So I picked up this book at the library, Elemental mind: human consciousness and the new physics, by Nick Herbert, and it’s pretty interesting. It’s about how studies of quantum mechanics and human consciousness might fruitfully intersect, and Herbert uses as a literary device the story of a sentient robot named Claire who strives to become conscious. (The robots in “Sex with Ghosts” aren’t conscious, either, but could probably pass a Turing test.)
This book is fun and got me thinking, but it was published back in 1993, so I started poking around to see what’s new on the topic lately. (Have I mentioned that I love working in an academic library?) Seems a fairly hot topic still in journals like Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, Minds & Machines, and the Journal of Consciousness, so now I have some more reading to dig into. If I dig up anything interesting, I’ll report back.
No Comments so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.