Pop fears about the AI apocalypse often feature the machine suddenly and inexplicably "coming to life." The "lights go on," and all of a sudden, the machine supposedly feels like us, has a consciousness like us and (therefore) starts to exhibit all of our worst attributes. In particular, it "wants" to live and suddenly "sees" us as a threat. All of this plays on thousands of years of confusion about what it is to be human in the first place. What is it to "feel alive"? What is consciousness? What is "self"? I think that thousands of years of superstition and religious "theology" shed no light at all on this question. If you are one of those who are looking for a detailed treatment of the "soul" as distinct from the body, I wish you good luck. As for me, I see no reason to invent a separate realm of reality to house my mind - even as I admit that it is difficult to say just exactly how a slab of meat be...

Strange Order Of Things This is a hard review to write. In my opinion, Damasio is one of the greats when it comes to figuring out the secrets of "mind". I looked forward to this book. I reserved it from the library and when that was too slow, I bought the book. Damasio's approach is original and profound Sadly this particular book is flawed in so many ways I doubt it will have the impact it deserves.  The biggest problem is the " Fog Factor ". Great stretches of this book would be virtually inaccessible to all but the most determined reader due to run-on sentences, big words and tiresome repetition. It's just abominably written. The issue is compounded by the fact that Damasio seems to lose his thread of thought to ramble on in the final chapters about the sorry state of the world. Damasio is a brilliant brain scientist. As a commentator on world affairs, he has little of interest to offer. This is particularly disappointing since his general theory comes so...