Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett’s The Mind’s I is now available for free online. It’s essentially a huge collection of interesting articles and thought-experiments, from all viewpoints, on theory/philosophy of mind, with H&D’s materialist/computationalist commentary. A pleasure to read.
I’ve read Dennet’s Consciousness Explained, which covers similar territory, but more in answers mode than questions mode. Aside from the extensive review of the cognitive science of the era (which I assume has held up?) most of the arguments as such shouldn’t be news to anyone who’s read the zombie sequence, but the devil’s in the details, and the details have really affected my meta-meta-cognition. But what really made it enjoyable was that I read Peter Watt’s Blindsight thereafter.
Any other science/science fiction co-recommendations?
Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett’s The Mind’s I is now available for free online. It’s essentially a huge collection of interesting articles and thought-experiments, from all viewpoints, on theory/philosophy of mind, with H&D’s materialist/computationalist commentary. A pleasure to read.
I’ve read Dennet’s Consciousness Explained, which covers similar territory, but more in answers mode than questions mode. Aside from the extensive review of the cognitive science of the era (which I assume has held up?) most of the arguments as such shouldn’t be news to anyone who’s read the zombie sequence, but the devil’s in the details, and the details have really affected my meta-meta-cognition. But what really made it enjoyable was that I read Peter Watt’s Blindsight thereafter.
Any other science/science fiction co-recommendations?
This is a lovely book. What a shame that Blogspot sort of munges the formatting. It’s worth buying.
This book is awesome. My favorites are the following chapters:
“Where Am I?”
http://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-13-where-am-i.html
“An Epistemological Nightmare”
http://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-25-epistemological-nightmare.html
It’s a shame that Blogspot mangles the formatting a little bit.