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 — eminent physicist and winner, with Stephen Hawking, of the prestigious Wolf prize — puts forward his view that there are some facets of human thinking that can never be emulated by a machine. Penrose examines what physics and