[opening paragraph] -- Clark: The `astonishing hypothesis' which you put forward in your book, and which you obviously feel is very controversial, is that `You, your joys and sorrows, your memories and ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will are, in fact, no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased it: `You're nothing but a pack of neurons'.' But it seems to me that this is not so (...) astonishing a statement for a scientist to make. Isn't this what reductionist science has always believed? (shrink)

Winner of the Wolf Prize for his contribution to our understanding of the universe, Penrose takes on the question of whether artificial intelligence will ever ...

[opening paragraph] -- Clark: The `astonishing hypothesis' which you put forward in your book, and which you obviously feel is very controversial, is that `You, your joys and sorrows, your memories and ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will are, in fact, no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased it: `You're nothing but a pack of neurons'.' But it seems to me that this is not so (...) astonishing a statement for a scientist to make. Isn't this what reductionist science has always believed? (shrink)

Essays discuss reason, self-control, self-definition, time, cause and effect, accidents, and responsibility, and explain why people want free will.

David Bohm was one of the foremost scientific thinkers and philosophers of our time. Although deeply influenced by Einstein, he was also, more unusually for a scientist, inspired by mysticism. Indeed, in the 1970s and 1980s he made contact with both J. Krishnamurti and the Dalai Lama whose teachings helped shape his work. In both science and philosophy, Bohm's main concern was with understanding the nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular. In this classic work he develops (...) a theory of quantum physics which treats the totality of existence as an unbroken whole. Writing clearly and without technical jargon, he makes complex ideas accessible to anyone interested in the nature of reality. (shrink)

A re-issue of Gregory Bateson's classic work. It summarizes Bateson's thinking on the subject of the patterns that connect living beings to each other and to their environment.

Brings together the most recent discoveries in quantum physics and provides a powerful argument for transforming not only the way we view nature, but also how we view our own personal reality. The book also challenges readers to give up their prejudices regarding material realism.

In this book, which contains several of his key papers as well as new material, he focuses on the problem of consciousness and explains how quantum mechanics...

Recent models of consciousness are reviewed which explore the relationship of consciousness to physical laws; many of these also explore the relationship of consciousness to biological findings. Issues investigated by these models are discussed, with the issues framed in a general way in order to provide a comparison between the models. In Part II the issues discussed include: Does all of the information content of consciousness correspond to neural coding in the brain? Does consciousness follow the brain passively, or can (...) it act independently? Is independent processing by consciousness compatible with the second law of thermodynamics? (shrink)

Recent models of consciousness are reviewed which explore the relationship of consciousness to physical laws; many of these also explore the relationship of consciousness to biological findings. Issues investigated by these models are discussed, with the issues framed in a general way in order to provide a comparison between the models. In Part I the issues discussed are: (1) What is the causal relationship between consciousness and the physical world (physicalism, dualism, etc.)? and (2) What physical characteristics are associated with (...) the interface between brain/physical world and consciousness? (shrink)