Book 28 - Roger Penrose "The Emperor's New Mind"

[jazzy_dave]

Roger Penrose "The Emperor's New Mind : Concerning Computers, Minds and the Laws of Physics" (Verso)






Roger Penrose isn't just any old boffin: he is the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University and has been knighted for his services to Science. The Emperor's New Mind is his attempt to crack that perennial philosophical chestnut, the Consciousness/Artificial Intelligence problem. Penrose's view is that Strong AI is simply wrong and that a computer could never replicate (functionally or actually) what we know as "consciousness".

Originlly published in 1991 this was a long, grueling read. I won't say I clearly understood (or even dimly understood) all this book. At times my eyes glazed over, and my comprehension phased out only to resume later usually after long passages of mathematical symbols ,though the math in this book was relatively simple, and i had encountered Hamiltonians and vector spaces in an O.U. second level pure mathematics course.



It helpd that I'd read other things about artificial intelligence, computers, relativity, cosmology, and quantam physics. By his own admission, Penrose finds it difficult to explain mathematical things verbally and his arguments often go on and on without tying them into the central question of the book - is algorithmically based AI possible? In the end I think they all show to be relevant.

Penrose ventures into widely speculative ground by saying he believes consciousness will be better understood when quantum mechanics and relativity are joined, probably, he believes, by quantum gravity. He makes the startling the proposal that the brain is a quantum computer computing numerous quantum possibilities until gravitational collapsing the quantum wave-function and realizing one quantum reality.

Penrose concludes with some intriguing paradoxes in time perception. Do we really, as certain experiments suggest, experience everything two seconds behind and are limited by a half-second delay before conscious action is realized? Penrose doubts it, but it's intriguing. Penrose isn't afraid to consider philosophical questions which most scientists shy away from and firmly grounds, unlike most philosophers, human behavior and consciousness in the physical world and its laws. Some of Penrose's approaches were different than the usual treatment his topics get, particularly de-emphasizing quantum mechanics' indeterminism and imprecision as others do, but, rather, the precision and predictions the theory does allow.length to explain, and their relevance, without having to get your head around every complicated equation.

I think that some of his theories are enticing, and altogether this was a good read, but perhaps could have benefited from a more decisive outcome. The ending comes an an anti-climax, but getting there is worth the whole trip.

Comments

[cactus_rs]

I wrote my own philosophy not-a-thesis on AI (on the moral implications, though; not really on the metaphysics of it all) and I wish I'd had this book on hand! I'll have to add it to my TBR pile.

[thespian15.livejournal.com]

I can think of some other subjects that I would use that title for. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hugs, Jon

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

*HUGS*

One I'll be skipping though, as I do like a good ramble, but I also like a decisive point.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

I love the cover, don't know that I'd be able to read the whole book. Mind you, I do sometimes deliverately pick up one that I know is a little beyong me, because I do think brain stretching is good for me,,, :)

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

That sounds like an interesting book. 1991 was a long time ago in computer time. I wonder how his ideas have been changed by improvements in modern technology and newer research.