The Future of the Mind
The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind.
By Michio Kaku
I purchased a copy of The Future of the Mind two-ish years ago for a couple of reasons. It was about the mind, a favourite topic of mine, and its author was Michio Kaku. I had seen Kaku hosting science shows on TV and had always been impressed with his ability to clearly explain complex issues. Yes, I know that people on TV work from scripts and that the descriptions he was relating might not have been his own, but he still had left a positive impression on me. So I bought his book, and The Future of the Mind proved to be well worth the investment.
Kaku is a theoretical physicist and not a neuroscientist, but nonetheless has a serious interest in the nature of the mind. His being a bit of an outsider to professional brain research might seem like a drawback for a book like this—one that ranges through a wide variety of topics about the characteristics and behaviour of the brain and the mind. However, I think it actually helped. Had he been an insider, he might have taken more shortcuts while explaining the difficult concepts. In Kaku’s case, his explanations were at about exactly the right level for me to understand yet not feel that they had been oversimplified.
The book covers a wide variety of subjects, from describing the structure of the human brain, to contemplating animal and artificial minds, and even wondering about the nature of alien thoughts.
Perhaps my favourite topic in the book was his discussion of consciousness. Consciousness has proven extraordinarily difficult for people to comprehend, even though we all probably experience it. I’ve encountered a number of attempts of people exploring consciousness and offering potential explanations for it. None of them did as well as Kaku in trying to characterize the concept in a way that could be specified and evaluated. He offers what he calls his “space-time theory of consciousness” and even provides a mechanism for specifying an entity’s level of consciousness. That a thermostat’s consciousness could be specified as Level 0:1 and a typical human’s as Level III:100 provides fascinating food for thought.
Another topic Kaku addresses is the manner in which human intelligence is often assessed. He rejects the idea of IQ tests as being a useful measure of intelligence, drawing on others’ opinions that IQ is a much too narrow measure of what leads to a person to solve problems and succeed in life. IQ as a measure of intelligence fails in that it ignores the importance of factors such as motivation, persistence, social skills, and the ability to consider multiple lines of thought while pursuing a solution.
Yup, I loved the book. How could I not? It was full of fascinating information and was written in a very consumable style. I highly recommend it for anyone with an interest in the nature of human (and other) minds.
- Cal Brown