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Roger Penrose

The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics (Popular Science) 1st Edition

by Roger Penrose (Author), Martin Gardner (Author)

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For decades, proponents of artificial intelligence have argued that computers will soon be doing everything that a human mind can do. Admittedly, computers now play chess at the grandmaster level, but do they understand the game as we do? Can a computer eventually do everything a human
mind can do?
In this absorbing and frequently contentious book, Roger Penrose--eminent physicist and winner, with Stephen Hawking, of the prestigious Wolf prize--puts forward his view that there are some facets of human thinking that can never be emulated by a machine. Penrose examines what physics and
mathematics can tell us about how the mind works, what they can't, and what we need to know to understand the physical processes of consciousness.
He is among a growing number of physicists who think Einstein wasn't being stubborn when he said his "little finger" told him that quantum mechanics is incomplete, and he concludes that laws even deeper than quantum mechanics are essential for the operation of a mind. To support this
contention, Penrose takes the reader on a dazzling tour that covers such topics as complex numbers, Turing machines, complexity theory, quantum mechanics, formal systems, Godel undecidability, phase spaces, Hilbert spaces, black holes, white holes, Hawking radiation, entropy, quasicrystals, the
structure of the brain, and scores of other subjects.
The Emperor's New Mind will appeal to anyone with a serious interest in modern physics and its relation to philosophical issues, as well as to physicists, mathematicians, philosophers and those on either side of the AI debate.

ISBN-10

0192861980
ISBN-13

978-0192861986
Edition

1st
Publisher

Oxford University Press
Publication date

December 12, 2002
Language

English
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7.7 x 1.5 x 5 inches
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640 pages
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Editorial Reviews

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"The testament of a brilliant man wrestling desperately--and unashamedly--with the deepest problems of metaphysics --Nature

"Penrose embarks on a sweeping survey of black holes, cosmology and thermodynamics in search of further support. The reader is treated to a tour of much of modern physics before being brought back to the central thesis: that minds must be taken seriously." --Observer

"A pedagogical tour de force, with some dazzling new ways of illuminating the central themes of science." --Times Literary Supplement

"Penrose takes us on perhaps the most engaging and creative tour of modern physics that has ever been written....the reader might feel privileged indeed to accompany Penrose on his magical mystery tour." --Sunday Times

"Will be universally cited by strong AI opponents as the definitive refutation of strong AI....An excellent introduction to the ideas which are involved in the strong AI hypothesis." --Physics World

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.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; 1st edition (December 12, 2002)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 640 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0192861980
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0192861986
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.03 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.7 x 1.5 x 5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #545,279 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #753 in Artificial Intelligence & Semantics
- #4,132 in Physics (Books)
- #14,527 in Psychology & Counseling

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Shawn

A nice opposite view of mainstream AI thoughts

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 23, 2015

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As a junior Ph.D. student who hopes to have a career in the research of artificial intelligence (machine learning or deep learning more precisely), I was reading this book as a touch on the opposite of the belief that intelligence is achievable by machines. Apart from several of his dramatic tones towards mocking A.I. (what was that story in the pro- and epi-logue about?), this book has been a very enjoyable experience for me.

Roger Penrose is definitely one scientist that holds a very strong opinion on this opposite, and I do have to say that he is undoubtedly good at explaining his arguments. This book did a good job at disseminating a set of fundamental ideas from a physics perspective in relation to some very philosophical and mathematical issues. From my reading, there are two streams of ideas in the book. The first one is from mathematics, including the introduction of algorithms, Turing machines and logical proof systems. The second one is from physics, from classical mechanics to relativity and quantum mechanics and beyond. The interaction of these two streams by itself is worth reading by anyone who is pondering on the fundamental doubts of the mind, intelligence and conciousness.

