The Large, the Small and the Human Mind

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Will quantum physics let us reduce consciousness to computation? Roger Penrose says "no" with great force and eloquence in The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind. Prepared as a series of three lectures in Cambridge's Tanner Series on Human Values, the material is both meticulously thought out and informally presented, including many illustrations by Penrose and others. For publication, the author sought out rebuttals and commentary by philosophers Abner Shimony and Nancy Cartwright, as well as his own colleague and occasional rival, the well-known theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. Penrose then reserves the last word for himself, an author's prerogative. The result is a sharp but polite argument on the nature of thinking and its reducibility. Readers familiar with The Emperor's New Mind and Shadow of the Mind will find the arguments from quantum physics fleshed out in greater detail, but also attacked with good-natured aplomb. Those who missed out on Penrose's older forays into this territory (or are somehow uninterested in the nature of thought) will find this an excellent broad overview of the modern conception of physics, from subatomic shenanigans to the radius of the universe, as well as a stimulating debate among several great modern thinkers. Despite Penrose's certainty that our brains can't be modeled by computational systems--and hence that strong artificial intelligence will remain in science fiction--the argument continues, and will continue for some time. The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind crystallizes that debate for readers who want to keep up with the latest thinking about thinking. --Rob Lightner

Book Description

Roger Penrose's views on the large-scale physics of the Universe, the small-scale world of quantum physics and the physics of the mind are controversial and widely discussed. This book is a fascinating and accessible summary of Roger Penrose's current thinking on those areas of physics in which he feels there are major unresolved problems. It is also a stimulating introduction to the radically new concepts that he believes will be fruitful in understanding the workings of the brain and the nature of the human mind.

Customer Reviews:

Lucid approach to establish a quantum-based mind theory.......2004-04-07

Penrose concisely manages to give us an overview about 3 somehow interconnected fields, the mathematically described large-scale world, the deterministic quantum microcosm and the recently emergent mind science. His major aspiration is to see the new generation of scientists erecting a bridge between the quantum world and the always controversial substance of conscience.

Having in his mind (in a neo-platonic way) the idealistic nature of mathematics that apply to the physical world as a well-justified model, he firstly presents some themes from cosmology and abstract mathematics (e.g. hyperbolic, Riemann geometry), and why, in his opinion, Guth's inflationary universe theory, has weak points (see also Penrose's book- Difficulties with inflationary cosmology) In chapter 2 ,quantum physics related, he gives us interesting examples (the paradox& puzzles reference shows his great sense of humor) and explain us how wavefunction's reduction can assist us to deal with the probabilistic nature of events in this level.
In the most interesting third one, he is concerned to lay an in-depth foundation between quantum procedures through neurons, so as to explain his main belief - brain function (that creates conscience) can't be simulated through A.I. Even though I tend to prefer J.Searle opinion (presented in his book Mind,Brain & Science) Penrose's points are adequately justified, thus leaving an open window for Free Will.

In the next three chapters certain Penrose's point's are opposed from Shimony (physician, philosopher) Nancy Cartwright(logician, philosopher) and the renowned Steven Hawking.
Shimony in a formalistic language, but slightly excessive for the common reader, finally makes a conjecture about a hyperselection law, in order to avoid quantum dualism, while Mrs Cartwright sets a contronversy against the usefulness of a perception that sets Physics the only explanatory science for mind theory and not for example Biology.(which for Penrose is reduced to Physics)
Hawking denies an indispensable and direct correlation between quantum gravity and the yet inextricable conscience and in chapter 7 Penrose responds to all so as to end this dialectically fair and fruitful discussion.

Overall this was worth my time, not only for this subject's great interest but because Penrose explains his thesis, clearly and distinctly.The uprising need for 'popular' science is reflected and adequately satisfied through this lucid book which succinctly presents a contemporary overview in a 'hot' scientific field.

