The Children of Babel

Can machines be intelligent? Yes, that seems settled; but can machines be conscious? That's not nearly as clear. The dream of machines that not only think, but feel and experience consciousness as humans do has been a canvas of fantasists, a goal of technologists and a conundrum to philosophers for decades. Here in this brief collection are discussions covering a number of culturally prominent examples (such as HAL 9000), well-known intellectual arguments (the Chinese Room and Nagel's Bat), and famous expositions of the problem (the Tortoise and Achilles, from Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach). The discussions are nested within the mathematical wonder of pi, and framed in Borges' fantastic Library of Babel - ensuring a reading experience that is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking.