Infinity and the Mind

Infinity and the Mind

Author: Rudy Rucker

Publisher: Bantam Books

Published: 1983-01-01

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 5885010897

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The book contains popular expositions (accessible to readers with no more than a high school mathematics background) on the mathematical theory of infinity, and a number of related topics. These include G?del's incompleteness theorems and their relationship to concepts of artificial intelligence and the human mind, as well as the conceivability of some unconventional cosmological models. The material is approached from a variety of viewpoints, some more conventionally mathematical and others being nearly mystical. There is a brief account of the author's personal contact with Kurt G?del.An appendix contains one of the few popular expositions on set theory research on what are known as "strong axioms of infinity."


Satan, Cantor, And Infinity And Other Mind-bogglin

Satan, Cantor, And Infinity And Other Mind-bogglin

Author: Raymond M. Smullyan

Publisher: Knopf

Published: 2012-05-30

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0307819825

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More than two hundred new and challenging logic puzzles—the simplest brainteaser to the most complex paradoxes in contemporary mathematical thinking—from our topmost puzzlemaster (“the most entertaining logician who ever lived,” Martin Gardner has called him). Our guide to the puzzles is the Sorcerer, who resides on the Island of Knights and Knaves, where knights always tell the truth and knaves always lie, and he introduces us to the amazing magic—logic—that enables to discover which inhabitants are which. Then, in a picaresque adventure in logic, he takes us to the planet Og, to the Island of Partial Silence, and to a land where metallic robots wearing strings of capital letters are noisily duplicating and dismantling themselves and others. The reader’s job is to figure out how it all works. Finally, we accompany the Sorcerer on an alluring tour of Infinity which includes George Cantor’s amazing mathematical insights. The tour (and the book) ends with Satan devising a diabolical puzzle for one of Cantor’s prize students—who outwits him! In sum: a devilish magician’s cornucopia of puzzles—a delight for every age and level of ability.


Infinite Mind

Infinite Mind

Author: Valerie V Hunt

Publisher:

Published: 2023-05-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781635617436

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Understand the science behind vibrations of human consciousness, based on the acclaimed work of Valerie Hunt and her pioneering experiments in bioenergy, physiology medicine, electronic field research, and human extrasensory capacities.


Mind Tools

Mind Tools

Author: Rudy Rucker

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 2013-11-21

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0486492281

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Originally published: Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.


Sleight of Mind

Sleight of Mind

Author: Matt Cook

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-08-03

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0262542293

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This “fun, brain-twisting book . . . will make you think” as it explores more than 75 paradoxes in mathematics, philosophy, physics, and the social sciences (Sean Carroll, New York Times–bestselling author of Something Deeply Hidden). Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician’s purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat. Yet paradox doesn’t require tangibles, like rabbits or hats. Paradox works in the abstract, with words and concepts and symbols, to create the illusion of contradiction. There are no contradictions in reality, but there can appear to be. In Sleight of Mind, Matt Cook and a few collaborators dive deeply into more than 75 paradoxes in mathematics, physics, philosophy, and the social sciences. As each paradox is discussed and resolved, Cook helps readers discover the meaning of knowledge and the proper formation of concepts—and how reason can dispel the illusion of contradiction. The journey begins with “a most ingenious paradox” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance. Readers will then travel from Ancient Greece to cutting-edge laboratories, encounter infinity and its different sizes, and discover mathematical impossibilities inherent in elections. They will tackle conundrums in probability, induction, geometry, and game theory; perform “supertasks”; build apparent perpetual motion machines; meet twins living in different millennia; explore the strange quantum world—and much more.


Infinity and Me

Infinity and Me

Author: Kate Hosford

Publisher: Carolrhoda Books ®

Published: 2013-11-01

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 1467737917

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When I looked up, I shivered. How many stars were in the sky? A million? A billion? Maybe the number was as big as infinity. I started to feel very, very small. How could I even think about something as big as infinity? Uma can't help feeling small when she peers up at the night sky. She begins to wonder about infinity. Is infinity a number that grows forever? Is it an endless racetrack? Could infinity be in an ice cream cone? Uma soon finds that the ways to think about this big idea may just be . . . infinite.


