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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 tour through the basic principles of physics, cosmology, mathematics, and philosophy to show that human thinking can never be emulated by a machine. Oxford Landmark Science books are ‘must-read’ classics of modern science writing which have crystallized big ideas, and shaped the way we think.

Review:

• I read this book way back when it first came out. It was difficult, but brilliant. One reviewer stated we are led down mathematical rabbit holes. Well Paraphrasing Galileo Maths is the fundamental language of nature. Physics is actually the empirical label we apply to this language so which is artificial and man made, maths or physics? Complex numbers are used all the time in Engineering and quantum mechanics, but are renormalised to banish them because they don’t sit well with the philosophy of Empiricism. Nature knows better. Paul Dirac discovered antimatter because he took complex numbers seriously; wavefunctions and sub atomic particles are mathematical objects. They don’t make sense in any other way. Reality is spread out and interconnected, its non- local (mental , mathematical) not physical as Bell’s theorem explicitly demonstrated. Isn’t that obvious if you’re a rational thinker? Brilliant platonist as he is, he doesn’t think mathematically enough in my opinion. Great book though. AI is programmed learning through big data templates. It will never be conscious as a human mind is because it is not a self reflective subject .Read Julian Jaynes to get the dope on this.