The Emperor's New Mind

Part 1 Can a computer have a mind?: the Turing test; artificial intelligence; an AI approach to pleasure and pain; strong AI and Searle's Chinese room; hardware and software. Part 2 Algorithms and Turing machines: background to the algorithm concept; Turing's concept; binary coding of numerical data; the Church-Turing thesis; numbers other than natural numbers; the insolubility of Hilbert's problem; Church's lambda calculus. Part 3 Mathematics and reality: the land of Tor'Bled-Nam; real numbers; construction of the Mandelbrot set; Platonic reality of mathematical concepts. Part 4 Truth, proof and insight: Hilbert's programme for mathematics; Godel's theorem; Platonism of intuitionism?; Is the Mandelbrot set like non-recursive mathematics?. Part 5 The classical world: the status of the physical theory; Euclidean geometry; the dynamics of Galileo and Newton; the mechanistic world of Newtonian dynamics; Hamilton mechanics; Maxwell's electromagnetic theory; computablility and the wave equation; the Lorentz equation of motion - runaway particles; the special relativity of Einstein and Poincare; Einstein's general relativity; relativistic causality and determinism; computability in classical physics - where do we stand?; mass, matter and reality. Part 6 Quantum magic and quantum mystery: do philosophers need quantum theory?; problems with classical theory; probability amplitudes; Hilbert space; measurements; Spin and the Riemann sphere of states; objectivity and measurability of quantum states; photon spin; the paradox of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen; Schrodinger's equation - Dirac's equation; quantum field theory; Schrodinger's cat; various attitudes in existing quantum theory. Part 7 Cosmology and the arrow of time: the flow of time; the inexorable increase of entropy; the origin of low entropy in the universe; does the big bang explain the second law?; black holes; the structure of space - time singularities. Part 8 In search of quantum gravity: what lies behind the Weyl curvature hypothesis?; time-asymmetry in state-vector reduction; when does the state-vector reduce?. Part 9 Real brains and model brains: what are brains actually like?; where is the seat of consciousness?; split-brain experiments; information processing in the visual cortex; how do nerve signals work?; conputer models; parallel computers and the "oneness" of consciousness; is there a role for quantum mechanics in brain activity?. Part 10 Where lies the physics of the mind?: what are minds for?; what does consciousness actually do?; animal consciousness?; contact with Plato's world; a view of physical reality; tilings and quasicrystals; possible relevance to brain placticity; the time-delays of consciousness.