Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett have compiled an anthology of essays and stories about the nature of the self and the mind. It includes selections by Alan Turing, Jorge Luis Borges, Stanislaw Lem, Raymond Smullyan, and Thomas Nagel, and the editors add commentary to each piece. The readings raise questions about consciousness, personal identity, artificial intelligence, and whether a copy of a mind is the same person. Thought experiments such as brain transplants and teleportation are used to test our intuitions about what makes us who we are.
It is for readers who like philosophy of mind, science fiction, and puzzles about identity. You come away with many examples to consider.
Deep and open-ended; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Literary Connoisseur. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 1981
- Language
- EN
