Large Small and Human Mind Canto

I see others have praised this book richly and a couple others poorly. One reviewer said one needed to be a mathematician and a physicist to understand the book. It would certainly help, but Penrose describes enough about the function of the math concepts he invokes so that I can follow him (and even in maths one has to have studied things like those density matrices to really understand in depth). I do understand about computability and problems which have been proven non-computable, and I think he is possibly right, that 'mind', because it shares/crosses the quantum/macro world boundaries, cannot be easily mathematically described without finding a 'bridge' between those worlds. I found his description/hypothesis about the microtubules fascinating (and again I am not a biologist but I am not disturbed that he didn't try to explain or prove his hunch regarding the possible functioning of these structures).I appreciated the book for the wonderfully clear style as well as the content.

This book sparked my interest because I am one who also wonders about the mind's relation to the physical world. Penrose believes that the physical mechanism behind consciousness underlies new physics relating to quantum mechanics. He also believes that this new theory is not computable or programmable. This book is meant for general audience, no physics background needed. In fact the conceptual physics are actually explained well by Penrose. So if your curious, or an actual mathematician/physicist attempting to understand consciousness this is a good book to get some interesting ideas from. Its not polished out, the writing is in lecture style, but I like this, it gives a better down to earth feeling. You basically get Penrose telling you his thoughts without much editing.

This book is hard to rate. It might rate four or five stars if you have never read Penrose before, although I think the arguments might then be close to incomprehensible. If you have read Shadows of the Mind, this book is a throwaway. Most of the text is a rehash, practically cut and paste. The comments are not much worth reading---like the comments at a workshop, perhaps.

I'm still reading Mr. Penrose's book. I'm not a mathematician, so it's been awhile since I pondered the concepts in the book - but I'm halfway through and am enjoying it a lot when I have the time to spend....

Great book from an awesome and respected mathematician and physicist.

Fascinating ideas are discussed in this book

Its a great book

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.)

A real joy to read, it is beautifully written and nice to peer into the mind of a national treasure.

Excellent deal !

Der bekannte Mathematiker Roger Penrose greift hier ein sehr delikates Problem, das noch nicht endgültig gelöst ist. Er präsentiert seine Ansicht und publiziert anschließend eine kurze Diskussion mit namhaften Wissenschaftlern (Shimony, Cartwright und Hawking, die teilweise seine Ansicht nicht teilen. Das Buch ist 1995 geschrieben worden, und viele neuere Ideen sind dazu gekommen. Nichtsdestotrotz bleibt das Problem immer noch ungelöst, und das Buch kann dazu helfen, einen Einblick in die Entwicklung der Gedanken zu diesem Thema.

The Book "The Large, the Small and the Human Mind" has been authored by none other than esteemed Mathematician Roger Penrose. Beauty about this book is that the author has taken pains to make the very complex subject somewhat palatable to the people who are inquisitive but lack the high level of insight into mathematics and physics. Personally, I feel thankful to the celebrity Mathematician Roger Penrose for authoring this book and to Amazon for publishing it as eBook for ease and comfort of reading of the avid readers.

Absolutely Loved the book