The Tides of Mind: Uncovering the Spectrum of Consciousness

Those in a state of panic induced by books and articles about the possibility of a “singularity” in which artificial intelligence triumphs over the human race will find comfort in this quite reasonable and decidedly human study of the mind. Gelernter (America-Lite), a professor of computer science at Yale, argues that the current trend in philosophy toward “computationalism” ignores basic, glaringly obvious truths about the difference between brain and mind. For example, he asserts that human intellect and selfhood are not merely the product of the conscious mind. He explores the “spectrum” of thought experienced over the course of a day: the creative haze encountered upon first waking, the focused and rational thoughts of our most productive hours, the daydreaming we engage in while drowsy, the involuntary free association of near-sleep, and finally the opaque and mysterious realm of dreams and the unconscious. The author contends that the “down-spectrum” realms of dreams and fantasies, which are controlled by emotion and memory, allow for the creative thinking that will always separate humans from machines. Quotes about the mind from Proust, Pynchon, Shakespeare, and other literary giants provide welcome reassurance that we’ve still got something on the robots. [em]Agent: Glen Hartley and Lynn Chu, Writers’ Representatives. (Feb.) [/em]