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

348 Pages·2012·4.18 MB·English

by  Ray Kurzweil

More Praise for How to Create a Mind

“This book is a Rosetta stone for the mystery of human thought. Even more
remarkably, it is a blueprint for creating artificial consciousness that is as
persuasive and emotional as our own. Kurzweil deals with the subject of
consciousness better than anyone from Blackmore to Dennett. His
persuasive thought experiment is of Einstein quality: It forces recognition
of the truth.”
—Martine Rothblatt, chairman and CEO, United Therapeutics; creator
of Sirius XM Satellite Radio

“Kurzweil’s book is a shining example of his prodigious ability to
synthesize ideas from disparate domains and explain them to readers in
simple, elegant language. Just as Chanute’s Progress in Flying Machines
ushered in the era of aviation over a century ago, this book is the harbinger
of the coming revolution in artificial intelligence that will fulfill Kurzweil’s
own prophecies about it.”
—Dileep George, AI scientist; pioneer of hierarchical models of the
neocortex; cofounder of Numenta and Vicarious Systems

“Ray Kurzweil’s understanding of the brain and artificial intelligence will
dramatically impact every aspect of our lives, every industry on Earth, and
how we think about our future. If you care about any of these, read this
book!”
—Peter H. Diamandis, chairman and CEO, X PRIZE; executive
chairman, Singularity University; author of the New York Times
bestseller Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think

HOW TO CREATE A MIND
ALSO BY RAY KURZWEIL
Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever
(with Terry Grossman) The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend
Biology
Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever
(with Terry Grossman) The Age of Spiritual Machines:
When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life
The Age of Intelligent Machines
HOW TO
CREATE
A
MIND
THE SECRET OF HUMAN
THOUGHT REVEALED
RAY KURZWEIL

VIKING
VIKING
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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 picture’s 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 Attribution–Share Alike 3.0 License). 21:
Photo by Timeline (Creative Commons Attribution–Share 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 Attribution–Share 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. Brain—Localization of functions. 2. Self-consciousness (Awareness) 3. Artificial intelligence. I. Title.
QP385.K87 2012
612.8’2—dc23 2012027185
Printed in the United States of America Set in Minion Pro with DIN
Designed by Daniel Lagin
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ALWAYS LEARNING PEARSON
To Leo Oscar Kurzweil. You are entering an extraordinary world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’d 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; To the dedicated team at Viking Penguin for all
of their thoughtful expertise, including Clare Ferraro (president), Carolyn
Coleburn (director of publicity), Yen Cheong and Langan Kingsley (publicists),
Nancy Sheppard (director of marketing), Bruce Giffords (production editor),
Kyle Davis (editorial assistant), Fabiana Van Arsdell (production director),