Infinity and the Mind: The Science and Philosophy of the Infinite[1] is a popular mathematics book by American mathematician, computer scientist, and science fiction writer Rudy Rucker.[2]
Synopsis
The book contains accessible popular expositions on the mathematical theory of infinity, and a number of related topics. These include Gödel's incompleteness theorems and their relationship to concepts of artificial intelligence and the human mind, as well as the conceivability of some unconventional cosmological models. The material is approached from a variety of viewpoints, some more conventionally mathematical and others being nearly mystical. There is a brief account of the author's personal contact with Kurt Gödel.
An appendix contains one of the few popular expositions on set theory research on what are known as "strong axioms of infinity."
Reception
Dave Langford reviewed Infinity and the Mind for White Dwarf #41, and stated that "a must for anyone who enjoyed Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach or the works of Martin Gardner."[3]
Infinity and the Mind was reviewed by the New Yorker, which asserted that "Rudy Rucker's Infinity and the Mind is a terrific study with real mathematical depth." Martin Gardner described the book as "Informal, amusing, witty, profound... In an extraordinary burst of creative energy, Rudy Rucker has managed to bring together every aspect of mathematical infinity.... A dizzying glimpse into that boundless region of blinding light where the mysteries of transcendence shatter the clarity of logic, set theory, proof theory, and contemporary physics."
Marketing
The dust jacket of the original (Birkhäuser) edition had a picture of a star over a mountain and appeared to be a religious or mystical work. Subsequent paperback reprintings had covers suggesting that the publishers wished to appeal to a "new age" market. The most recent editions, from Princeton University Press, have very austere covers suggesting an academic work.
References
Rucker, Rudy (1982). Infinity and the Mind: The Science and Philosophy of the Infinite. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-00172-2.
"Infinity and the Mind The Science and Philosophy of the Infinite". Princeton University Press. Retrieved 29 October 2018.
Langford, Dave (May 1983). "Critical Mass". White Dwarf. Games Workshop (Issue 41): 13.
External links
Infinity and the Mind at Princeton University Press
Works of Rudy Rucker
Novels
The Ware Tetralogy
Software (1982) Wetware (1988) Freeware (1997) Realware (2000)
Transreal novels
White Light (1980) Spacetime Donuts (1981) The Sex Sphere (1983) The Secret of Life (1985) The Hacker and the Ants (1994) (Revised 'Version 2.0' 2003) Saucer Wisdom (1999) novel marketed as non-fiction The Big Aha (2013)
Other Novels
Master of Space and Time (1984) The Hollow Earth (1990) Spaceland (2002) As Above, So Below: A Novel of Peter Bruegel (2002) Frek and the Elixir (2004) Mathematicians in Love (2006) Postsingular (2007) Hylozoic (2009) Jim and the Flims (2011) Turing and Burroughs (2012) Return to the Hollow Earth (2018) Million Mile Road Trip (2019)
Short fiction collections
The Fifty-Seventh Franz Kafka (1983) Transreal!, also includes some non-fiction essays (1991) Gnarl! (2000), complete short stories Mad Professor (2006) Complete Stories (2012) Transreal Cyberpunk, with Bruce Sterling (2016)
Non-fiction
As author
Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension (1977) Infinity and the Mind (1982) The Fourth Dimension: Toward a Geometry of Higher Reality (1984) Mind Tools (1987) All the Visions (1991), Seek! (1999) Software Engineering and Computer Games (2002) The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul: What Gnarly Computation Taught Me about Ultimate Reality, the Meaning of Life, and how to be Happy (2005) Nested Scrolls (2011) Collected Essays (2012) Journals 1990-2014 (2015)
As editor
Speculations on the Fourth Dimension: Selected Writings of Charles H. Hinton (1980) Mathenauts: Tales of Mathematical Wonder (1987) Semiotext(e) SF (1989)
Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics
Graduate Studies in Mathematics
Hellenica World - Scientific Library
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