The Emperor's New Mind

Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics

By: Roger Penrose

Narrated by: Julian Elfer

Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's Summary

For decades, proponents of artificial intelligence have argued that computers will soon be doing everything that a human mind can do. Admittedly, computers now play chess at the grandmaster level, but do they understand the game as we do? Can a computer eventually do everything a human mind can do?

In this absorbing and frequently contentious book, Roger Penrose puts forward his view that there are some facets of human thinking that can never be emulated by a machine. The book's central concern is what philosophers call the "mind-body problem". Penrose examines what physics and mathematics can tell us about how the mind works, what they can't, and what we need to know to understand the physical processes of consciousness. He is among a growing number of physicists who think Einstein wasn't being stubborn when he said his "little finger" told him that quantum mechanics is incomplete, and he concludes that laws even deeper than quantum mechanics are essential for the operation of a mind. To support this contention, Penrose takes the listener on a dazzling tour that covers such topics as complex numbers, Turing machines, complexity theory, quantum mechanics, formal systems, Godel undecidability, phase spaces, Hilbert spaces, black holes, white holes, Hawking radiation, entropy, quasicrystals, and the structure of the brain.

©1989 Oxford University Press; Preface copyright 1999, 2016 by Roger Penrose (P)2019 Tantor

One one zero zero zero zero zero one zero zero ...

If you like listening to 50 digit binary notations read out as ones and zeros for a couple hours endlessly than this is an audiobook for you. On the other hand, the value of this book is apparent so I ordered th ed print version.

Not for listening to

Seemingly endless reading of binary numbers that on the page would be typed out is absolutely unbearable and conveys no meaning what so ever. This is done not a few times and one 20 minute chapter is nearly exclusively this. Better to read the book.

This is an eyeball read

Great book but not well suited for experiencing as an audiobook. Several sections were very equation/calculation/number heavy and I found it painful to listen to physics notation fully enunciated over and over ie. “open bracket vertical bar A close bracket right arrow...”

Echoing others: get the book in paper.

Put shortly, please buy the book. It is important material heading into the 21st century. AI, philosophy, and consciousness studies from the lens of science is a huge portion of the future. Roger Penrose has done a phenomenal and thorough overview starting from scratch. He builds his ideas fluently and expertly, but reading it aloud simply did not work. I had read the reviews and tried my hardest to make it through the audio. It's not a poor performance, but what tossed me over the tolerant cliff was the reading of the syntax.

I can't help but wonder why a mathematician didn't read a mathematician's book.
f(x) should be read "f OF x" and NOT "f open parenthesis x close parenthesis" This became ridiculously tedious. : (.
I wonder if the first half of the book I managed to hear did not included a whole hour of just hearing syntax.

I crave the material, and have ordered the physical book because it will be important to SEE the binary in order to digest it, rather than hear it. I'd like to SEE the equations and intuitively follow along. I couldn't keep order of the sequences in my head and it lost it's meaning and just became a thorn to get over.

Not an audio book. Completely useless.

Probably a great book but not in audio form unless you can follow equations just by listening. I can't. Nobody can!!! What were they thinking?! Can't even return it for some reason. Very disappointed.

Put you to sleep boring

I respect Roger Penrose but this attempt at a new book was a complete failure. While the subject is interesting the way in which he hoes about explaining things will put you to sleep. He explains every aspect of the math and actually writes it out number by number.

Great Book, Horrible Audiobook

Penrose is obviously brilliant and a lot of the information in this book is still relevant after 30 years. But seriously the narrator actually reads seamingly endless strings of binary numbers like '0010111010110001101010', and Turing Machine bit code like ' 10000R0100111101L left arrow 001101...stop'. It's really almost too much to sit thru. If you're getting this audiobook so you can listen along while reading the printed version - great, go for it. But if you're planning to listen in the car or while just chilling, you might want to give this one a pass.

Don’t listen to this, read the book

It is nearly impossible to listen to this book it has lots of math equations that are read out expertly by the narrator but it’s just impossible to listen to. Read the book

Good but Dated and Not Great on Audible

The first few chapters of this book would be very difficult in just audible unless you are already very familiar with Turing Machines and the Mandelbrot Set. Unfortunately there is no PDF to go along with the book. Some images can be seen on Google Books and, of course, in paper or kindle.

The rest of the book suggests that human intelligence is non-computable and AI will be unable to produce machines that feel and intuit. Some of these ideas have become dated some are interesting but I did not find any deeply compelling.

Nevertheless this book is has a lot of interesting information and ideas and was well worth the listen, but I would not strongly recommend the Audible version.

The narration was very good considering the very difficult material.

Book definitely not intended for listening

Wish I could return it but as I'm a chapter or so in, getting to the recurring 10011100101 bits you cannot possibly be expected to understand what is being conveyed without reading it. I do not see any accompanying reading material with excerpts of these pages to visually reference.
Love Penrose's work, not loving this audio book. 1/5

no thought to reading the equations

I like Penrose and find his writing thought-provoking. I also find the shipping forecast on radio 4 therapeutic. So when I say the way in which the equations in this book are dealt with is tedious, you might get an idea for how tedious. Long sequences of binary are read verbatim. Equations are read verbatim; there are only so many times you can hear the words open parenthesis open parentheses... close parenthesis close parenthesis. I understand equations and numbers are difficult to convey aurally but a little more imagination in reading them would be appreciated. I soldiered through the reading of the chapter on Turing machines but gave up by lambda calculus. I will have to read this book, I suppose.

mostly impenetrable

detailed and interesting but dose not suit well to an audio book. I've been listening to this book 13 times .... many of the points mostly rely on formulaic examples which don't work on audio formats. I will probably buy the book as the author has a lot to say and clearly has a depth of intelligence that requires more attention.

One zero one zero one zero right arrow

Great read in general, but the algorithm/functions/mathematics stuff is a car crash in audio!

zero zero zero zero zero one one

If there were a system of the performer not having to read half a page of binary code, I am very sure I could have enjoyed listening to this interesting subject.

Unlistenable, unless you follow along with the book

I’m sorry. The content of this book (how AI works, and whether it can be human) is interesting, This said, he isn’t the greatest explainer (his explanation of Highest Common Factors makes me wonder if he ever stepped foot in a classroom for example), and his explanation of binary through the use of high numbers, meant I had meaningless strings of numbers read to me repeatedly. They’d make more sense, if you following along, with the book, but that makes me wonder why you’d want to do that.

Bender from Futurama on 100-hour repeat

This is a great book, but a terrible audio book. I don't know if the narrator is to blame for being mathematically incompetent, or if he was not allowed to read anything but strict verbatim, but anything having to do with equations is read in the worst way possible! This is not limited to the long dronings on to list Turing machine states, but begins almost at the very beginning, when the narrator reads "G(P)" - an expression that anyone even remotely competent in mathematics would have read as "G of P" - this expression, the narrator reads as "G open parenthesis P close parenthesis". And it goes downhill from there.

So the whole exercise of listening to this book, if I am to compare (and I really feel I should!), feels like listening to one of those 100-hour repeat videos on YouTube, this time of Bender from Futurama reading his serial number.

the binary language of moisture vaporators

This book needs adapting not reading verbatim. It has a binary solo on a par with The Humans are Dead by Flight of the Concords.
I don't think the narrator understood the content so the phrasing is really weird sometimes, however nuances of presentation don't change the fact that long audio streams of digits and equations cannot be consumed by the human mind
Might get a physical copy of the book ...
... might not