The Large, the Small and the Human Mind

Roger Penrose, Abner Shimony, Nancy Cartwright, Stephen Hawking

Cambridge University Press, Apr 28, 2000 - Mathematics - 201 pages

Roger Penrose's views on the large-scale physics of the Universe, the small-scale world of quantum physics and the physics of the mind are controversial and widely discussed. This book is a fascinating and accessible summary of Roger Penrose's current thinking on those areas of physics in which he feels there are major unresolved problems. It is also a stimulating introduction to the radically new concepts which he believes will be fruitful in understanding the workings of the brain and the nature of the human mind.

Contents

• Spacetime and Cosmology: vii
• The Mysteries of Quantum Physics: 34
• Physics and the Mind: 77
• On Mentality Quantum Mechanics and the Actualization of Potentialities: 128
• Why Physics?: 145
• The Objections of an Unashamed Reductionist: 153
• Roger Penrose Responds: 157
• Goodsteins Theorem and Mathematical Thinking: 170

About the author

Stephen William Hawking was born in Oxford, England on January 8, 1942. He received a first class honors degree in natural science from Oxford University and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. He was a theoretical physicist and has held the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University from 1982 until his death. In 1974, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the world's oldest scientific organization. In 1963, he learned he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neuromuscular wasting disease also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The disease confined him to a wheelchair and reduced his bodily control to the flexing of a finger and voluntary eye movements, but left his mental faculties untouched. He became a leader in exploring gravity and the properties of black holes. He wrote numerous books including A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, Black Holes and Baby Universes, On the Shoulders of Giants, A Briefer History of Time, The Universe in a Nutshell, The Grand Design, and Brief Answers to the Big Questions. In 1982, he was named a commander of the British Empire. A film about his life, The Theory of Everything, was released in 2014 and was based on his first wife Jane Hawking's book Traveling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen. He died on March 14, 2018 at the age of 76.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Large, the Small and the Human Mind; Canto (Cambridge University Press); Canto (Cambridge, London); Canto Series; Knjižnica Canto
• Authors: Roger Penrose, Abner Shimony, Nancy Cartwright, Stephen Hawking
• Editor: Malcolm Longair
• Contributors: Abner Shimony, Nancy Cartwright, Stephen Hawking
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2000
• ISBN: 0521785723, 9780521785723
• Length: 201 pages
• Subjects: Mathematics / Logic; Psychology / Cognitive Psychology & Cognition; Science / Life Sciences / Human Anatomy & Physiology; Science / Physics / General; Science / Physics / Quantum Theory