Table of Contents

Part 1 Can a computer have a mind?: the Turing test; artificial intelligence; an AI approach to pleasure and pain; strong AI and Searle's Chinese room; hardware and software. Part 2 Algorithms and Turing machines: background to the algorithm concept; Turing's concept; binary coding of numerical data; the Church-Turing thesis; numbers other than natural numbers; the insolubility of Hilbert's problem; Church's lambda calculus. Part 3 Mathematics and reality: the land of Tor'Bled-Nam; real numbers; construction of the Mandelbrot set; Platonic realtiy of mathematical concepts. Part 4 Truth, proof and insight: Hilbert's programme for mathematics; Godel's theorem; Platonism of intuitionism?; Is the Mandelbrot set like non-recursive mathematics?. Part 5 The classical world: the status of the physical theory; Euclidean geometry; the dynamics of Galileo and Newton; the mechanistic world of Newtonian dynamics; Hamilton mechanics; Maxwell's electromagnetic theory; computablilty and the wave equation; the Lorentz equation of motion - runaway particles; the special relativity of Einstein and Poincare; Einstein's general relativity; relativistic causality and determinism; computability in classical physics - where do we stand?; mass, matter and reality. Part 6 Quantum magic and quantum mystery: do philosophers need quantum theory?; problems with classical theory; probability amplitudes; Hilbert space; measurements; Spin and the Riemann sphere of states; objectivity and measurability of quantum states; photon spin; the paradox of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen; Schrodinger's equation - Dirac's equation; quatum field theory; Schrodinger's cat; various attitudes in existing quantum theory. Part 7 Cosmology and the arrow of time: the flow of time; the inexorable increase of entropy; the origin of low entropy in the universe; does the big bang explain the second law?; black holes; the structure of space - time singularities. Part 8 In search of quantum gravity: what lies behind the Weyl curvature hypothesis?; time-asymmetry in state-vector reduction; when does the state-vector reduce?. Part 9 Real brains and model brains: what are brains actually like?; where is the seat of consciousness?; split-brain experiments; information processing in the visual cortex; how do nerve signals work?; conputer models; parallel computers and the "oneness" of consciousness; is there a role for quantum mechanics in brain activity?. Part 10 Where lies the physics of the mind?: what are minds for?; what does consciousness actually do?; animal consciousness?; contact with Plato's world; a view of physical reality; tilings and quasicrystals; possible relevance to brain placticity; the time-delays of consciousness.

Promotional Information

Winner of the 1990 Science Book Prize.

About the Author

About the Author
Roger Penrose is the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. He has received a number of prizes and awards, including the 1988 Wolf Prize which he shared with with Stephen Hawking for their joint contribution to our understanding of the universe.

Reviews

A physicist who believes that some aspects of the human mind will never be duplicated by artificial intelligence here supports his view with material drawn from quantum mechanics, brain structure and other theories. 75,000 first printing. (Jan.)