Impossible Minds: My Neurons, My Consciousness has been written to satisfy the curiosity each and every one of us has about our own consciousness. It takes the view that the neurons in our heads are the source of consciousness and attempts to explain how this happens. Although it talks of neural networks, it explains what they are and what they do, in such a way that anyone may understand.
This book is also a story. A story of a land where people think that they are automata without much in the way of consciousness, a story of cormorants and cliffs by the sea, a story of what it might be like to be a conscious machine…
Contents:
- Yet Another Book on Consciousness?
- Who's Afraid of Magnus?
- Neurons and Thought
- Automata and Brains
- The Inner Eye of Consciousness
- Who Am I?
- Beginnings and Words
- Give Me a Teddy…
- Qualia, Instinct and Emotion
- What's the Use of Artificial Minds?
- Magnus 2030 AD: An Interview
Readership: General.
”Here is the philosophy of a creative engineer. Igor Aleksander is a pioneer looking for keys to consciousness in intelligent machines he designs and builds. He shares his discoveries and hopes for future developments in this interesting, highly readable book.”
Richard L Gregory
Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology
University of Bristol
”Machine intelligence is one of the most vital subjects for the future, perhaps the most important of all. No one is better at explaining it than Igor Aleksander, one of the leaders in the field.”
Sir Clive Sinclair
“… his book provides a popular account of the problem of consciousness. It is a personal view, from the perspective of a plain-speaking and clear-sighted engineer, articulated with all the optimism and confidence that engineers need to pursue the audacious goal of designing intelligent and conscious robots … it is more of an ‘ideas’ book, and was fun to read. It should be an adventure and an inspiration for the human, if not yet the robotic, mind.”
Nature
“… no one could deny that Aleksander is doing a good job in this book of rehabilitating and making accessible some of the more unreasonable, some might say unfathomable, of AI's tenets: would recommend Aleksander's book as if nothing else, an excellent primer on matters of AI consciousness and philosophy.”
New Scientist
“… reading ‘Impossible Minds’ is a lot of fun, both for the variety of topics and for the controversies it touches upon. For the beginner it is a good introduction to a fast-growing discipline; for every reader it is a good starting point of healthy argument with the author's views.”
International Journal of Neural Systems
Igor Aleksander has been researching intelligent machinery for more than 30 years, and has published 10 books and over 200 scientific papers on the subject. His books include the best-sellers Reinventing Man, Introduction to Neural Computing and Neurons and Symbols. For this work he was elected to the Royal Academy of Engineering. He currently leads a 20-strong team at Imperial College, London, researching artificial consciousness. He makes frequent TV and radio appearances.