Even non-expert readers (no special background in maths or physics is needed) will be able to follow and admire the ongoing revolution of scientific thought.Given it was written in'97 I'm looking forward and will benevolently embrace another similar work of a splendid thinker such as Penrose

Biology Contradicted........2003-12-12

What I am writing here in no way does justice to the book, I am merely trying to add a corrective to the way the book is reviewed. With Penrose, biology and the brain itself become epiphenomena. Biology loses its status as protected economic mythology (by default, not in the book). To become a neurobiologist (for instance) one usually has to accept at least some of the assumptions of the discipline or accept some responsibility for them; even by the questions Penrose raises he is fundamentally undermining such disciplines (even categorically) and at the same time seriously calling into question the judgment of their adherents. After all why would one have accepted or promoted such polluted theories when (after the fact) clarity was there all along... unless there was another motive. So more than their judgment is at stake, this work even calls into question their character as reflected in their basic sense of things. What are they going to do? Reform? It calls into question their basic forum.

With reservations, a fascinating discussion.......2003-06-30

As my background is mainly in the brain sciences, I was most interested in what Penrose had to say about consciousness and the brain in this book, so I'll concentrate mostly on the chapter that had to do with that. This is not to say I didn't enjoy the other chapters, just that I'm not as qualified to critique those as I am the one on the brain. There has been a lot of speculation in recent years about such things as computability and the brain, quantum consciousness, and so on, and I was interested to find out what Penrose might have to say about that.

One of Penrose's major ideas in this chapter is his demonstration that consciousness, although perhaps mathematical, isn't computable, in the sense that you could program a computer to simulate it. Penrose uses the example of geometric tilings or polyominos that are deterministic in their coverage of the Euclidean plane, but that aren't computable, to show this. Since, as Penrose points out, there are plenty of mathematical concepts that aren't computable and that can't be done on a computer, but that the human mind can understand, Penrose concludes that there is something beyond computability in both pure mathematics and the human brain.

This is interesting, and Penrose might be right about that. However, I must point out that while consciousness itself may not be computable (and I'm not really prepared to conclude this for sure at this point, because of what I'm about to say), nevertheless, many aspects of the brain's functioning have been shown to be computable, so I'd like to discuss that briefly.

For example, sensory neurophysiology has been shown to be both quite mathematical and computational as a result of the work of a pioneering mathematician by the name of David Marr 25 years ago, whose ideas revolutionized neurobiology almost overnight, after which the field was never the same. Marr examined a number of different fundamental sensory mechanisms, and showed, for the first time, that the way in which the visual system was processing light information was consistent with the operation of certain sophisticated spatial-frequency filtering transforms that are well-known in many engineering applications. To mention just a few of his important ideas, Marr's demonstrations that retinal receptive-field geometry could be derived by Fourier transformation of spatial-frequency sensitivity data, that edges and contours could be detected by finding zero crossings in the light gradient by taking the Laplacian or second directional derivative, that excitatory and inhibitory receptive fields could be constructed from "DOG" functions (the difference of two Gaussians), and that the visual system used a two-dimensional convolution integral with a Gaussian prefilter as an operator for bandwidth optimization on the retinal light distribution, were more powerful than anything that had been seen up to that time.

It was as if vision research suddenly acquired its own Newtonian Principia Mathematica, or perhaps General Relativity Theory, in terms of the new explanatory power Marr's theories provided. Basically, in one fell swoop sensory neurobiology also became an area of theoretical physics rather than purely biology, giving the area a rigor and elegance never before seen--an amazing achievement for a young man who died so prematurely from leukemia at the age of 36.

The main point of all this is that all of these mechanisms are both mathematical and computable, although the way in which they're done in the brain is probably more like how a computer would use numerical analysis to solve a differential equation, rather than using the original equations in a purely analytical way themselves. Since Marr's time, there has been further progress in this area, such as the great Bela Julesz's demonstrations that the visual system can extract and compute binocular disparity cues point-by-point for depth information from abstract, non-representational pictures or textures such as random-dot stereograms, the extension of Marr's ideas about monochromatic edge detection into color edge detection, the mathematical bases of non-linear visual field distortions present in optical illusions, and many other areas.

