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The Emperor's New MindThe Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose is a philosophical book which has its main questions discussed clear from its subtitle: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics. Penrose won the Aventis prize in 1990 for this book. Can a computer have a mind? - ' my point of view is an unconventional one among physicists ... '
Penrose argues that artificial intelligence, as defined now by most computer scientists, is unreachable. He points out that the conventional view that, at an elementary level, our brain works in principle similarly to a computer executing algorithms, this claim is in fact unsupported, given the inadequacy of present attempts at AI, and moreover, will no doubt be totally revised in the future. People usually think that the things about which we have still much to discover — quantum gravity, black holes, origin of the universe — are irrelevant to this subject. Thus they usually consider the functionality of our Reason as something simple and well-established now, except perhaps for details. To understand what is Consciousness a deep background knowledge of physics, philosophy, computer science is required. Penrose states that the reader familiar with these subjects can envisage the correspondence between the mentioned 'purely physical' topics and the question of How Does The Brain Work. Penrose accepts the Turing test for consciousness, - ' I am inclined to believe, as a general principle, that imitation, no matter how skillful, ought always to be detectable by skillful enough probing — though this is more a matter of faith... '
and thus if computer acts so that no human can tell him from conscious being, then so it is. Note that Penrose refers to 'thinking', 'understanding', 'consciousness' as to actual objective things (this point is subject to great dispute among philosophers from the beginning of time). As to Penrose the individuality is a real thing he tries to understand what makes us feel aware of ourselves. The general problem of identity isn't an easy thing: is this bold letter M in this text the same as when I wrote it? Is this text the same as when I wrote it? Or is it indistinguishable? (note that in quantum mechanics the same and practically indistinguishable are completely different things!) (Ship of Theseus paradox). If the essential of human individuality is just information (for example, about configuration of atoms or neurons) then the teleportation will be possible with unpredictable philosophical consequences of having two me. One possible solution would be that the process of copying will inevitably destroy the original — the idea so natural to quantum mechanics that it suggests its key role in answering these questions. Penrose followed up The Emperor's New Mind with Shadows of the Mind and The Large, the Small and the Human Mind, further updating and explaining his theories, following his collaboration with Stuart Hameroff who has proposed a possible mechanism for quantum effects occurring in neural microtubules. Links Emperor's New Mind, The Emperor's New Mind, The Emperor's New Mind, The Emperor's New Mind, The
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