The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul 1st Edition

by Douglas R. Hofstadter (Compiler), Daniel C. Dennett (Compiler)

41 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0465046249

ISBN-10: 046504624X

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With contributions from Jorge Luis Borges, Richard Dawkins, John Searle, and Robert Nozick, The Mind's I explores the meaning of self and consciousness through the perspectives of literature, artificial intelligence, psychology, and other disciplines. In selections that range from fiction to scientific speculations about thinking machines, artificial intelligence, and the nature of the brain, Hofstadter and Dennett present a variety of conflicting visions of the self and the soul as explored through the writings of some of the twentieth century's most renowned thinkers.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

Hardcover: 501 pages
Publisher: Basic Books; 1st edition (October 1981)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 046504624X
ISBN-13: 978-0465046249
Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #550,619 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #845 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Consciousness & Thought
- #3120 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Philosophy

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73 of 75 people found the following review helpful

A fascinating tour of fundamental issues

By Tony Mayo, Executive Coach for Business Owners on October 27, 1998

Format: Paperback

A fascinating tour of fundamental issues too often ignored or finessed.
Philosopher scientists Hofstadtler and Dennett offer an anthology of probing essays along with their own running commentary on the the topics of identity, consciousness, and reductionism vs. holism. More compelling and less of a challenge to read than Hofstadtler's more famous book, Goëdel, Escher and Bach, it none the less guides the reader to reconsider many of his assumptions about what he is and where he fits in the world.
The book unfortunately was written just as complexity theory was maturing and Maturana's autopoetic version of consciousness was appearing in English. [See Capra's Web of Life] Its confidence in the creation of programmed Artificial Intelligence might also not withstand the arguments presented by Winograd and Flores in Understanding Computers and Cognition. I would very much like to know what these authors think of those approaches to the problem, paradigms I find more plausible and useful than anything presented here.
Still, I highly recommend the book to two classes of readers. First, those interested in a slightly incomplete survey of modern thinking about consciousness and, second, those fascinated by mental gymnastics, cerebral cleverness, and the ultimate puzzles of existence. Happily, I am firmly in both classes.

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46 of 47 people found the following review helpful

Wonderful introduction to a wonderous subject.

By Andrew X. Lias on January 22, 2001

Format: Paperback

Philosophy, especially cognitive philosophy, can be a rather dull and dry topic, which is a shame given that it directly pertains to questions that we all ask, such as "Who am I?", "What is self?", "What would it be like to be another person?", and so on.
This books takes the innovative approach of presenting an anthology of absolutely fascinating essays and stories that relate to these subjects, with each essay/story followed by commentary from Dennet and Hofstadter (both of whom are heavy hitters in Philosophic circles).
It is especially interesting that a large fraction of the stories are taken directly from the annals of science-fiction, capitalizing on the genres ability to deal with these kinds of deep issues in a manner that's entertaining and accessable.
Nor does the book push any particular agenda. For instance, although Dennet and Hofstadter are both strong AI proponents (in every sense of the term "strong"), they do not hesitate to include essays that argue against the possibility of AI.
Of course, there is a certain point beyond which popularizations cease to illuminate, and anyone seriously interested in these topics would be well advised to turn to heavier treatments (including those of the editors), but, as an introduction to the subject, you could certainly do worse, although you would be hard-pressed to do better, than to read this book.

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33 of 35 people found the following review helpful

