The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness, Roger Penrose

Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness

Roger Penrose

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 & BodyPhysics - Atomic & MolecularArtificial Intelligence - General

More books to explore

Book Cover for: What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics, Adam Becker
Book Cover for: Black Hole Survival Guide, Janna Levin
Book Cover for: Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil Degrasse Tyson
Book Cover for: The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century's Greatest Dilemma, Mustafa Suleyman
Book Cover for: In Light-Years There's No Hurry: Cosmic Perspectives on Everyday Life, Marjolijn Van Heemstra
Book Cover for: The Elephant in the Universe: Our Hundred-Year Search for Dark Matter, Govert Schilling
Book Cover for: The Equations of Life: How Physics Shapes Evolution, Charles S. Cockell
Book Cover for: The Ceiling Outside: The Science and Experience of the Disrupted Mind, Noga Arikha
Book Cover for: Before the Big Bang: The Origin of Our Universe from the Multiverse, Laura Mersini-Houghton
Book Cover for: The One: How an Ancient Idea Holds the Future of Physics, Heinrich Päs
Book Cover for: Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality, Frank Wilczek
Book Cover for: Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious, Antonio Damasio
Book Cover for: How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch: In Search of the Recipe for Our Universe, from the Origins of Atoms to the Big Bang, Harry Cliff
Book Cover for: Stephen Hawking: A Memoir of Friendship and Physics, Leonard Mlodinow
Book Cover for: A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence, Jeff Hawkins

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.

More books by Roger Penrose

Book Cover for: The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe, Roger Penrose
Book Cover for: The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics, Roger Penrose
Book Cover for: The Nature of Space and Time, Stephen Hawking
Book Cover for: Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe, Roger Penrose
Book Cover for: Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe, Roger Penrose
Book Cover for: The Large, the Small and the Human Mind, Roger Penrose
Book Cover for: Spinors and Space-Time: Volume 1, Two-Spinor Calculus and Relativistic Fields, Roger Penrose
Book Cover for: Artificial Intelligence Versus Natural Intelligence, Roger Penrose
Book Cover for: Roger Penrose: Collected Works, Volume 3: 1976-1980, Roger Penrose
Book Cover for: Roger Penrose: Collected Works, Volume 4: 1981-1989, Roger Penrose
Book Cover for: Spinors and Space-Time - Volume 2, Wolfgang Rindler
Book Cover for: Techniques of Differential Topology in Relativity, Roger Penrose
Book Cover for: Roger Penrose: Collected Works: Volume 1: 1953-1967, Roger Penrose
Book Cover for: Roger Penrose: Collected Works, Volume 5: 1990-1996, Roger Penrose
Book Cover for: Roger Penrose: Collected Works, Volume 6: 1997-2003, Roger Penrose
Book Cover for: Lo Grande, Lo Pequeño Y La Mente Humana, Roger Penrose

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