Furthermore, in the last few years, the nature of consciousness itself has been shown to be composed of many different separate mechanisms in the brain that are being coordinated in time in order for consciousness to occur. It simply isn't one process or central program that runs in the brain, nor is there a "master" brain center that one can point to where it can be said that consciousness resides. I'm sure the progress of this research will also have implications for ideas about the nature and computability of consciousness.

So overall, a fascinating and enjoyable discussion about the brain and consciousness by Penrose, even if I don't completely accept one of his major ideas about it for the reasons that I discuss above.

Penrose: Science needs a "revolution"........2003-03-12

Let me first say something about Roger Penrose. One notices how certain other mathematicians and mathematical physicists speak of him. He is not only admired and respected; it seems that he is positively enjoyed! This may be a bit surprising when one notices that Penrose is something of a thorn in the side of several popular ideas in contemporary physics (and psychology). Cosmic inflation theories and ideas regarding the fundamental nature of quantum uncertainty find a formidable and articulate critic in the Oxford mathematician. Of the somewhat less popular, but ever fanciful "many-worlds" interpretation of quantum superpositioning, Penrose says "[the 'many-worlds' view] is not a very economical description of the Universe but I think things are rather worse than that for the many-worlds description. It is not just its lack of economy that worries me. The main problem is that it does not really solve the problem." He brings the same mental rapier to what he has called "the missing science" of mind and to the idea of computational / artificial intelligence. It is the problem of superpositioning described by Schrodinger and the decoherence caused by quantum measurement that prompt Penrose's search for an 'objective reduction' (OR) of quantum state vectors, the key ingredient in a "revolutionary" physical theory that remains a mystery. He speculates that this physical mystery may be related to the mystery of consciousness. He is unconvincing in this regard, but his ideas and arguments are quite interesting.
Well, let me now take this a bit further. Penrose also seems to terribly irk certain others! In particular he really raises the hackles of proponents of strong AI and the Dawkins/Dennett camp of 'consciousness-is-merely-mechanism' dogmatists. His views are much closer to those of perhaps most mathematicians and philosophers and stand on a deeper logical footing than do the doctrines that the human mind is mere biology. Let me say that I agree with Penrose in that the 'simple biology' view is never going to win this argument for reasons that can be demonstrated by the application of mathematical logic. To say that Penrose "doesn't understand biology" is to miss the point. The author freely admits, "there is a good deal of speculation in many of these ideas". Of course there is; science is largely -- we might even say wholly -- speculation. A more perceptive analysis would suggest that those committed to a rigid materialistic aesthetic don't understand (don't want to understand) the mathematics. Those who summarily dismiss Penrose do so unwisely. Given his contributions to mathematics (e.g., Penrose tiling, computability, mathematical logic) and his stature within the mathematics community, and given that the history of mathematics is essentially written by mathematicians, Roger Penrose may come to be considered the greatest mathematician of his generation. Given his work on black holes and space-time geometry (he recognizes the apparent "flatness" of the universe but suggests a more elegant geometry to describe that flatness), he may be one of his day's greatest physicists as well. Should his hunch ("OR") one day prove "true", his stature would approach that of a Newton or Einstein. The point being that any scientist who avoids or ignores Penrose's views, or is inclined to dismiss them by erroneously characterizing them, does so, as I say, unwisely.
Chapters 4, 5, and 6 are challenges to Penrose from A. Shimony, N. Cartwright, and S. Hawking, respectively. Apart from Shimony's discussion of A. N. Whitehead's views, its not on a par with the author's discourses; Cartwright suggests that nature may be a mess of "patchwork" laws (her view itself seems a horrible mess), and Hawking is disappointingly flippant. Penrose certainly meets these challenges.
I must say that the "controversy" over Penrose's Platonism is nothing less than nonsensical. Hawking complains "basically, he's a Platonist," as though calling him an offensive name and thereby granting the reader cause to disregard Penrose's arguments. That's unfortunate. Most of history's great minds have been Platonists; even Aristotle*, so often cited as the philosophical godfather of reductionism, was arguably a Platonist. Augustine, Kepler, Descartes, Pascal, Newton, Leibniz, Kant, Linnaeus, Einstein*, Schrödinger, Gödel, Whitehead -- the list of Platonists is long and impressive. As Penrose has said, "... it is my direct personal impression that the considerable majority of working mathematicians are at least 'weak' Platonists." Yet it seems as if some who call themselves "positivists" feel a calling to be science's mind-police. I suggest that this should be the real controversy... So-called positivists would do well to honesty consider Gödel's observation that the idea that mind/mentality is simply material is nothing more than the "prejudice of our time."
There is a rather child-like glee in the way Penrose sees and uses mathematics. His investigations and speculations are those of an extremely astute mind having fun! In his aggressive curiosity, his boldness, his clear-eyed honesty about the frailties of human thought and the limits of science, it seems to me that Penrose is something of a treasure and an inspiration. As he candidly states, "... the world-view that present-day physicists tend to present may well be grossly overstated as to its closeness to completion, or even to its correctness!" This volume presents a concise look at the Penrose ideas/arguments and even if nothing much ever comes of these arguments, they present a shining example of the kind of creative thinking that moves science into new frontiers.
*(footnote: While recognizing that it can easily be argued that Aristotle and Einstein were not "strong" Platonists, it seems obvious to me that they were each Platonists in some fundamental ways. I consider them to have been "weak" Platonists.)