An I-opening experience

By FrKurt Messick HALL OF FAMEVINE VOICE on June 5, 2003

Format: Paperback

After writing the magnificent `Godel, Escher, Bach', for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, computer scientist Douglas Hofstadter (a professor at my alma mater, Indiana University) collaborated with philosopher Daniel Dennett on this anthology of essays and stories that explore the areas of human and artificial intelligence.
What is the mind? What is the self? Is there really a soul? Are feelings and emotions artificial constructs of information bits inside of us, and if so, is it possible that machines can think and feel for themselves?
For that matter, do we truly think and feel for ourselves?
Hofstadter and Dennett have selected pieces that approach these questions from many angles, from hard-science observational techniques to spirituality dimensions in stories. Each piece is followed by a reflection that sets the context of the piece in relation to the larger question of intelligence.
Contributors include mathematician Rudy Rucker (`Infinity and the Mind'), philosophers Raymond Smullyan (perhaps best known for logic puzzles) and Robert Nozick, literary figures such as Jorge Luis Borges and Stanislaw Lem, and pioneers in the field such as Alan Turing.
The editors use a section of Turing's early article on `Computing Machinery and Intelligence' from 1950 to set up much of the subsequent discussion. One often overlooked idea from Turing, oddly popular among British scholars of the first half of the twentieth century (and still more prevalent among British scholars and intellectuals than those of other cultures) is the idea of ESP and paranormal abilities. Turing felt that the final difference between machine-thinking, once it had reached full potential, and human thinking would be that humans have the capacity for ESP and other such abilities.Read more ›

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36 of 43 people found the following review helpful

dated but still worth the time

By rhynchosaur on May 5, 2005

Format: Paperback

This is a followup to Hofstadter's famous Godel, Escher, Bach (1980)(see my review). Like its predecessor, it is concerned mostly with the foundations of artificial intelligence, but it is composed mostly of stories, essays and extracts from a wide range of people, with a few essays by DH and DD and comments to all of the contributions by one or the other of them.

Much of it is very reductionistic in tone(ie, explain everything in terms of physics/math) but as Hofstadter notes, the quantum field equations of a water molecule are too complex to solve(and so is a vacuum)and nobody has a clue about how to explain the way properties emerge(eg, water properties from H2 and 02) as you go up the scale from the vacuum to the brain, so reductionism, like holism, requires a great deal of faith. There is not only the uncertainty principle, and chaos(eg, no way to predict how a pile of sand will fall) but the logically necessary incompleteness of math, which is now fused at the highest levels with physics(eg, string theory). Godels incompleteness theorem was a central theme of his first book.

This is really a psychology text, though perhaps none of the authors realized it. It is about human behavior and reasoning-about why we think and act the way we do. But(like all such discussion until recently) none of the explanations are really explanations. Nobody discusses the mental mechanisms involved. In fact,like most 'explanations` of behavior the texts here and the comments by DH and DD are often more interesting for what kinds of things they accept as explanations(and omit), than for the actual content.Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

May not be what you're looking for...

I liked the book...I felt like it focused on artificial intelligence fantasies and reflections more than about the human mind. Read more

Published 5 months ago by John Solly

Read This Book

Very good

Published 7 months ago by Russell Newsom

Five Stars

Many good readings in the book

Published 7 months ago by thomas beverly

Five Stars

One of 4 books I felt worth while reading and owning.

Published 12 months ago by Armando A. Hernandez

Excellent collection of essays on self awareness

why are you you and me me? How does sentience and self awareness come from inanimate materials that make up our brains? Discuss.

Published 20 months ago by Par4dox

I haven't read this book in decades, but...

I saw that it has less than 5 whole stars. This book is among the most thought-provoking books I have ever encountered, and the goal of the book is to provoke thought. Read more

Published on October 24, 2013 by Steven T. Hatton

This book will keep you up at night.

I read The Mind's I over approximately a three week period. For the majority of that time, my wandering thoughts were captivated by musings and thought experiments about cognition... Read more

Published on August 13, 2013 by Michael G

Still interesting 30 years later

Collection of fiction, non-fiction & commentary aimed at freeing your mind from preconceptions about what a mind is. Read more

Published on June 6, 2013 by A. R. Masters

Hofstadter's Primer on Modern Thinking

This book is not what I expected. Dr Hofstader is a pioneer in revealing complexity and the possibilities of artificial intelligence by furthering the work begun by Alan Turing. Read more

Published on May 1, 2013 by shepard hurwitz

highly interesting... but i don't buy it.

This book was written by Dennett and Hofstadter in 81, so it is hardly the cutting edge of the philosophy of mind now, but it was still very interesting and well presented. Read more

Published on April 17, 2012 by Michael