I got interested in philosophy of the mind, and picked this book out at random from a pile of Dennett books. I was a bit surprised, and disappointed, when I realized that it's more a collection of short stories, not a scientific publication. I decided to read it anyways.

Ironically, it turned out to be easily the best collection of short stories I've ever read. There are some good scientific articles in this book, too, but the fiction was really the positive surprise to me.

The articles include legends of the field, such as "What is it like to be a bat", and the original articles on the Turing test, and Searle's Chinese room.

The fiction includes Borges, Lem, and others. I'm not sure if I've read Lem before, but his stories in this collection are really good. In my opinion, though, it's Raymond Smullyan who steals the show.

This was a big influence on me. Good stuff.

Well, at least I don't have to go further to investigate Richard Dawkins silly book, "The Selfish Gene", as it was excerpted in these pages. And, what's more, I finally understand the origins of the meretricious word 'meme', which is frequently used today by society's digital architects, who tend to be witless wonders. Yuck!

Сборник эссе о том, что значит быть разумным, что значит быть человеком, что значит быть конкретным человеком, собой. Составители сборника держат в голове сравнение человека и машины и ищут ответ на вопрос, есть ли в человеке душа или в нем только "колесики и винтики". Сборник выглядит наполненным умом и состраданием к человеческим метаниям -- и через 35 лет после появления это все еще работа, которую стоит читать.

This classic anthology of cognitive science introduces articles and excerpts by some of the last century's most remarkable thinkers. From the intricate prose of J. L. Borges to the groundbreaking article of A. Turing, "The Mind's I" attacks the fundamental mind-body problem from radically different angles. Is the consciousness hardware or software? Where is the sense of "self" located spatially? Is it a feature attributed solely to cellular organic beings, or can it be maintained in other mediums? Do conscious beings really possess free-will, or is it merely an illusion? After all, aren't we humans super-complex biological machines?
Although not a scientific work in any way, "The Mind's I" is designed to constantly amuse the reader with fresh views on the subject. Each piece is followed by the authors' comments under sections called "Reflections". These comments provide valuable insight into, sometimes confusing, chapters they refer to.
My only complaint is that some of the works (e.g "On Having No Head") seemed out of place and not consistent with the rest of the material in the book. But this minor concern does not diminish the value of the book in any way. If you're interested in the subject and are eager for some food for thought, you won't be disappointed.

A tour of a snapshot of cognitive science as it existed in the 1980s, still insightful. Each chapter is an excerpt from another cogsci-related book, the authors post their notes in the reflections section at the end of each chapter. Sometimes they summarize it well, sometimes they completely miss the point.

A fascinating collection of short stories, longer fiction excerpts, dialogues, articles excerpts, philosophical musings, thought experiments and more. The book is divided into 6 parts: 1) A Sense of Self, 2) Soul Searching, 3) From Hardware to Software, 4) Mind as Program, 5) Created Selves and Free Will, 6) The Inner Eye. The authors include Jorge Luis Borges, Stanislaw Lem, Alan Turing, Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Raymond Smullyan, Thomas Nagel, and Robert Nozick, among others. A comprehensive journey including such topics as cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence, quantum physics, psychology and philosophy, mathematics, spirituality and ethics, and beyond. I consider this to be a must-read for anyone interested in understanding one's self and mind.

Among the working assumptions with which we get through the day are those that tell us we have a self, that its decisions are or at least can be freely willed rather than determined, that our intelligence as employed in language transcends what a machine can do, and that these qualities and processes are somehow connected with, embodied in, our physical being, mainly our brain. Philosophers have been questioning these assumptions for some time and proposing answers to the conundrums they provoke. The three words which are the first thing (often the only thing) most of us associate with Descartes, "cogito, ergo sum," were the result of this; after wondering whether his entire mental experience might be an elaborate hoax created by a demon, he concluded, to oversimplify, that because he was able to think he must exist--there must be something doing the thinking. He was neither the first nor the last to wonder about such things.

Numerous recent pieces of fiction and nonfiction examining these issues are contained in this book. I've learned since reading it that the ideas discussed, and in many cases the actual texts, are seen as groundbreaking, essential works in their field. A sampling of its contents:

• The brains-in-vats idea that was employed, in slightly different form, in the movie The Matrix.

• A fable-like version of the reality-is-a-dream idea, dramatized by Jorge Luis Borges in "The Circular Ruins." (Incidentally, a similar treatment, relying on virtual reality rather than dreams, is used by the movie The Thirteenth Floor).

