[ont.events] SUNY Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science: Penrose

rapaport@adara.cs.Buffalo.EDU (William J. Rapaport) (04/09/90)

                         UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO
                      STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

                      CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE

                                PRESENTS


                             ROGER PENROSE
                  Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics
                           Oxford University
              Visiting Distinguished Professor of Physics
                          Syracuse University

This talk will be based on Penrose's book, _The Emperor's New Mind_.

For decades, the proponents of artificial intelligence have argued  that
computers  will  soon  be  doing  everything  that  a human mind can do.
Admittedly, computers now play chess at the grandmaster  level,  but  do
they  understand  the game as we do?  Will a computer eventually be able
to do everything a human mind can do?

In his book, Penrose - eminent physicist and winner, with Stephen  Hawk-
ing,  of  the  prestigious Wolf prize - puts forward his view that there
are some facets of human thinking  that  can  never  be  emulated  by  a
machine.   Although the book ranges widely over relativity theory, quan-
tum mechanics, and cosmology, its central concern is  what  philosophers
call  the  ``mind-body  problem.''   Penrose  examines  what physics and
mathematics can tell us about how the mind works, what they  can't,  and
what  we need to know to understand the physical processes of conscious-
ness.  In particular, he argues that there is an important  gap  in  our
knowledge  at the place where classical and quantum physics meet.  He is
among a growing number of physicists who  think  Einstein  wasn't  being
stubborn  when  he  said  his  ``little  finger''  told him that quantum
mechanics is incomplete, and he concludes that  laws  even  deeper  than
quantum mechanics are essential for the operation of a mind.  To support
this contention, Penrose's book covers such topics as  complex  numbers,
Turing  machines,  complexity theory, quantum mechanics, Godel undecida-
bility, phase space, Hilbert space, black holes,  white  holes,  Hawking
radiation,  entropy,  quasicrystals,  the  structure  of  the brain, and
scores of other subjects.

                        Monday, April 16, 1990
                             4:00 - 6:00 pm
                                Knox 109
			     Amherst Campus

For further information, contact Dawn Styres, Secretary, UB Center for
Cognitive Science, 716-636-2694, styres@cs.buffalo.edu