Ask the Author: James Tagg
Answered Questions (6)
James Tagg
I read Roger Penrose's book "The Emperors New Mind" many years ago which argues that humans are not computers but I saw many physics and philosophy books arguing we are not only computers but we live in a deterministic computerised Universe. As Daniel Dennett put it, "If you think you have free will you are delusional, get over it." I felt this must be wrong, but putting all the science together to show an alternative theory ended up taking me more than five years. I hope I've done a passable job but its is definitely a controversial view point.
James Tagg
I came home from work one day and felt compelled to write a book about free will.
James Tagg
Find a bit of time in the day to write some notes about a book you might want to write. Soon you will find you are writing a book. I do my work on the train. The biggest shock is the quantity of reading you are forced to do. Many of the things you want to write about and think you know will prove elusive when you try to commit them to paper so face the fact there is a lot of reading and research ahead. The solid writing part is a small part. My book has over 185 illustration and pictures in it. This prove way more work than I imagined and perhaps I'll write a blog about how to do it right some time.
James Tagg
I'm mainly working on the marketing of "Are the Androids" but I also have a fiction version of the book in the works at the moment. Its a little like Karl Sagan's "Contact" but focussing on AI and just how quickly we will be able to get IBM's Watson to start participating in the world as a being with thoughts and feelings and not just a machine that is good at pub quizzes.
James Tagg
I should admit to being chronically dyslexic. I misspell 10% of the words I write and have terrible trouble seeing errors. (Yes I had to look up the spelling of dyslexia.) I always wanted to be someone who 'has written a book' but I figured my dyslexia would make this impossible and I used to fear writing. It's a really good feeling to have achieved a life time ambition.
James Tagg
There are so many administrative things to do in a book. Getting all the references right. Making sure all the captions are correct and so on. Often I will settle down to tidy up some part of the book and end up writing something creative.
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