From the first stream, the book’s main argument rests on the Turing halting problem and Gödel’s incompleteness theorems. From these theorems, he argues that machines could not be like humans since it could not know the truthness of these self-referencing statements. I am not yet convinced by this seemingly sound argument, because it rests on the fact that there is certain statement about the system itself that it could not know true or false. We humans could perceive that these incomplete statements are true, because we are not these systems therefore they are not self-referencing statements for ourselves. We do not have an answer to whether we ourselves are free from these incomplete limitations, since if we had the answer it would violate the incompleteness theorems. Who knows, maybe some aliens would think of us as no difference from we think of the machines, and apply a form of Cantor’s diagonalization to say that “look, humans cannot have mind because they cannot understand these true statements that are obvious to us”! As a result, the presumption that humans are free from incompleteness is one most ridiculous hidden idea in the book.

In the second stream, the book became much more constructive. It is a great journey to explore the searching of an explanation for the mind through the vast space of knowledge in physics. However, throughout the arguments, the ideas could only belong to a set of speculations. This is not a surprise since he argues for the necessity of a correct quantum gravity (CQG) theory to explain the human mind, which should ultimately unify quantum mechanics and general relativity under a single mathematical framework. It is the fact that no such theory yet exists that shakes down many of his arguments and made them merely speculations. As a result, this book in my opinion does a very bad job at opposing artificial intelligence in both streams.

In general, the book is still very much enjoyable just because it contains a grand set of fundamental knowledge. It is particularly so reading from a critic point of view. Roger Penrose also has two later books in the same string of thought, which undoubtedly may explain his ideas better and may resolve some of this book’s issues. I am looking forward to reading them as valuable thought excercises, but may be after a few books from some other human endeavors.

20 people found this helpful

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Tartarus

Interesting premise but takes a long time to get to the point

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 12, 2014

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The Emperor's New Mind is an interesting take on the concept of Artificial Intelligence. The basic premise is that, contrary to what AI supporters have been insisting for decades, the idea that any machine could somehow become capable of actual thinking is a completely unfounded concept based on flawed reasoning.

Penrose's main argument is that all computers must necessarily run according to algorithms. Even if someone could somehow construct a "quantum computer" (which is doubtful) this would still be operating in an algorithmic manner. The mind, on the other hand, operates non-algorithmically. As such, no computer nor any machine could ever hope to replicate a mind no matter how advanced said machine may be.
Of course, this is a rather simplified overview of Penrose's argument. To get a better idea of the points he makes, one can do no better than read the book, where the arguments are presented in a good and convincing way.

One criticism I have of the book is that it takes a LONG time to get to the point. In fact, despite being a book about why "strong AI" is implausible, most of the book seems to be about mathematics and theoretical physics. Granted, maths and physics does tie in to Penrose's arguments against "strong AI", but he seems to go into excessive detail. Surely just a brief overview of the maths and physics underlying his arguments would have been sufficient.
As a consequence of all the detail put into all the maths and physics info, the actual arguments about AI don't go into nearly as much detail as they could. This is unfortunate, as I had been hoping for a more detailed set of arguments showing the flaws of "strong AI" claims. Still, what was presented was still pretty well argued.

Overall, an interesting book and a good source of info for understanding why claims about thinking machines don't hold up even close to as well as the claims' proponents would try to have one believe.

5 people found this helpful

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Simon Manley

Worth reading, despite being less developed than the later work

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 5, 2015

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This book reads like an early draft of Penrose's "Shadows of the Mind." The reader coming afresh to Penrose's ideas would be tempted to skip this earlier book and going straight to Shadows, where the ideas are much more fully developed. The interesting aspect of the earlier work, however, is to see how Penrose's thinking was evolving, purely along physical lines, before he teamed up with the medico and neuroscientist, Stuart Hameroff. It would be a mistake to skip this book, because it is far more readable than "Shadows," the later work being so detailed and technical that many will simply give up on it.

