The emperor's new mind : concerning computers, minds, and the laws of physics / Roger Penrose ; foreword by Martin Gardner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Penrose, Roger.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Artificial intelligence.

Thought and thinking.

Physics--Philosophy.

Physics.

Science--Philosophy.

Science.

Computers.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (633 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Oxford [England] ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1999.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

For many decades, the proponents of `artificial intelligence' have maintained that computers will soon be able to do everything that a human can do. In his bestselling work of popular science, Sir Roger Penrose takes us on a fascinating roller-coaster ride through the basic principles of physics, cosmology, mathematics, and philosophy to show that human thinking can never be emulated by a machine.

Contents:

Cover; Contents; Prologue; 1 CAN A COMPUTER HAVE A MIND?; Introduction; The Turing test; Artificial intelligence; An AI approach to 'pleasure' and 'pain'; Strong AI and Searle's Chinese room; Hardware and software; 2 ALGORITHMS AND TURING MACHINES; Background to the algorithm concept; Turing's concept; Binary coding of numerical data; The Church-Turing Thesis; Numbers other than natural numbers; The universal Turing machine; The insolubility of Hilbert's problem; How to outdo an algorithm; Church's lambda calculus; 3 MATHEMATICS AND REALITY; The land of Tor'Bled-Nam; Real numbers

How many real numbers are there?'Reality' of real numbers; Complex numbers; Construction of the Mandelbrot set; Platonic reality of mathematical concepts?; 4 TRUTH, PROOF, AND INSIGHT; Hilbert's programme for mathematics; Formal mathematical systems; Gödel's theorem; Mathematical insight; Platonism or intuitionism?; Gödel-type theorems from Turing's result; Recursively enumerable sets; Is the Mandelbrot set recursive?; Some examples of non-recursive mathematics; Is the Mandelbrot set like non-recursive mathematics?; Complexity theory; Complexity and computability in physical things

5 THE CLASSICAL WORLDThe status of physical theory; Euclidean geometry; The dynamics of Galileo and Newton; The mechanistic world of Newtonian dynamics; Is life in the billiard-ball world computable?; Hamiltonian mechanics; Phase space; Maxwell's electromagnetic theory; Computability and the wave equation; The Lorentz equation of motion; runaway particles; The special relativity of Einstein and Poincaré; Einstein's general relativity; Relativistic causality and determinism; Computability in classical physics: where do we stand?; Mass, matter, and reality; 6 QUANTUM MAGIC AND QUANTUM MYSTERY

Do philosophers need quantum theory?Problems with classical theory; The beginnings of quantum theory; The two-slit experiment; Probability amplitudes; The quantum state of a particle; The uncertainty principle; The evolution procedures U and R; Particles in two places at once?; Hilbert space; Measurements; Spin and the Riemann sphere of states; Objectivity and measurability of quantum states; Copying a quantum state; Photon spin; Objects with large spin; Many-particle systems; The 'paradox' of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen; Experiments with photons: a problem for relativity?

Schrödinger's equation Dirac's equation; Quantum field theory; Schrödinger's cat; Various attitudes in existing quantum theory; Where does all this leave us?; 7 COSMOLOGY AND THE ARROW OF TIME; The flow of time; The inexorable increase of entropy; What is entropy?; The second law in action; The origin of low entropy in the universe; Cosmology and the big bang; The primordial fireball; Does the big bang explain the second law?; Black holes; The structure of space-time singularities; How special was the big bang?; 8 IN SEARCH OF QUANTUM GRAVITY; Why quantum gravity?

What lies behind the Weyl curvature hypothesis?

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-283-92377-7

0-19-150640-0

OCLC:

823719598