800 Literature
Casti, John L. The Cambridge Quintet: A Work of Scientific Speculation. (Illus.) Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Longman, 1998. xiv+184pp. $23.00. 98-11757. ISBN 0-201-32828-3.
GA ++
Reviewing books can sometimes be a pedestrian duty. But every once in a while, the reviewer is presented with a gem—a "good read," as some would say. The Cambridge Quintet, by John Casti, is just such a book. Although careful to point out that his volume "is a work of fiction, a part of an emerging genre [called] scientific fiction," Casti weaves an engaging tale around five seminal thinkers of the 20th century as they gather to debate the question, Could a machine ever be made to think like a human being? (p. xi)
The setting for the discussion is a dinner party at Christ's College, Cambridge, in the year 1949. To tackle the issue, the host, Charles Percy Snow (whom many readers will know from his provocative 1959 lecture "The Scientific Revolution and the Two Cultures"), has invited perhaps the most distinguished and freethinking scholars of "artificial intelligence" of that period. (Anomalously, the brilliant Princeton theorist John von Neumann is not invited.) Alan Turing, the Manchester University mathematician who helped pioneer the development of computing machines, holds center stage throughout the book as he introduces, and then is forced to defend, his (now well-known) criterion for determining whether a machine is intelligent. Snow's other guests include physicist Erwin Schrodinger, a pioneer in the development of quantum mechanics, who is portrayed as a kind of friendly devil's advocate, constantly challenging Turing (especially) and the other discussants to clarify their positions, while adding penetrating insights of his own. (Of note is his recapitulation of the Veda.) Playing the role of "expert" on biological systems, population geneticist J. B. S. Haldane is characterized as a sort of prototypical bourgeois Oxonian (even though he is a Marxist), but comes into his own during the lively discussion of social behavior, culture, and thought. Lastly, there is the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, champion of a philosophy which holds that language and behavior cannot be understood by logic alone (rather, they are social constructions), who is cast as the skeptic when it comes to the issue of a machine ever attaining personhood.
Throughout the narrative, Snow is allocated the unenviable task of keeping his guests on the subject, mainly by timely summations of the points under discussion, but which he nevertheless accomplishes with considerable aplomb. Casti has chosen his discussants well, for they are thinkers accustomed to cutting to the heart of the matter. Beginning with the fundamentals of how computers represent and manipulate symbols, the dialogue quickly turns to the origin and meaning of language and consciousness and, finally, to the relation between mind and culture. And although Casti closes the story with little more than a scant mention of "further readings" on the subject, in the end, what one takes away from this wonderful little book is an appetite to do so. Strongly recommended for a general audience, The Cambridge Quintet could prove useful as supplemental reading in a philosophy or computer science course, and definitely in any course on science—and now scientific—fiction.—Patrick A. Catt, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
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