The Emperor's New Mind
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The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose is a scientific and philosophical book whose subtitle describes the contents: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics.
The central line of argument is that human consciousness is non-algorithmic and thus is not capable of being modeled by a conventional Turing machine type of digital computer. Penrose hypothesizes that quantum mechanics plays an essential role in the understanding of human consciousness, though exactly how is not spelled out in detail.
The book does not discuss the implications of quantum computers for his theory of consciousness, as it somewhat predated developments in the field of quantum computation. Also, following the publication of this book, Penrose began to collaborate with Stuart Hameroff on a biological analog to quantum computation involving microtubules which became the foundation for the subsequent book: Shadows of the Mind.
Penrose won the Aventis prize in 1990 for this book.
The English version of the book is 602 pages long.
See also
- The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe
- The Emperor's New Clothes, 19th century fairy tail which most probably inspired the book's title.
External links
- The Book
- Alan Turing. Computing Machinery and Intelligence
- where the Turing test was formulated
- Raymond Smullyan
- Is God a Taoist?
- An Epistemological Nightmare
- Quantum mind