Kurzweil - How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed

THE SECRET OF HUMAN
THOUGHT REVEALED

RAY KURZWEIL

VIKING

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North 2193, South Africa Penguin China, B7 Jaiming Center, 27 East Third Ring Road North, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in 2012 by Viking Penguin,

a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Copyright Ray Kurzweil, 2012

All rights reserved

Red by Amoo Oluseun. Used by permission of the author.

The pictures pretty bleak, gentlemen from The Far Side by Gary Larson (November 7, 1985). Used by permission of Creators Syndicate.

Illustration credits

Page 10: Created by Wolfgang Beyer (Creative Commons AttributionShare Alike 3.0 License). 21: Photo by Timeline (Creative Commons AttributionShare Alike 3.0 License). 84 (two figures): From The Geometric Structure of the Brain Fiber Pathways, by Van J. Wedeen, Douglas L. Rosene, Ruopene Wang, Guangping Dai, Farzad Mortazavi, Patric Hagmann, Jon H. Kaas, and Wen-Yih I. Tseng, Science, March 30, 2012. Reprinted with permission of AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science). 85: Photo provided by Yeatesh (Creative Commons AttributionShare Alike 3.0 License). 134 (two): Images by Marvin Minsky. Used by permission of Marvin Minsky. Some credits appear adjacent to the respective images. Other images designed by Ray Kurzweil, illustrated by Laksman Frank.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kurzweil, Ray.

How to create a mind : the secret of human thought revealed / Ray Kurzweil.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-1-101-60110-5

1. BrainLocalization of functions. 2. Self-consciousness (Awareness) 3. Artificial intelligence. I. Title.

QP385.K87 2012

612.82dc23 2012027185

Printed in the United States of America

Set in Minion Pro with DIN

Designed by Daniel Lagin

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

To Leo Oscar Kurzweil. You are entering an extraordinary world.

Id like to express my gratitude to my wife, Sonya, for her loving patience through the vicissitudes of the creative process;

To my children, Ethan and Amy; my daughter-in-law, Rebecca; my sister, Enid; and my new grandson, Leo, for their love and inspiration;

To my mother, Hannah, for supporting my early ideas and inventions, which gave me the freedom to experiment at a young age, and for keeping my father alive during his long illness;

To my longtime editor at Viking, Rick Kot, for his leadership, steady and insightful guidance, and expert editing;

To Loretta Barrett, my literary agent for twenty years, for her astute and enthusiastic guidance;

To Aaron Kleiner, my long-term business partner, for his devoted collaboration for the past forty years;

To Amara Angelica for her devoted and exceptional research support;

To Sarah Black for her outstanding research insights and ideas;

To Laksman Frank for his excellent illustrations;

To Sarah Reed for her enthusiastic organizational support;

To Nanda Barker-Hook for her expert organization of my public events on this and other topics;

To Amy Kurzweil for her guidance on the craft of writing;

To Cindy Mason for her research support and ideas on AI and the mind-body connection;

To Dileep George for his discerning ideas and insightful discussions by e-mail and otherwise;

To Martine Rothblatt for her dedication to all of the technologies I discuss in the book and for our collaborations in developing technologies in these areas;

To the KurzweilAI.net team, who provided significant research and logistical support for this project, including Aaron Kleiner, Amara Angelica, Bob Beal, Casey Beal, Celia Black-Brooks, Cindy Mason, Denise Scutellaro, Joan Walsh, Giulio Prisco, Ken Linde, Laksman Frank, Maria Ellis, Nanda Barker-Hook, Sandi Dube, Sarah Black, Sarah Brangan, and Sarah Reed;