspects of the human mind lie beyond computation. This is not a religious argument (that the mind is something other than physical) nor is it based on the brain's vast complexity (the weather is immensely complex, says Penrose, but it is still a computable thing, at least in theory). Instead, he provides powerful arguments to support his conclusion that there is something in the conscious activity of the brain that transcends computation - and will find no explanation in terms of present-day science. To illuminate what he believes this "something" might be, and to suggest where a new physics must proceed so that we may understand it, Penrose cuts a wide swathe through modern science, providing penetrating looks at everything from Turing computability and Godel's incompleteness, via Schrodinger's Cat and the Elitzur-Vaidman bomb-testing problem, to detailed microbiology. Of particular interest is Penrose's extensive examination of quantum mechanics, which introduces some new ideas that differ markedly from those advanced in The Emperor's NewMind, especially concerning the mysterious interface where classical and quantum physics meet. But perhaps the most interesting wrinkle in Shadows of the Mind is Penrose's excursion into microbiology, where he examines cytoskeletons and microtubules, minute substructures lying dee
Book Details
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Publish Date: Aug 22nd, 1996
- Pages: 480
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 9.22in - 6.14in - 0.97in - 1.47lb
- EAN: 9780195106466
- Categories: • Mind & Body• Physics - Atomic & Molecular• Artificial Intelligence - General
About the Author
Roger Penrose is the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematic at the University of Oxford. He is the author of The Emperor's New Mind, which was a New York Times bestseller and was awarded the UK's 1990 COPUS Prize for science writing. In 1988, he received the internationally prestigious Wolf Prize for physics, shared with Stephen Hawking, for their joint contribution to our understanding of the universe.
Praise for this book
"[Roger Penrose is] one of the greatest mathematical physicists alive....A work of breathtaking scope and richness....One certainly comes away from the book exhilarated by new metaphysical vistas."--The Wall Street Journal"Provocative."--American Scientist"Penrose reveals several worlds that are normally very hard to see but that thanks to his guidance are thrilling to imagine."--The New York Times