The Book of Minds: Understanding Ourselves and Other Beings, From Animals to Aliens Paperback – 22 Jun. 2023

I found it very powerful, I felt there were many things I felt about minds and free will were put into words skilfully, a complex read if you ignore the very beginning which I found a bit clumsy- the section talks about Oliver Sacks etc ) and not representative of the actual body of book, nonetheless an outstanding and inspiring

It's fitting that this book on the nature of minds should be written by the most cerebral of the UK's professional science writers, Philip Ball. Like the uncertainty attached to the related concept of consciousness, exactly what a mind is, and what makes it a mind, is very difficult to pin down. Ball takes us effectively through some of the difficult definitions and unpacking involved to understand at least what researchers mean by 'mind', even if their work doesn't not necessarily enlighten us much.A lot of the book is taken up with animals and to what extent they can be said to have minds. Ball bases his picture of a mind on a phrase that is reminiscent of Nagel's famous paper on being a bat. According to Ball, an organism can be said to have a mind if there is something that is what it is like to be that organism. (You may need to read that a couple of times.) At one end of the spectrum - apes, cetaceans, dogs, for instance - it's hard to believe that there are no minds involved, though few would probably argue that, say, a bacterium has one (some do).A mechanism Ball uses is to consider 'Mindspace' - a conceptual multidimensional space with axes corresponding to the different factors that seem to go together to make up the idea of 'mind' - things like experience (meaning depth of feelings, rather than life encounters), agency (the ability to do things and exercise control while doing so), intelligence (whatever that means) and consciousness (ditto). It's an interesting approach, though ideally we need more than the page's two dimensions at a time - and even deciding where different entities fit in this space seems to involve a lot of guesswork. There's even a position given by some for dead people and God.Unexpectedly, for me, the two most interesting parts of the book were not about the more predictable subject of animal minds, but rather about the potential for artificial intelligence and aliens to have minds. As Ball points out, it's almost impossible not to keep coming back to an anthropomorphic understanding - when, for instance, we think of the mind of an alien, it's very difficult not to give it a nature that is like what it feels like to be human, because our whole concept of 'mindedness' is based (inevitably) on human experience.I enjoyed this book, and, as is always the case with Ball's writing, it stimulated me to think more about the topic. Even so, I found the book a touch over-long. This isn't helped by the sheer quantity of ideas about minds and their nature that seems to be unsupported by any good scientific evidence. At one point, Ball writes 'some researchers believe...' and this seemed to me to highlight the problem. Much of the discussion of minds isn't really science, but philosophy. It's what people believe to be the case (often holding wildly conflicting views) and there seems to be little chance for evidence to ever untangle the reality.If we come down to the tag line of the book 'how to understand ourselves and other beings' (I'm aware the author doesn't always write this), it's a bit of a fail - a more accurate description would be 'how to understand that it's pretty much impossible to understand ourselves and other beings.' Despite this (and a couple of references to HAL 2000, which I can only assume was the younger cousin of the HAL 9000 computer in 2001, A Space Odyssey), this is a worthwhile and interesting book, particularly where Ball does go beyond animal minds to explore the more exotic possibilities.