• A tale of simulated consciousnesses, which also manages to question the nature and existence of God, told by Stanislaw Lem in "Non Serviam." Personally, this was the most astounding piece in the book and was, as they say, worth the price of admission all by itself.

• John Searle's challenge to the notion that a machine intelligence can ever understand anything, encapsulated in his translator-in-a-box concept.

• Thomas Nagel's speculation on the nature of consciousness in "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"

• Richard Dawkins's exposition of the idea of memes--surely you've heard of them by now--in an excerpt from his book The Selfish Gene.

The entire book seems to be available online, though in a less-than-ideal format. Taste it there if you want, but if you're like me you'll prefer to curl up with a real book; there's no e-reader form.

A very interesting set of essays, but I feel the book is slightly dated. I think the authors are a bit too enthusiastic about artificial intelligence being the answer to all of our questions about selfhood and consciousness. Obviously as this was written in the 20th century the possibilities of computing were more exciting than they are now, but given that this is meant to be a book about exploring what it means to be conscious, I would have enjoyed more essays about what it means for *humans* to be conscious rather than machines.

I am however glad that the editors were thoughtful enough to include essays that countered their point of view (there are two essays which basically state that machines can never be conscious and the question is fundamentally a silly one), which does pardon the editors' slight obsession with artificial intelligence.

In some cases the "reflections" were more interesting than the essays themselves, which also gives real credit to the editors.

An interesting book. It's a collection of writings on consciousness. It includes snippets of science fiction, philosophy, computer science and metaphysics (and that's not all). The selections are arranged in a cohesive way to round out the questions of what "I" means. After each section there are comments by Dennett and Hofstadter, who are both brilliant. My favorites were Turing's Imitation Game and rereading a section from Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, which was a mind-blowing book. Like a lot of good books, it raises as many questions as it answers. Should the mind be viewed in a reductionist way or holistically or is there dualism (soul and brain are different)? What is it like to be a bat? If we had a machine that interpreted animals "thoughts" into human language would that change our view of them? Is God a Taoist? Etc...

I found this a decent exploration of the concept of the mind. Having already read the more singly-focused GEB / I am a Strange Loop, this came across as a more scattershot collection from a wide range of authors on the concept of the self / mind / brain / consciousness / personal identity. I enjoyed that, although perhaps would have appreciated reading this more a few years ago when the ideas would have been more novel to me. Both DCD and DRH ascribe to a substrate-independent conception of the mind (which I'm fully on board with). A general theme of the book is the attempt to reconcile the bottom-up "reductionist" deterministic view of mind as caused by matter following physical law, and the top-down "causal" view of the mind. Takeaways:

1. Need to read more Borges short stories.
2. While I didn't expect to find anything new with the brain-in-the-vat style thought experiments, Arnold Zuboff's "The Story of a Brain" was a great reductio ad absurdum and raised some interesting questions.
3. Dawkins' "story of life" excerpt from The Selfish Gene is an inspired piece of exegetical scientific writing, going from the earliest replicator molecules to more complex cellular life. I forgot how good RD is that.
4. What is it like to be a bat? - Not convinced DCD/DRH adequately fought off Nagel here.
5. Searle's Chinese room argument is utterly unconvincing and DCD/DRH take him to task, and I agree Searle is confusing levels. However Searle raised one interesting point about the computational model of the mind, albeit tangentially, about how with a sufficiently complex decoding algorithm, one can interpret any output as that of an intelligent agent.
6. DCD/DRH unfairly dismiss both solipsism and panpsychism as incredible without any real attempt to show why. This is probably due to their own metaphysical commitments, however I'd argue these are all just different linguistic conventions which place different conceptual emphases on different components/levels and could be useful conventions to explore.

Came for the philosophy, stayed for the literature.

Every selection and piece of commentary featured in this book I would roughly place in one of two categories: (1) those that raise questions or (2) those that attempt to answer or offer refutations to other answers to those questions.
Most of the short stories, articles, and book excerpts included in the volume in addition to a good portion of the commentary by the editors fall into the former category and raise fascinating questions and dilemmas about the mind, (sense of) self, and the nature of consciousness being faced with and musing on which was a charming experience.
Much of what falls into the latter category (a few selections and some of the commentary) however I found unconvincing at best and incomprehensible at worst.