Superminds. People harness hypercomputation, and more (Q1408489)

This book is part of a series that aims at exploring all kinds of knowledge, information and data-processing systems. It is especially interesting because it deals with the often sharply discussed question of the relation of \` \` human'' and ``Artificial Intelligence''. It starts with a ``Supermind Manifesto'' stating three objectives of an overall project that is partially outlined in this book: Overthrow computationalism, the view that minds are ordinary computing machines; Establish the position that minds include computing machines, hypercomputation and phenomenal consciousness; Specify and defend a practical, concrete, applied approach to Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science and concentrate on implemented systems. The main emphasis throughout the book is on the view that human beings are superminds; they are infinitary information processors, and they enjoy a form of consciousness which can't be reduced to information processing of any sort. Everything that can support the evidence of this hypothesis is combined in seven very interesting chapters. The first chapter introduces the concept of supermentalism and the centrality of personhood for the following discussions. It is followed by a discussion of the Gödelian Case against computationalism based on books of Penrose (``The Emperor's New Mind'' 1989, \` \` Shadows of the Mind'' 1994). Chapter 3 introduces ``infinitary reasoning'', it is argued that this kind of reasoning is uncomputable. The discussion of Church's Thesis, the creation of so-called Zombies (artefacts that are supposed to have all properties of human beings) and arguments considering the irreversibility of cognition support the attack against computationalism. The book reaches two conclusion chapters. The first states that \` \` superminds are either physical things that have non-physical properties that cannot be reduced to behavioral, material or functional properties (property dualism) or they are literally non-physical objects (substance or agent dualism)''. The last chapter discussing the practice of Artificial Intelligence is the easiest to accept. Everybody working in this area with good intentions can accept these conclusions and the third objective from above. This book and the whole series will cause a lot of discussions, and this will make the book very interesting. It is not easy to read, it requires good knowledge of the Theory of Computing, from all kinds of Logics and also from the history of Artificial Intelligence. Some of the arguments are too passionate, they are crossing the borders of the frame the authors themselves emphasize at many places -- the practicability of the ideas or the value for real applications. One example should be sufficient (The Argument from Irreversibility, Objection 8, p. 233): ``The sequence of moves in any chess game is reversible: there exists a sequence which consists in exactly the same positions on the board but in opposite order \dots the reverse sequence of positions is not a legal chess game''. This syntactical view of a chess game is then objected by a special position on a board on an inhabited planet that is blown together by wind! I wonder what follows from gedanken-experiments like this? I find it much more interesting to discuss, for instance, the problem: what are we (human beings) doing with computer decisions that cannot be understood, that cannot be checked by human beings and that might be better than human knowledge and human decisions? Just computer chess moves very fast in this direction, it might already be there. A very interesting book that can be recommended to everybody who is interested in the relation between human mind and computer intelligence.