When I first read Immanuel Kant, I was most struck with his reasoned conclusion that we could not perceive and understand the world if not for the fact that our minds were created in such a way as to perceive our reality in certain categories. When I read Stanislau Lem, I came away realizing that the way in which we divide up the world in our thinking may be unique to humans and, should we meet aliens from other worlds someday, it may well be that they perceive, act, and think very differently from us, so differently, that we may have no way of understanding each other.In Philip Ball’s wonderful book, The Book of Minds, I found a convincing argument that even among our fellow inhabitants of our planet, it’s not likely that we know how other species think or perceive, and, as we increasingly produce more and more powerful artificial intelligences, it may also be true that we will not know how they think. Now, all these things are important considerations for someone such as me, who writes science fiction, particularly science fiction that includes both artificial intelligences and aliens from other worlds. But, although I purchased and began reading Ball’s book hoping to gain ideas for my novels, I soon became entranced by the subject matter itself and the questions it raised.Ball uses a concept that he calls “mindedness,” which is basically what it’s like to be something as a way of defining mind, i.e., “For an entity to have a mind, there must be something that it is like to be that entity.” It is mind, he says, that hosts an experience of some sort. Entities can possess different degrees of mindedness. Is mindedness the same as consciousness? He says not, but instead suggests that “mindedness is a disposition of cognitive systems that can potentially give rise to states of consciousness.”Ball’s definitions are less important than his examples. When he begins to examine how other creatures differ from humans, he finds that they have different sensitivities, different innate cognitive systems, than we do. Sea creatures, those that fly, and night creatures, live in different worlds than we do, because they have different minds. Ball proposes that it doesn’t make sense to evaluate other creatures’ minds in terms of how they match up to human minds. Concepts of human intelligence don’t apply to creatures that can exceed human abilities to navigate by landmarks of smell or color or by magnetic directions, or by bouncing sound off objects. They are too different. Ball shows that our standard view of other creatures as beings that are locked into rigid programmed interactions with their environment underestimates the flexibility of, for instance, bees, who have remarkable direction-finding skills that allow them to alter their method of finding their way back to the hive, based on circumstances. Other creatures, such as corals, sea anemones, and jellyfish, possess “nerve nets” that propagate sensory signals from one part of them to another, so that they experience an “overall sensation, a unified internal representation of the organism’s situation.” These are not human-like skills or experiences, and Ball opts to create what he calls a “mindspace.” Rather than a scale on which to compare minds across the same traits or measures, he recommends locating different skills and abilities and properties in a sort of matrix in which each of them represents an axis. Humans might rank low or even nonexistent on using magnetic poles for orientation, or feeling integrated, unlocalized sensory experiences, while being high on extrapolating from one experience to another.Ball cautions us not to assume that we are born into the world possessing a high-powered learning machine for a brain but one that is otherwise blank of knowledge. Evolution has been kinder to us than that. Just like other creatures, we have a lot built-in. He cites the work of Harvard psychologist, Elizabeth Spelke, showing that humans possess, at birth, a set of “core knowledge” systems, each of which work independently of one another and which allow us to process experience in a way that enhances our adaptiveness. Spelke has identified systems that allow us to conceptualize objects, to understand distance and orientation, to think in terms of number and quantity, to understand causality and see things in action-agent sequences, and to see others as agents with intentions and goals. These and other to-yet-be-identified innate cognitive systems have much to do with how our human minds experience the world, and to what extent other creatures have similar systems and experience the world similarly to us is an open question.The innate characteristics of our mindedness, which shape how we learn, how we remember, and how we think, are extremely important, but they are qualities that those who create artificial intelligences have mostly ignored. Designers of AI have, at best, equipped their devices with just one or two of these traits, such as the ability to learn by reinforcement, or to scan edges of objects, but otherwise have devised AIs that are tabula rosas. Perhaps the field has an aversion to returning to the era of “expert systems,” in which their AI systems were loaded with both data and algorithms that were thought to match what human experts used to solve problems or make decisions. Since such data were highly situation-specific, it was hard to advance from such a system to an all-purpose AI that could learn across content areas. But the knowledge built into human minds is not high-level details it is basic ways to think about the sensory data being received and the kinds of motor outputs it provokes. The neural interactions behind it might be complex, but the way it affects the mind is simple, making it ready to support learning in a variety of situations. With humans, unlike most AIs, the cognitive processes we use were designed to work within human bodies and they are intimately tied to our bilateral sensory and motor systems, and, since we left the trees, our upright posture and locomotion, not to mention our sexual reproduction and group living situation. Ball cites neuroscientist Antonio Damasio’s observation that, “If the representations of the world that a mind produces were not designed for an organism in a body (and specifically this type of body) ... the mind would surely be different from ours.”Ball does address the question of whether AIs can have minds, and if so, what they might be like. After initial attempts to define both thinking and computation in terms of computational symbol manipulation and programming computers to think like humans, which was wrong at least on the human side, the field turned to teaching computers to learn and then providing them with tons of information and asking them to use that information and learning ability to create responses. The results have been impressive, especially in areas such as natural language learning, and image identification, but, at least to date, even the most successful systems don’t seem to exhibit the kind of “common sense” that would indicate that they know what they’re doing, as opposed to operating, well, mindlessly. But what did we expect, that creating a computer that could mimic human responses without being specifically taught how to do it would produce a wise mind as well? As Ball points out, the human mind just has too much information pre-loaded into it and it works along pathways that themselves were shaped by evolution. Its final goal is to enhance the survivability of its possessor. That has not been true of AIs, except in science fiction (e.g., my science fiction). A final note is that, currently, some of those designing AI, such as DARPA (the villain in Ezekiel’s Brain), in their “project common sense” are employing child psychologists, because, Ball quotes psychologist Tomer Ullman as saying, “The questions people are asking in child development are very much those people are asking in AI. What is the state of knowledge that we start with, how do we get more, what’s the learning algorithm?”So far, AIs don’t possess human-like minds, but do they possess their own types of minds? And, if not, will they some day? Could they? Ball is not sure about this. He says, “we may be best advised to grant them a kind of provisional mindedness.” He recommends studying what AIs do and how they do it (although this is sometimes obscure), in what he calls a “behavioral science of machines.” A main reason we need this is that, as we ask machines to do more and more, it could be dangerous to not know how we can expect them to act. Something on which Ball and I agree, is that, if machines are ever to become conscious (I think they will, and he is more dubious), we would need to program in the consciousness. It would not arise spontaneously on its own as an emergent property. That would mean identifying what the elements of consciousness are, at least as it exists in humans. In both I, Carlos and Ezekiel’s Brain I have identified some elements of consciousness, such as structuring experiences that involve the self in agent-action terms and embedding it in a goal-oriented narrative, plus some kind of feedback mechanism that creates the experience of observing one’s own thoughts, sensations, and actions within this narrative. As Ball points out, no one is attempting to do this at the moment.Finally, we have the case of aliens from space. Ball takes the topic seriously enough to devote a chapter to it. He first points out that most science fiction stories create aliens who., regardless of their physical characteristics, behave and think like humans. Even our scientific projects, such as SETI and the old Project Blue Book assumed that aliens would want to communicate to other races on other planets and that they would develop advanced versions of similar technology to ours. In fact, there is no reason to believe either of these is true, but if either is not, it will make our task more difficult unless we establish an ability to visit other star systems.For the sake of simplicity Ball takes for granted that “the laws of physics and chemistry are universal.” He also assumes that “Darwinian evolution by natural selection is the only viable way for complex organisms to arise from simple origins,” so whatever alien organisms are like, they will have been shaped to adapt to their environment. There may also be constraints to how far such adaptation can go. Flying creatures may need wings and sea creatures must have streamlined bodies that allow them to swim. On Earth, convergent evolution produced similar adaptations across different species, e.g., fish, whales and dolphins have similar bodies; eyes developed similarly across several species that have little else in common. This is because there are a limited number of solutions to certain environmental problems. But, as Ball points out, this is all speculation. Lamarckian evolution that passes on adaptations that are made within the lifetime of an organism are not impossible, Environments on alien planets may differ much more than we have seen on Earth. What about planets whose entire surfaces are water. Would fish learn to communicate at least as much as whales and dolphins? Could a species exist only in the atmosphere? We have no idea, really, and, if Earth’s environment and our need to adapt to it is what shaped our minds, then alien minds might be very different from ours, indeed.The Book of Minds, contains a great deal of food for thought, and is filled with interesting facts across a wide range of disciplines (biology, psychology, computer science). I was amazed how much an author can know about different subjects. The writing is lively and contains a fair amount of humor. Some areas of philosophy I thought were too brief and superficial to be useful (what is free will, for instance), but otherwise it is a fascinating book and one that gave me some humility regarding identifying the human mind as something special and a model for all other successful minds. That’s not the case. I came away with my interest in the minds of AIs, (if their minds exist) and the minds of aliens (if aliens exist) renewed and heightened. I think it will enhance my science fiction writing.

