Amazon | Do we have free will or just imagine that we do? Do we create our own destinies or are we merely machines? Can we create a brain bigger than our own? To answer these and many other provocative questions, psychiatrist, researcher, and critically acclaimed author Jeffrey Satinover turns to the cutting edge of science and sees a future for and truth about ourselves that are both shocking and profound.

First, Satinover takes us through the fascinating history of neural nets and learning machines, a history driven by battles between some of our country’s greatest minds– from the flamboyant, sometimes vilified Frank Rosenblatt to the formidable, fearless Marvin Minsky. Satinover also explains how we are applying this radical computing to neuroscience in order to create artificial brains. These not only seem to mimic ours but may even surpass them.

Then, in language no less graceful for the heft of his subject, Satinover reveals the third axis of his stunning argument: Quantum physics, the most successful theory in the history of science, allows the brain to embody and amplify the mysterious, absolute freedom that underlies all the physical world.

As a result, Satinover argues persuasively, we are elevated above the mere learning machines modern science assumes us to be. Satinover also makes two predictions: We will soon construct artificial devices as free and aware as we are; and we will likewise soon begin a startling re-evaluation of just who and what we are, of our place in the universe, and, perhaps, even of God.

The world of the quantum brain, long imagined, is finally coming, and Jeffrey Satinover has given us an astonishing preview.