It just doesn't work..........2002-04-08

Turned off by the strong AI type point of view of consciousness, yet looking for a scientific explanation, I have repeatedly turned to Penrose's work hoping he would have enlightening ideas. At first, he seems to be on the right track, but when he starts making conclusions, things go awry.
As a biology student, I can say that his understanding of biology seems mediocre at best. And physics may be even worse - in fact his skepticism about the "flatness" of the universe has recently been rendered bascially obsolete.
I feel that the unified brain quantum undulation camp, if you will (penrose, zohar) paint themselves into a frightful corner. For instance, penrose never explains why his microtubule ideas would apply to the brain in particular...we've got oodles of them in every cell in our body! Basically, these ideas try to strike out against the strong AI poing of view, but actually create a new version of it! It's not the neuron construction, they say, instead it's a mechanism even more arbitrarily linked to the brain!
Penrose seems to be a great mathematician...and should stick to that. Still searching for explanations...

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A LIFE IN SCIENCE
STEPHEN HAWKING
Manufacturer: VIKING
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000S81KKS

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Cool and hot universe
Book motavations
JoJo's Review
A Fascinating Story of a Man and His Ideas
Good biography of an incredible man

Stephen Hawking A Life in Science
Michael White and John Gribbin
Manufacturer: Joseph Henry Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0309084105

Customer Reviews:

Cool and hot universe.......2006-04-20

--This is a story about one man who has changed man's view on the universe, about one man who miraculously survives......

Spending more than twenty years of life on a wheelchair, Stephen Hawking has revealed the most intriguing part of the whole universe, through his groundbreaking discovery in black holes. Considered "the successor of Einstein", Hawking attempted to combine quantum mechanics and relativity, two contradictory theories, breaking a new path for scientists to reveal the nature of physics. But perhaps the most fascinating part of Hawking's miracle is his fight and resistance to his illness, which, according to the doctors, would have ended his life by the age of 21. Despite huge difficulties of moving and speaking, Hawking has never given up himself, and neither has his wife, Jane, who helped Hawking go through the most difficult time of his life. The authors are inspired by Hawking's tenacity and spirit, and also will every one who will read Hawking's life through this book. After reading the book, one would understand, as what the authors hope, what contribute to Hawking's success--not only his genius and incisive intuition, but also fortitude and a positive attitude toward life. This book perfectly blends theories of physics and the universe with Hawking's life, depicting a colorful and unique picture to help understand the indefatigable scientist.