I found this book to be a fascinating exploration of our notions of minds, consciousness, awareness and similar concepts. It is non dogmatic and doesn't push unsubstantuated claims of having ready answers to the many puzzles we have about minds. It also contains interesting reflections on the possibilities of different types of minds that may evolve on other worlds and some wise reflections on the possibilities of artificially altering how mental processes function through biological manipulations.One small annoyance in the book is Ball's occasional use of Thomas Nagel's phrase "something it is like to be". This is a highly ambiguous phrase often used (but not by Nagel) to avoid having to accurately describe and delineate what is meant by the experiences, senses and mental processes of living beings. With that one small caveat, this book is highly recommended to this interested in consciouness and how mental processes may work.

Philip Ball is unusual in the depth to which he's able to explore ambiguous topics, in this case Mind and Consciousness.There are a lot of books on this subject, however most of them tend to take either a religious fervor of "consciousness as soul" or a hardline scientific "it's all just particles and physics". This one hones in more on the truly-emergent aspect, and explores what the space of possible minds is.It's a lot to take in, a book you have to read slowly (like his others), but definitely worth it. One might find themselves on a topic such as this hoping to learn the meaning of life. A book cannot answer that. But what I found was lots of insightful perspectives on how and why Mind evolved, as well as a satisfying exploration of what other minds might feel like.A very unique book by a uniquely insightful author.

