How to Build a Mind: Toward Machines with Imagination (Maps of the Mind) Book

Of all genres of science book, none has generated so many works whose titles promise so much but which deliver so little as those devoted to consciousness. In recent years, scholars from disciplines from philosophy to neuropharmacology have hit the bestseller lists with books bearing such peremptory titles as Consciousness Explained--despite the fact they do no such thing. Now Igor Aleksander, Professor of Neural Engineering Systems at Imperial College London, has offered his own take on the subject with How to Build a Mind. And with an international reputation for actually building "intelligent" machines rather than idly talking about them, Aleksander would seem ideally qualified to write a book with something new to say on consciousness. Indeed, in the opening chapter he states that he wants to "avoid the yawns and the pointless late-night conversations" the subject usually engenders. Alas, How to Build a Mind is yet another case of too much bun and too little beef. A mishmash of autobiography, historical overview and disjointed opinion, interspersed with imagined conversations with philosophers, it adds very little to the consciousness debate. This is all the more disappointing given that Aleksander has arguably come closer to achieving the goal of his book's title than anyone else through Magnus, a computer program he devised which--in some sense at least--is aware of its existence, its surroundings and shows signs of exercising free will. Readers will find only a lacklustre discussion of this fascinating work in this book, which--perhaps uniquely in this field - radically undersells the author's expertise and achievements. --Robert MatthewsRead More