The Beginning of Infinity

The Beginning of Infinity

Author: David Deutsch

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2011-03-31

Total Pages: 571

ISBN-13: 0141969695

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'Science has never had an advocate quite like David Deutsch ... A computational physicist on a par with his touchstones Alan Turing and Richard Feynman, and a philosopher in the line of his greatest hero, Karl Popper. His arguments are so clear that to read him is to experience the thrill of the highest level of discourse available on this planet and to understand it' Peter Forbes, Independent In our search for truth, how far have we advanced? This uniquely human quest for good explanations has driven amazing improvements in everything from scientific understanding and technology to politics, moral values and human welfare. But will progress end, either in catastrophe or completion - or will it continue infinitely? In this profound and seminal book, David Deutsch explores the furthest reaches of our current understanding, taking in the Infinity Hotel, supernovae and the nature of optimism, to instill in all of us a wonder at what we have achieved - and the fact that this is only the beginning of humanity's infinite possibility. 'This is Deutsch at his most ambitious, seeking to understand the implications of our scientific explanations of the world ... I enthusiastically recommend this rich, wide-ranging and elegantly written exposition of the unique insights of one of our most original intellectuals' Michael Berry, Times Higher Education Supplement 'Bold ... profound ... provocative and persuasive' Economist 'David Deutsch may well go down in history as one of the great scientists of our age' Scotsman


Infinity and the Brain

Infinity and the Brain

Author: Glenn G. Dudley

Publisher: Paragon House Publishers

Published: 2002-08-21

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13:

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Infinity and the Brain proposes a logical and scientific way to resolve the paradox of mind and matter -- by explaining how the perception of a finite image is dependent upon the contrasting infinitude of God. The theory holds that awareness is equal to a tension between existence and nonexistence, such that the self is illuminated to itself (becomes conscious) to the exact measure that it anticipates the infinitude of its own nonexistence. This "anticipation" is actually a "tendency toward" a loss of structure in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, a process that is restrained by effort and the consequent wholesness of an image. An understanding of how effort is linked to an image and how both are dependent upon neural systems inseparable from "infinity anticipation" sets the stage for a new worldview -- in which mind is seen as dependent upon the immanence of an infinite God. And because "mind" can be defined by the presence of an image which intrinsically restrains disorder, we see by extrapolation that the entire universe must be fundamentally personal, not objective as currently viewed by modern science. Book jacket.


Metaphysics of Infinity

Metaphysics of Infinity

Author: Ion Soteropoulos

Publisher: University Press of America

Published: 2013-11-26

Total Pages: 121

ISBN-13: 0761861475

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Since the time of the Greek philosopher Zeno (fifth century BCE), our faculty of analytic understanding has failed to comprehend motion through the ages. The reason is the paradox or contradiction associated with motion. One fundamental contradiction is the conflict between the finite body and the infinite divisibility of the unit distance ab. Indeed, how is it possible to move from a to b if we must first pass through an infinite series of sub-distances in one instant? How can we traverse an unlimited series—a series without limit—yet reach its limit? Because the heart of the problem is the conflict between the finite and the infinite, its solution depends on reconciling this contradiction and transforming this reconciliation into the founding principle of motion. Having accomplished these two things, this work investigates the sweeping consequences they have regarding the geometric form of the physical universe, the Aristotelian ontology of the physical body, the nature of our finite brain, the finite analytic paradigm of empirical science and the meaning of our technological acceleration. This book will appeal to a wide range of readers with interests in the logical mechanics of the physical universe, the hidden powers of our finite brain, and the utility of robots in the future. Although some of the presentation requires the understanding of elementary mathematical equations, the argument is conducted at the deepest level: that of principles. This approach enables readers to follow the book’s reasoning without technical training on the subject.