This book is not for everyone. However, since I have enjoyed Phillip Ball's other books and articles on science (particularly quantum mechanics, which he handled very well), I eagerly dove in and finished this recent offering of his. I, too, am intrigued by artificial intelligence (AI) and have a working background in machine learning as applied to signal processing, as well as a general interest in human cognition and ultimately what we call consciousness, so was naturally enticed to read this book (that was not-coincidentally brought to my attention by Amazon's ever pushy and annoying AI algorithms). Ball does a fairly credible job in grappling with a mystifying topic that is – pun intended – nowadays on everyone’s mind. But, spoiler alert, after some 500 pages, the reader is left with no firm finale or conclusion. Rather, this book is more like a dream where you are travelling with bizarre twists and turns to various unknown destinations, with all sorts of digressions and anxieties, only to wake up and realize it was only a dream (as is obviously what Ball experienced in doing the background work for this book). Kind of fun, but in the end, and even appreciating some of Ball’s lighthearted wit involved, one may not feel satisfied. And this conclusion, that I was forming while reading, was actually confirmed in his Acknowledgements! I offer the following criticisms, understanding fully that Ball had to draw some boundaries on this seemingly boundless topic, and on some technical points he missed.First, Ball fails to mention the ‘Cognitive Revolution’, the phenomenon where humans apparently evolved to imagine and believe things that aren’t true around 70,000 years ago. In his book ‘Sapiens’ Yuval Harari declares that this ability to collectively believe in (and rally around) the same ideas, stories, rules, and goals enabled Sapiens to cooperate on a much wider scale than any other species on Earth. This is a key concept related to mindedness is a huge error of omission, particularly when looking across different animals on the planet, particularly as Ball did note cognitive similarities with other primates – and perhaps within our own Homo sapiens lineage. However, to Ball’s credit, he does recognize the Default Mode Network that likely offers insights into to the neurological mechanism for our ability to consider that which is not otherwise previously recognized.And speaking of ignoring Harari, in his most recent book ‘Homo Deus’, Yuval Harari, convincingly envisions a future in which technology replaces human ideals and liberal government. Examining the concepts of religion, immortality, and technology, Harari argues that the world of the future very likely be run by advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence, not human beings. This omission might be in fact an example of the anti-machine prejudices Ball himself describes!Second, Ball somehow diverged into considering the mindedness of extraterrestrial beings. Way off track, and had I been the editor, it would not have made the final cut. Especially since there is plenty of material on this topic here on planet earth. But I may be biased as I lean more to the view opined by James Lovelock that we are alone (see his recent and last book ‘Novacene’). Lovelock convincingly concludes that the argument for the possibility of extraterrestrial beings hinges on the huge numbers of cosmic objects is misleading. Insightfully, Lovelock observes that “It took the blindly groping process of evolution through natural selection 3.7 billion years – almost a third of the age of the cosmos – to evolve an understanding organism from the first primitive life forms. Furthermore, had the evolution of the solar system taken a billion years longer, there would be no one alive to talk about it. We would not have had time to attain the technological ability to cope with the increasing heat of the Sun. Seen from this perspective, it is clear that, ancient as it is, our cosmos is simply not old enough for the staggeringly improbable chain of events required to produce intelligent life to have occurred more than once. Our existence is a freakish one-off.” I see our inability to either accept or even grasp this likelihood as a clear function of what I described above: our cognitive ability to make stuff up and make others believe it.I noted another omission: the lack of research in use of psychedelics in probing our Mindspace. With the preponderance of micro dosing in today’s society, this pharmacological practice has clear relevance into exploring the Space of Possible Minds just within any particular person, let alone in our collective.Ball dropped the ball regarding epigenetics. Not a major topic in the book, but let’s simply say the genome is nothing without epigenetics. On the contrary, it is all about epigenetics and Darwinian fitness is much more completely understood by responses to the environment by gene expression that is driven by epigenetics. I would actually encourage Ball to really delve into epigenetics for his next project!And there is Ball’s mention of a ‘Ford Pontiac’ car (page 454)! Readers from the US would immediately recognize this as an obvious mistake and impossible collaboration by two rival automakers. Perhaps, as Ball is from the UK, he meant Ford Prefect (which would have offered a jocular nod to Douglas Adam’s fictional character who did learn to communicate and cognate with extraterrestrial beings).Finally, I do agree that Ball bit off a lot and as he admits in the Acknowledgements that the topic is better served by an encyclopedia than a book. Now he tells us readers that! My suggestion is that perhaps a better ending to this book would have been to quote Plato's account of the Greek philosopher Socrates statement " ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat.”

The author starts out, first sentence, by mentioning Oliver Sacks, seemed promising. Then it went nowhere, Lots of this fellow said this, that fellow said that, with no depth but olts of playful wordiology. I think it was the lack of depth which most disappointed me. He says something like "The aborigine mind cannot comprehend our 21 century ways of living." OK, but he never gets into why he thinks so. Definitely a waste of money. Going to the neighborhood book house.