Book motavations.......2006-04-20

The story of Stephen Hawking that is told in the book is not only extremely informative but also very Physics based. The motivations for the author to write the story are obvious, due to famous nature of the subject that is Stephen Hawking. And the reason for being famous is different to just about every other situation possibly imaginable. The reason for reading this book is not confined to those that are interested in Physics. The book is written in a nature that allows all people to read and understand it. it show people where Stephen Hawking had been and what he had done before he become disabled from his disease, as well as allowed people to better understand and appreciate him as a person in society growing up and not as someone that was different from all other people. it can give some hope to those that do not believe that they will be able to do something with there lives and allows the idea of a chance of success

JoJo's Review.......2006-04-18

Stephen Hawking: A Life in Science is an excellent biography which presents one of the most celebrated physicists, Stephen Hawking, in an elegant and expressive manner. Michael White tells of the significant events that greatly influenced Stephen King's life, for example the disease that crippled him but he fought valiantly enough to delay his later death. White wrote in a way which kept the readers attention. It had the basic theories that an average reader could fully understand, but the book did not go in depth with the scientific reasoning behind the theories.
Overall, I generally liked the book even though at times the book seemed to go on forever. I have to say I honestly learned quite a lot about his theories of black holes etc. The overcoming of his disease inspired me because it showed how strong he wanted to finish work. I would suggest this book to other readers because there is a lot of information that can be understood. It is a pretty long read but it flows pretty nicely especially if you like the science genre.

A Fascinating Story of a Man and His Ideas.......2005-03-31

Stephen Hawking A Life In Science by Michael White and John Gibbons does a fantastic job of combining both the story of Stephen Hawkings's life and in depth explanations of his scientific work and findings. The story of Hawking's life is told starting from his very early childhood and progress through his schooling and career. The book discusses the people and events in Hawking's early life that influenced him to work in the field of Cosmology. The book also addresses the discoveries and theories that Hawking developed in his studies. The theories are explained in plenty of detail but the authors do a good job in making them as easy to understand a possible. The story of Hawking's life itself is truly amazing because of the significant discoveries he made despite his disability. The book is worth while fro anyone who want s to learn about Stephen Hawking and wants to learn a bit about his discoveries and why they are significant. Although the authors do try to keep the explanations simple, there are some parts that are hard to understand without a decent knowledge of physic's principles. Even so, the book is still well written and the story it tells is fascinating.

Good biography of an incredible man.......2002-04-28

I am an enormous fan of Stephen Hawking, his achievements in physics are incredible and his ability to overcome his illness demonstrates how sturdy the human mind can be. He is touted in the book as the greatest mind since Einstein, which is a claim I also recently read concerning Richard Feynman. I have no opinion on this, as I hold them both in very high regard. To me such debates are silly, as ranking such people is so subjective that it is meaningless and wasteful.
That aside, I generally enjoyed the book, finding the explanations of the physics a little too simplistic for my tastes, but certainly within the realm of the general reader. My only real criticism is that there was too much ink spent on some of the minutiae of his life. Even Hawking probably objects to some of the details about his life that appear. However, I was pleased to read that he can be temperamental and shows his anger by running over a person's foot with his wheelchair. It just makes him sound that much more human.
This is a good biography of a great man, who lets nothing get in his way. An inspiration who probably does not want the role in any capacity other than as a physicist, he has revolutionized cosmology and it will be a minimum of decades before all the consequences of his work will be known.

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Stephen Hawking A Life in Science
Michael; Gribbin, John White
Manufacturer: National Academies Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OSMHB8

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Stephen Hawking a Life in Science
Michael White
Manufacturer: Penguin Putnam~trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OIW4Y8

Stephen W. Hawking's Life Works: The Cambridge Lectures/Cassettes

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Gos Speaks Through His Weakest Vessels
Great!

Stephen W. Hawking's Life Works: The Cambridge Lectures/Cassettes
Stephen W. Hawking
Manufacturer: Audio Literature
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette

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Customer Reviews:

