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140 reviews for:
The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind
Michio Kaku
3.9 AVERAGE
140 reviews for:
The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind
Michio Kaku
3.9 AVERAGE
A few months ago, my curious question was simple: are thoughts tangible?
And hence, my quest to understand neuroscience started. Michio Kaku's book 'The Future of The Mind' explains more than what I was looking for: it goes on to explain the logic of whatever happened in your favourite science fictions - the science behind telekinesis, telepathy, and even interstellar travel through consciousness projected via laser beams. Yes, they're all possible.
Michio Kaku, though very elaborate in his explanation, did very well in using well-known science fiction as examples. He's referenced X-Men, Planet of the Apes, Surrogates, Matrix, Star Wars, Star Trek, Avatar and other cool shit, and that stands for something as well - a theoretical physicist are just as cool as you are.
I'm now wondering why didn't I pick neuroscience as my major. The human brain is bloody amazing.
And hence, my quest to understand neuroscience started. Michio Kaku's book 'The Future of The Mind' explains more than what I was looking for: it goes on to explain the logic of whatever happened in your favourite science fictions - the science behind telekinesis, telepathy, and even interstellar travel through consciousness projected via laser beams. Yes, they're all possible.
Michio Kaku, though very elaborate in his explanation, did very well in using well-known science fiction as examples. He's referenced X-Men, Planet of the Apes, Surrogates, Matrix, Star Wars, Star Trek, Avatar and other cool shit, and that stands for something as well - a theoretical physicist are just as cool as you are.
I'm now wondering why didn't I pick neuroscience as my major. The human brain is bloody amazing.
informative
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
Kaku does a great job making complex ideas clear to the lay reader. His introductory chapters do a great job explaining the basics of brain structures and processes. I enjoyed the book very much, but as I worked through each chapter, the detail became overwhelming and the conjecture became less interesting. I probably should have decided that this book was going to take me a lot longer to read than I imagined. I am interested in age-related changes to the brain. This had some information about that and diseases common to older adults. However, it was very far ranging. That can be good, but I found myself skimming the last 3 chapters, looking only for things that interested me a great deal.
I highly recommend it to people with a more general interest in how the brain works (or fails to work) and how cutting-edge research and technologies hold great promise -- and a bit of danger if the power over the mind falls into the wrong hands.
I highly recommend it to people with a more general interest in how the brain works (or fails to work) and how cutting-edge research and technologies hold great promise -- and a bit of danger if the power over the mind falls into the wrong hands.
As a summary of our current understanding of the brain and the directions of future research, this was great. It packed a lot of detail about a lot of different areas — neuroscience, robotics, even extraterrestrial life — into one book and explained a variety of complex concepts in clear, understandable language. However, the author's confidence in his own predictions drove me up the wall. He seemed to hold the basic premise that progress is linear and unstoppable while providing very little evidence to show this as a fundamental truth, and then he hung his hat on that assumption in every chapter. It was like, "Scientists have been able to achieve X [something extremely limited] so therefore we will soon all be able to Y [something straight out of a sci-fi movie]. And since we'll be able to Y, that means eventually we can..." He does a great job explaining the existing technology, and then suddenly takes a huge leap to what he assumes the future of the technology will be, spending little or no time on the obstacles that might prevent the technology from advancing further. So it was fascinating as an exploration of current research, but I think many of his predictions are going to sound laughable 50 years from now.
A fascinating overview of the possibilities of future neuroscience, though at times it does feel like science fiction without much explanation of the current grounding in experimental proof rather than just theory
At moments too scientific; so scientific that it feels philosophical (does that make sense: being so much of something that you becone its antithesis?).
Loved it. :)
Loved it. :)
The invention of the MRI ushered in a new era of brain research that is still ongoing. This book covers the latest research and cutting edge techniques across a wide variety of topics include brain machine interfaces, mental illness, memory, medication, and artificial intelligence. Woven throughout the book is the somewhat unconvincing author's theory of consciousness: an entity that can create a model of the world and simulate its future in it. Unfortunately like many sections of the book, the nitty gritty details and in depth exploration are hand waved around. Of course once we have self replicating robots we can exponentially explore the universe by encoding a human and sending it on a laser beam to reassemble our mind and control a surrogate body on some distant receiving station, since none of that violates the laws of physics. When talking about current research and discoveries the book is very approachable and well written but when looking to the future it suffers from overoptimism ignoring many details.
The intersection of science and science fiction. I enjoyed his information about the science vs the fiction behind SF possibilities.