The Emperor's New Mind concentrates on the limitations of formal mathematical logic {as implemented in a computer}, and how human consciousness can stretch past these limitations. Much of this argument is based on Godel's theorems about the limitations of formal systems of logic. Penrose concludes that Artificial Intelligence programs will never, no matter how far computer science develops, be able to produce the kind of conceptual understanding which is characteristic of human consciousness. In a metaphysical leap, he proposes that consciousness is an essentially quantum phenomenon. He gives the "collapse of the wave-function," familiar from conventional interpretations of quantum mechanics, an enhanced status as a real physical effect, and proposes that it is mediated by some {not yet fully understood} effect in Quantum Gravity.

Granted that a conscious observer has featured prominently in discussions of the "measurement problem" from the very beginnings of quantum theory, and that no agreed position has emerged in nearly a century of debate, Penrose's proposal to make the collapse of the wave-function an objective process, and to tie consciousness to it, has more merit than the metaphysical flavour might at first suggest.

27 people found this helpful

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suvasis arya

very technical insight into the underlying maths of ai

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 29, 2019

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WOW!!

This book was cutting edge a couple of decades ago - and has now become over run by advances in computing tech. But it is a great way to fill in the jump from AUTOMATA of the 17th Century and cog wheels to the digital age if you want to know.

There are pages and pages of machine code (all endless series of Zeroes and ONE's in this book that tell a TURING MACHINE how to operate... and- if you are that way inclined- you are asked to check them to see if they would work.
That detail gives you an idea of how informed and grounded the Professor who wrote this book is about the subject. As a non-mathematician I found the rigours fascinating and informative... but I refrained from trying to check the programming for errors.

2 people found this helpful

E. Kraft

What makes humans special

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 1, 2014

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Roger Penrose has made a major contribution to theoretical physics and argues in this book that consciousness cannot be replicated by a computer, no matter how powerful. Most of the book is, however, taken up with with an explication of how the universe is structured, very much as was done by Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time. Hawking was warned that his reading audience would halve for every equation he used. The classic e=mc2 was this equation and his book was a best seller. Penrose has no such inhibition and, as a result, his book is hard work. Indeed one may sometimes feel that he could have got his point across with less cosmology. The discussion on consciousness in the last few chapters is fascinating.

Some reviewers have recommended reading the book more than once. One reading was enough for me and I followed Penrose's advice by skimming some sections. Nevertheless there is enough in this book to recommend it to anyone interested in what makes us human and what makes humans special.

5 people found this helpful

JoeBloggs

A difficult read but ultimately worth the effort.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 4, 2014

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To approach this book one needs to start from the premise that Roger Penrose has a brain the size of a planet. Dr Penrose’s idea of ‘simplifying’ the maths still leaves his arguments way beyond us mortals - but I have still given the book 4 stars. I have a Masters degree in Physics (admittedly from a long time ago, though I still remember taking a Penrose paper out of the library), but I could not follow much of the maths when reading through it, and doubt that I could even if I studied it.

That said, I found it very interesting and worthwhile to skip through the difficult bits and read what I could understand. You could say that he should have left out all the maths but I find it satisfying that he provides all the technical background that makes him totally convincing.

He raises many philosophical points, not always obviously relevant to his stated subject, and his very open on where he is unsure, or where there are opposing viewpoints to his own. Altogether a worthwhile read, but as another reviewer has pointed out, not for the faint hearted or those only interested in popular science.

11 people found this helpful

Pat Dey

Nice cover though

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 5, 2018

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The book tries to explain poorly defined mysteries of the brain with science even the quantum physicists barely understand. A page covered in strings of 1's and 0's explains nothing. The rest of the book might as well be written in binary too! Nice cover though. The saving grace is that Penrose at least attempts to explain science without all the gee-whizz stuff and irrelevant personal biographies that so many quantum physicists obfuscate their popularising texts with.

2 people found this helpful

Kindle Customer

Very interesting Theories on Consciousness

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 19, 2013

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The only problem I have with this book is Roger's over use of exclamation marks. Every time he makes a point the sentence ends with "!". After a few chapters this becomes very tiresome. However that is my only criticisms of what is otherwise a very interesting book and proposes that consciousness is a quantum process.

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