Gos Speaks Through His Weakest Vessels.......1999-02-13

To come to this review, you are obviously interested in either the work that Stephen Hawking does or are interested in Stephen Hawking the man. As such you are already somewhat familiar with the theories of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics and understand the physical handicap that afflicts the body of this great mind. The "Complete Works Of Stephen Hawking", The Cambridge Unabridged Edition, consists of seven lectures on four audio tapes read by the author himself using a voice synthesizer machine which must be used to overcome the limitations that ALS has put upon his speech. It is ironic that this great mind is sinking within the event horizon of a communication black hole due to the disease. Despite this fact, Stephen is able to deliver a masterful presentation of his life's work in astrophysics, cosmology, and astronomy. His presentation is personal as well as informative and is peppered throughout with philosophy, academic humor, and personal insights. It does take some time to get used to the sound of his synthesized voice. Often it sounds robotic, alien, staccato, and certain phrases have a haunting Gregorian chant rhythm to them. I noticed that in a "Brief History Of Time", the words of the text are read by the famous British radio talk personality Michael Jackson. This is definitely a work that needs to be played over and over again stopping to study it along the way. I first listened to it on my 1 hour 1 way car trips to work but plan to listen to it again this summer under the stars at the campgrounds near the glow of an open fire. The tape consists of the following seven lectures (1) Ideas About the History of the Universe, (2) The Big Bang, (3) Black Holes , (4) Quantum Mechanics, (5) Origin of the Universe, (6) The Past and the Future, and (7) The Unified Theory . Now techies that should really wet your whistle! The tapes are a great value at the price. If you are a student of the subjects covered, have a philosophical interest in finding where science and God meet face to face, or just want to enjoy the triumph of human spirit over adversity, then these tapes are a must hear for you. In summary, I believe that after experiencing these tapes you'll come to the same conclusion that I made that Stephen Hawking is an example of how the glory of God and His majestic works can be made manifest in the form of one of His weakest vessels.

Great!.......1998-06-20

This is quite a phenominal book. Prof. Hawking really translates all that mathematical stuff to something even the layman can understand. Its was hard to put down. However some of the lectors have are the same things as a few of the chapters in his other book A brief history of time.

The fate of the sciences.: An article from: Journal of the Alabama Academy of Science

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The fate of the sciences.: An article from: Journal of the Alabama Academy of Science
Gerard Elfstrom
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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This digital document is an article from Journal of the Alabama Academy of Science, published by Thomson Gale on July 1, 2004. The length of the article is 4646 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The fate of the sciences.
Author: Gerard Elfstrom
Publication: Journal of the Alabama Academy of Science (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 2004
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 75 Issue: 3-4 Page: 154(8)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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STEPHEN HAWKING A LIFE IN SCIENCE.

Manufacturer: BCA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HGSPAO

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Stephen Hawking: Life Works
Stephen Hawking
Manufacturer: Orion
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0752817833

Book Description

Available for the first time, this is a unique opportunity to explore the cosmoswith "the greatest mind since Einstein". Not since "A Brief History of Time", has Hawkins so succinctly and entertainingly delved into the most complex theories of physics. These seven lectures will open your mind to the rich history of scientific thought and the fascinating complexities of the universe we live in.

Book Description

A fitting tribute to John B. Keane, for decades Ireland’s favorite storyteller, this winning short story collection typifies the late author’s folkloric imagination and storytelling arts. These are congenial tales, too, as this literary legend views the foibles and fallibilities of Irish country folk with abundant compassion as well as a shrewd, sometimes sardonic eye. Add to that Keane’s glorious sense of fun and roguery that will make readers relish all the more how and why, in “Fred Rimble,” Jim Conlon kills the best friend he ever had. Or how Willie Ramley determines that his future wife will be “Guaranteed Pure.” Or how, to tragic as well as comic effect, a gasp, garlic, and gossip undo Denny Bruder in “The Hanging.” In all, Keane uncovers the folly in the romantic pangs, exalted aspirations, misguided mischief, and everyday shortcomings of the characters in the village of his storyteller’s mind—and beyond the folly finds their humanity.

Customer Reviews:

Enchanting.......2007-09-07

John B. Keane is my favorite literary discovery of the last 15 years. He's witty, compassionate and insightful. The stories in this volume run the gamut from heartbreaking and tragic to fully romantic and full of giggles.

Keane has a deceptively simple style that develops character without flashy turns of phrase, and reveals the secret corners of the human heart. But when he opens that door, you're astounded by what he shows you not only in the hearts of others, but in your own.

Don't miss a chance to read anything of his you can lay your hands on.

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