Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • The Emperor's New Mind

  • Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics
  • By: Roger Penrose
  • Narrated by: Julian Elfer
  • Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
  • 3.7 out of 5 stars (42 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Thousands of incredible audiobooks and podcasts to take wherever you go.
Immerse yourself in a world of storytelling with the Plus Catalogue - unlimited listening to thousands of select audiobooks, podcasts and Audible Originals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Emperor's New Mind

By: Roger Penrose
Narrated by: Julian Elfer
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Buy Now for £17.99

Buy Now for £17.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

For decades, 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? Can a computer eventually do everything a human mind can do?

In this absorbing and frequently contentious book, Roger Penrose puts forward his view that there are some facets of human thinking that can never be emulated by a machine. The book's 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 consciousness. 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 takes the listener on a dazzling tour that covers such topics as complex numbers, Turing machines, complexity theory, quantum mechanics, formal systems, Godel undecidability, phase spaces, Hilbert spaces, black holes, white holes, Hawking radiation, entropy, quasicrystals, and the structure of the brain.

©1989 Oxford University Press; Preface copyright 1999, 2016 by Roger Penrose (P)2019 Tantor
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Existential Physics cover art
What Is Life? cover art
I Am a Strange Loop cover art
The Fabric of Reality cover art
Our Mathematical Universe cover art
The Big Picture cover art
Something Deeply Hidden cover art
Superintelligence cover art
The Holographic Universe cover art
Lost in Math cover art
In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat cover art
The Greatest Story Ever Told - So Far cover art
The Selfish Gene cover art
In Search of Divine Reality cover art
The Syntellect Hypothesis cover art
Signposts to God cover art

What listeners say about The Emperor's New Mind

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    18
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    7
  • 2 Stars
    6
  • 1 Stars
    4
Performance
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    18
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    7
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    19
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    3

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Bender from Futurama on 100-hour repeat

This is a great book, but a terrible audio book. I don't know if the narrator is to blame for being mathematically incompetent, or if he was not allowed to read anything but strict verbatim, but anything having to do with equations is read in the worst way possible! This is not limited to the long dronings on to list Turing machine states, but begins almost at the very beginning, when the narrator reads "G(P)" - an expression that anyone even remotely competent in mathematics would have read as "G of P" - this expression, the narrator reads as "G open parenthesis P close parenthesis". And it goes downhill from there.

So the whole exercise of listening to this book, if I am to compare (and I really feel I should!), feels like listening to one of those 100-hour repeat videos on YouTube, this time of Bender from Futurama reading his serial number.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

zero zero zero zero zero one one

If there were a system of the performer not having to read half a page of binary code, I am very sure I could have enjoyed listening to this interesting subject.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Informed and concise

Clear and correct, but be patient with algorithms/diagrams being read out, they don't matter much.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Wonderful reading of a boring book

You need to know and enjoy math to get much out of the earlier chapters, and enjoy listening to very long strings of numbers and formulae. the later, more discursive chapters have great insights and items of interest, but the central theme of the Platonic world is not convincing or well elaborated for the lay person. The narration is marvelous, lovely voice tone, incredibly clear and precise, great pronunciation- could read the phone book and make it enjoyable!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

One zero one zero one zero right arrow

Great read in general, but the algorithm/functions/mathematics stuff is a car crash in audio!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Book That I Have Barley Understood

Great book, but I have barley understood anything. Seems to me that my professor is in the same boat as me ⛵ in regard to this book. That's why this man has a Noble Prize.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Virtually unlistenable

Although the broad outline of this book is interesting, if a little out of date, it soon becomes a pointless exercise to try to listen to endless lists of binary numbers and symbols. It probably reads fine in paper but discontinued work as an audiobook.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

0110111011100011100111100010111-wtf

the audio book should not have listed out the binary. this ruined the listening experience for me.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Too many equations!

Please buy the book rather than the audiobook. The audiobook is full of mathematics that is impossible to follow.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Worst audiobook, I’ve ever listened to

As an audiobook, it’s terrible listening to binary code for what seems an endless amount of time, ruined the whole experience of a great book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!