Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Penrose's Fascinating Summary of Modern Science, 16 Feb 1999
By A Customer
Roger Penrose, one of the world's top physicists, summarizes modern science, examining topics including Turing machines, relativity, quantum physics, black holes, etc. At the end, he argues that the human mind can not be simulated by computers or anything algorithmic. The Emperor's New Mind is my favorite book, although I didn't feel that way the first time I read it. It is quite technical, compared to, for instance, A Brief History of Time, which covers some of the same topics. The second time I read the book, I really dedicated a lot of time to understand the material as well as I could, often working out problems with paper and pencil. This was necessary for me to see that his conclusion was related to the rest of the book. While Penrose obviously can not "prove" his belief, he gives a strong, fascinating arguement, and the book has definitely affected my philosophical views concerning consciousness.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Entertaining and Mathematically Advanced, 21 Jul 2006
I found this book stimulating and entertaining in equal measure. It looks at the questions such as -- if we had enough information, we could predict absolutely everything, or not? Is the human mind simply a machine (for example a computer)? Can we actually be transported Star-trek style or not? Are we (including our memories) just a collection of atoms that could be reconstituted?
In answering these questions Penrose embarks on a tour of the mathematical concepts and theories that underpin our understanding of the Universe.
There seems to be much more maths than is really needed, and there is a lot of theory (The book runs to over 500 pages after all). You will also need advanced A level maths to cope (on the basis that I just coped, and that's the level of maths I reached).
Entertaining and enjoyable IF you are interested in Maths. If you are not, stay away.
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13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
superb math, physics and computation theory, poor biology, 11 Jan 1999
By A Customer
Penrose's text should be seen as a two fold effort: the first is pedagogical: it exposes with superb insight the theories of mathematical physics, the physical basis of computation theory (he draws on an analogy with geometry), as well as, a Platonic philosophy of mathematics (the present reviewer believes in a naturalistic approach, but that is hardly the matter here!). IF this was all in the book one could hardly give it less than five stars. However, Penrose goes further and discusses the biology of cognition; in my opinion at this point he is a bit out of his personal scientific experience and contributions, and his thoughts are speculative; the further involment of cosmology in the work makes the whole project a bit incoherent. Overall Penrose connects cosmology with biology of cognition through the key theory of quantum gravity which he speculates ties them together!; well for those who like to study science and not mere speculations these mean that they shall not enjoy some parts of the book! The other central theme, that quantum gravity is nonalgorithmic, and thus since (as he speculates) cognition is a quantum-gravitational phenomenon it should be also nonalgorithmic, it is of course a consistent conception, but again science requires more than that, it requires ways to test ideas and in my opinion Penrose offers none! But after all perhaps he did not intented to write down a science book.
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