The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul

Brilliant, shattering, mind-jolting, The Mind’s I is a searching, probing cosmic journey of the mind that goes deeply into the problem of self and self-consciousness as anything written in our time. From verbalizing chimpanzees to scientific speculations involving machines with souls, from the mesmerizing, maze-like fiction of Borges to the tantalizing, dreamlike fiction of Lem and Princess Ineffable, her circuits glowing read and gold, The Mind’s I opens the mind to the Black Box of fantasy, to the windfalls of reflection, to new dimensions of exciting possibilities.

“Ever since David Hume declared in the 18th century that the Self is only a heap of perceptions, the poor Ego has been in a shaky conditions indeed…Mind and consciousness becomes dispensable items in our accounts of reality, ghosts in the bodily machine…Yet there are indications here and there that the tide may be tuming…and the appearance of The Mind’s I, edited by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett, seems a welcome sign of change.” William Barrett, The New York Times Book Review