The Quantum Brain: The Search for Freedom and the Next Generation of Man

by Jeffrey Satinover

Book Overview

An enthralling look at the convergence of brain science, biological computation and quantum physics, and what it implies about our minds, our selves, our future, even God Do we really have free will or do we just imagine we do? Do we create our own destinies, or are we merely machines? Will the machines we are now making themselves have free will? These are the fundamental questions of The Quantum Brain. To answer them, psychiatrist, researcher, and...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471333263
• ISBN13: 9780471333265
• Release Date: February 2001
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

HOW QUANTUM INDETERMINACY INFLUENCES CONSCIOUSNESS

I first encountered Jeffrey Satinover by following a link from godhatesfag.com. Satinover claims to support freedom of choice for homosexuals, as long as what they choose is to be cured of homosexuality. I suspect that there are many heterosexuals who have been so messed up by life that they have come to believe that they are homosexuals, and such people should be helped; but for Satinover to insist that he knows this to be true of all homosexuals is, at best, professionally dishonest. Then I discovered that he wrote CRACKING THE BIBLE CODE. The idea that historical events might be predicted in the Bible vastly exceeds my capacity for open-mindedness. With this background, who would read THE QUANTUM BRAIN? Fortunately, I had read over half of it before I realized who had written it. Satinover points out that Roger Penrose's "SHADOWS OF THE MIND was quickly assigned to the growing heap of pop physics and consciousness books that few scientists take seriously." This is even truer of his book. However, Satinover's linkage of quantum indeterminacy and consciousness is far more credible than Penrose's, and does not deserve to be dismissed so readily. In Part One Satinover presents a clear and concise history of the development of artificial intelligence by creating artificial networks that function by parallel processing in the way that neural networks do. Though some specific details may be difficult to fully understand, the gist is easy enough to follow and is quite compelling. The actual development would be difficult to adequately summarize in such a small place, but the crux of it is Edward Fredkin's of MIT conclusion "that parallel computational capacity is woven into the very fabric of matter itself; reality is a massive cellular automaton, and intelligence at every level a necessary concomitant." Mathematically, "neural networks and cellular automata are almost identical: Self-organization at one scale yields the capacity for self-organization at the next. From a computational perspective, physical reality is inherently like a cellular automaton, and thus facilitates computation and self-organization at all scales." Some scientists are seriously considering that evolution "may have little to do with the changing external circumstances and arise, rather, because of the natural dynamics of self-organizing processes." These are all purely deterministic, mechanical processes that lead to the necessary conclusion that man is a machine and that free will is a delusion. Since scientists are reasonably certain that quantum events are caused by nothing, as if particles "chose" which path to take, some have hoped that evidence of acausal quantum behavior in the brain would open up the possibility of free will and the intrinsic existence of consciousness. However, most biologists are convinced that quantum effects are so minute that they cancel out at the macroscale of living organisms. While computers able to incorporate quantum tun

It's All Making Sense

This book provides a picture of the brain as a learning machine. The latest understandings of how this process evolves, how it is relevant to technology, and what it can all mean to us in terms of our spiritual and biological place in the universe. No absolute answers on that, but lots of food for thought. Excellent book, with enough detail and science, but understandable.

Wonderful!

Jeffrey Satinover has written a wonderful book here. What I find so impressive is the book's scope and accessibility. Satinover covers a wide variety of complex topics and explains them in ways that the lay-reader can easily understand. Essentially, the book serves as a wonderful introduction to problems in quantum physics, neural nets, computing, cellular automata, genetic algorithms, artificial intelligence, and some of the basic philosophy of mind problems.If these kinds of topics have always interested you but you didn't know where to begin, Satinover provides a fun to read and easy to understand introduction. Readers who are already well-versed in these areas may find Satinover's approach to be a little "light-weight", but I think they could perhaps appreciate the manner in which he explains these things.In the end, I was left somehow feeling a little skeptical of the author's contention of the brain serving to amplify quantum phenemonon to produce free will. But Satinover is weaving a complex argument and attempting to connect a lot of dots. Each of these dots is well-explained and I'm inclined to think that the failure to connect is most likely my limitation and failure and not Satinover's. So to summarize I'd say this is a wonderful introduction to the discoveries in a broad array of fields such as mathematics, cognition, physics, and biology from the last 100 years. It's a pleasure to read and highly acessible. The index and bibliography are both extensive, giving the reader ample opportunity to further investigate these topics.

Sweeping synthesis

It takes a psychiatrist trained in physics and well versed in moderntechnology to understand the impact of quantum mechanicsand neural networks first on computation and then on the human condition.Dr. Satinover reviews the history of perceptrons, the rise andtribulations of symbolic artificial intelligence andrelated subdisciplines of psychology and biology.This is a sweeping book, broad in scope andprovocative in its thesis: quantum phenomena are not just acuriosity for physicists, they underlie our very thought.It's the kind of book that will, aftera period of gestatation, lead to new research directionsand new speculations in the philosophy of mind.

Profound synthesis of quantum physics to neurobiology

One of the best books I have ever read. For those of us who have not followed the cutting edge research in quantum physics, neurobiology and artificial intelligence, this book provides an elegant and well-written overview and synthesis of these topics. Although the author may have a bias towards seeing God behind the cloak of quantum randomness, he does lay out the possibilties in a balanced way that can only leave the thoughtful reader further in awe of the miracle of sentience and wondering if free will and God do indeed express themselves through "quantum wierdness". This scientific treatise is a novel path to the BIG questions. Absolutely wonderful. Beware; you'll want to read it again once you've finished.