Emperor's New Mind: BBS Call for Commentators

[Stevan Harnad]

Below is the synopsis of a book that will be accorded a multiple book
review (20 - 30 multidisciplinary reviews, followed by the author's
response) in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international,
interdisciplinary journal that provides Open Peer Commentary on
important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and
cognitive sciences. Reviewers must be current BBS Associates or
nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as a reviewer
for this book, to suggest other appropriate reviewers, or for
information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send email to:
	 harnad at confidence.princeton.edu              or write to:
BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542  [tel: 609-921-7771]
____________________________________________________________________
                 THE EMPEROR'S NEW MIND:
      CONCERNING COMPUTERS, MINDS AND THE LAWS OF PHYSICS

                    Roger Penrose
         Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics
                 University of Oxford

The Emperor's New Mind is an attempt to put forward a scientific
alternative to the viewpoint of "Strong AI," according to which mental
activity is merely the acting out of some algorithmic procedure. John
Searle and other thinkers have likewise argued that mere calculation
does not, of itself, evoke conscious mental attributes, such as
understanding or intentionality, but they are still prepared to accept
that the action of the brain, like that of any other physical object,
could in principle be simulated by a computer. In my book I go further
than this and suggest that the outward manifestations of conscious
mental activity cannot even be properly simulated by calculation. To
support this view I use various arguments to show that the results of
mathematical insight, in particular, do not seem to be obtained
algorithmically. The main thrust of this work, however, is to present
an overview of the present state of physical understanding and to show
that an important gap exists at the point where quantum and classical
physics meet, and to speculate on how the conscious brain might be
taking advantage of whatever new physics is needed to fill this gap, in
order to achieve its non-algorithmic effects.