Impossible Minds: My Neurons, My ConsciousnessImpossible 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
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 | |
WHATS THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL MINDS? | |
MAGNUS 2030 AD AN INTERVIEW | |
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ability apple areas argue argument artificial consciousness artificial intelligence Asic automata theory automaton Basic Guess become behaviour believe brain called cause chapter child colour complex concept Consequence cortex create Daniel Dennett Dennett described diagram discussed emotions engineer example existence explain fact feel firing patterns function human iconic learning iconic representations iconic transfer ideas innate inner neurons instinct John Searle language lead linguistic living logic look Magnus meaning mechanism memory mental mind Molecula nature neural machine neural net neural state machine neural system objects octopus organism output perception philosophers physical poverty of stimulus programs properties psychologists qualia question represent robot rules scientists seen sensations sense sensory neurons shown in Fig simple Sir Global structure suggests things Thomas Nagel thought truth tables unconscious understanding utterances visual words