The Emperor's New Mind Book Summary - The Emperor's New Mind Book explained in key points

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The Emperor's New Mind summary

Name: The Emperor's New Mind
Rating: 4.6 (224 reviews)
Author: Roger Penrose

Roger Penrose

Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics

4.6 (224 ratings)

26 mins

Brief summary

"The Emperor's New Mind" by Roger Penrose challenges the idea that consciousness is no more than a computer program, and argues that human cognition is rooted in quantum mechanics. The book discusses rational thinking, artificial intelligence, and the mysteries of the human mind.

Topics

Human-Machine Interaction Mathematics The Brain Physics Artificial Intelligence

Table of Contents

The Emperor's New Mind
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Travel to the end of the universe to understand the depths of the human mind.

Do computers have minds?

AI fans have been claiming that they do – or they soon will – since at least 1989; that’s when mathematical physicist Roger Penrose first presented his argument against the idea that intelligent computers can be conscious.

These blinks venture through the most important ideas in mathematics, computation, physics, psychology, and philosophy to build a fascinating argument for the complexity of the human mind. From Turing machines to relativity theory to split-brain experiments, these blinks make a compelling case for the enduring miracle of our universe and the mystery of our own consciousness.

Along the way you’ll learn

why math is real;
why time is an illusion; and
why quantum physics underwrites consciousness.

Whether computers can have minds is a question of whether the human mind is computable.

Back in 1950, famous British computer scientist Alan Turing proposed a test to measure computer intelligence. Put simply, a machine passes the test if a human interacting with it can’t tell that he’s interacting with a machine. For example, a human interrogator could be chatting with a digital computer over text, trying to determine whether he’s talking to a computer or another human.

Some computers can indeed imitate human conversation well enough to pass such a test. But does that mean that they’ve learned to “think” in the same way we do?

Here’s the key message: Whether computers can have minds is a question of whether the human mind is computable.

To proponents of a viewpoint known as strong AI, a computer behaving in a human, intelligent way is evidence that it possesses real, human intelligence. According to this view, even a thermostat possesses some kind of “mind” – albeit a very simple one.

The author, however, thinks that our minds are fundamentally non-computable. To understand the depth of his argument, we’ll have to travel to the edge of the universe and back again.

But first, let’s have a look at what “computability” actually means. If a problem is computable, it means that it can be solved through an effective computational program, using an algorithm. An algorithm is a sequence of step-by-step instructions that tell a computer what to do.

Pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing was the first to devise a hypothetical model for running such algorithms. He imagined a scanner-like device running over an infinite strip of tape with squares inscribed with 0’s and 1’s. The device’s “state” changes with each number it scans. And the device also has the power to change the numbers on the tape. Which action it takes – whether it moves left or right, deletes or changes a number – depends on the initial number on the square as well as the state of the device. Turing showed that even complex algorithmic problems could be solved by this machine.

Even though the Turing machine is a mathematical idealization, it gives us a useful measure of computability. Any operation that can be run by a Turing machine is algorithmic. In fact, all of our modern computers are essentially Turing machines.

But even Turing recognized that some problems can’t be solved algorithmically. As it turns out, even some mathematical operations are not actually computable. In the next blink, we’ll try to understand why.

The belief that math exists as an external reality stems from mathematical discoveries.

Is math just a numbers game that humans invented to keep busy? Many philosophers – and even some mathematicians – think so. But the author belongs to another school of thought, the Platonist view. Platonists believe that mathematics is firmly rooted in reality.

One argument in their favor is that most mathematical ideas come about more like discoveries than inventions.

The classical theories of physics do a marvelous job of explaining the world.

Long before the advent of modern science, the ancient Greeks came up with some pretty good theories about the geometry of physical objects. But it wasn’t until Galileo started thinking about gravity and energy in the seventeenth century that we really began to understand the principles that govern our world.

A little later, Isaac Newton worked Galileo’s ideas into three essential laws of motion. The first one says that an object will remain at rest or continue in motion unless it’s acted on by an external force. The second says that an object’s change in motion is proportional to the external force that acts on it. And the third law of motion says that the forces two objects exert on each other are always equal.

Classical physics suggests a deterministic universe.

We can safely categorize the tried-and-tested theories of classical physics as superb.

A superb theory of physics explains a lot, and does so accurately. It also has a certain beauty and simplicity. Take, for example, Newton’s three laws of motion, which elegantly explain how objects behave here on Earth, and predict the motions of distant stars with relative accuracy – an accuracy upon which Einstein’s relativity theories improved. Moreover, both Newton’s and Einstein’s ideas have been verified by our observations over and over again.

Quantum mechanics is characterized by uncertainty, indeterminism, and mystery – and it completely changed our worldview.

For a while, it seemed that the classical theories of physics, such as Newton’s laws of motion, had the power to explain the whole universe. But when physicists began observing the behavior of molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles, they were shocked. These small particles didn’t behave in a “classical” way at all.

Take, for instance, protons, photons, and electrons, which often change their position and motion in completely counterintuitive ways. Sometimes they even seem to exist in two places at once! This random movement underlies many properties of physical materials, as well as physical processes such as freezing and boiling.

We still don’t understand how quantum physics and classical physics work together.

To show again why quantum theory is so confounding, let’s consider the paradox of Schrödinger’s cat. This is a thought experiment proposed by Erwin Schrödinger to Albert Einstein in 1935, which we’ll alter here slightly for our purposes.

Imagine a box with a cat inside, constructed so that no outside influence can pass through. There’s a device in the box that can be triggered by a single quantum event – let’s say by a photon hitting a photocell. When the device is triggered, it smashes a bottle with cyanide that kills the cat. So how can we know whether the cat is dead?

Our brain’s design is much more complex than that of a computer.

What does this all have to do with the human mind? Well, it means that it’s very likely that our minds don’t operate in the strict, deterministic way that the classical worldview suggests. Indeed, the author believes that quantum mechanics plays a crucial role in the way we think.

Let’s take a closer look at how our brain works. The human brain is an organ of incredibly complex design. On the most basic level, there’s a large inner region of white matter that sorts and relays signals, and a thin outer surface of gray matter that processes them. The outer surface is called the cerebral cortex, and it’s where higher cognition and complex computation take place. It’s much thicker in humans than in other animals.

Quantum physics may play an important role in human consciousness.

We know a great deal about the structure and function of the brain. What we don’t know is how all these different, complicated, parallel processes give rise to our consciousness. This is where quantum physics could come into play.

There’s at least one spot where quantum effects are directly involved: the retina. Under the right conditions, a single photon hitting our retina is enough to trigger a nerve signal. It takes about seven photons for us to become aware of them.

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What is The Emperor's New Mind about?

The Emperor’s New Mind (1989) is a timeless argument against the computability of the human mind. Taking you on a fascinating journey through math, computer science, philosophy, and physics, famous mathematician Roger Penrose explains what makes the human mind so special – and what quantum mechanics has to do with consciousness.

Who should read The Emperor's New Mind?

Math freaks and science geeks
Hobby psychologists and armchair philosophers
Anyone concerned about a robot uprising

About the Author

Sir Roger Penrose is an acclaimed British mathematical physicist and philosopher of science. In 2020, Penrose shared one half of the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on black holes and general relativity theory. He has written several popular physics books, most recently Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe (2016).

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