Point Books In Favor Of The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul
| Original Title: | The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul |
| ISBN: | 0553345842 (ISBN13: 9780553345841) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Douglas R. Hofstadter
Paperback | Pages: 512 pages Rating: 4.14 | 5370 Users | 117 Reviews
Commentary In Pursuance Of Books The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul
Brilliant, shattering, mind-jolting, The Mind's I is a searching, probing cosmic journey of the mind that goes deeply into the problem of self and self-consciousness as anything written in our time. From verbalizing chimpanzees to scientific speculations involving machines with souls, from the mesmerizing, maze-like fiction of Borges to the tantalizing, dreamlike fiction of Lem and Princess Ineffable, her circuits glowing read and gold, The Mind's I opens the mind to the Black Box of fantasy, to the windfalls of reflection, to new dimensions of exciting possibilities. "Ever since David Hume declared in the 18th century that the Self is only a heap of perceptions, the poor Ego has been in a shaky conditions indeed...Mind and consciousness becomes dispensable items in our accounts of reality, ghosts in the bodily machine...Yet there are indications here and there that the tide may be tuming...and the appearance of The Mind's I, edited by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett, seems a welcome sign of change." William Barrett, The New York Times Book Review
Describe Containing Books The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul
| Title | : | The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul |
| Author | : | Douglas R. Hofstadter |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 512 pages |
| Published | : | April 1st 1985 by Bantam Books (first published 1981) |
| Categories | : | Philosophy. Nonfiction. Science. Psychology. Biology. Neuroscience. Writing. Essays. Artificial Intelligence |
Rating Containing Books The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul
Ratings: 4.14 From 5370 Users | 117 ReviewsJudgment Containing Books The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul
This was a big influence on me. Good stuff.Hofstadter delivers a vastly enjoyable account accessible to any intelligent non-specialist, but on this occasion requiring far less persistence than Gödel, Escher, Bach. The ground he covers encompasses some of the most traditionally intractable problems in philosophy, yet his accounts of the various thought experiments and the issues they do and do not illuminate never appear impenetrable. The book is organised into a collection of vignettes that can easily be bitten off and chewed over
I like both Dennett and Hofstadter, but I can't say that I particularly enjoyed The Mind's Eye. It has a lot of interesting ideas, but doesn't have the time to develop them given the story-reflection format of the text. While the book includes a number of seminal pieces in philosophy of mind, as well as some great pieces of fiction, they dont' really fit together all that well stylistically or intellectually, and often Dennett and Hofstadter spend a fair amount of time justifying the inclusion
A superb collection of thought-provoking essays and short stories touching on various aspects of the philosophical side of cognitive science. Hofstadter & Dennett's commentary was always interesting to read - even when I disagreed with them (which was much more often on this year's careful reading than when I skimmed this volume a few years ago), their opposing viewpoint helped me sharpen my own ideas.
Pay particular attention to the preface where Hofstadter writes "Our purpose is not so much to answer the big questions directly as to jolt everyone". This book mostly suggests interesting ideas without expounding on them too deeply, and occasionally stumbles into clarity. I particularly enjoyed "Ant Fugue" by Hofstadter himself, particularly hated "Minds, Brains, and Programs" by Searle, and mildly liked the stimulating nature of all the other selections. This is a book to look at the study of
A collection of essays and short stories from scientists, philosophers, and fiction authors, all dealing with concepts related to the self and self-consciousness. Each work is followed by commentary from either Dennett or Hofstadter. I imagine this book is an absolutely fantastic introduction to these sorts of ideas and had I read it earlier in my life it'd probably have a 5 star rating. Still, the familiarity of the ideas discussed didn't lessen my enjoyment of the book, especially as the book
We all laugh at the thought that a machine may one day develop artificial intelligence, or that human consciousness could reside in a remotely controlled body while its brain is back in the lab, or that ones mental processes could be stored in a book to be accessed by the manual computation of future readers; but embedded in these simple vignettes are deeply unsettling challenges to the way we view human consciousness and even the concepts of soul and self-worth. This book is a test of the
0 Comments