Rating: 
Summary: 'It is obvious that heavier-than-air flight is impossible.'
Review: I will be brief: Penroses writing is mediocre, his drawings obfuscate more than clarify.
The vast majority of the book is devoted to completely and utterly extraneous topics, and seems to largely be a platform for Penroses new quantum theories.
His arguments are unclear, weak and largely dependent on philosphers like Lucas and Searle, while his idea of quantum effects is improbable and surely in the end irrelevant (cannot computers tap into quantum effects?) and his knowledge of computer science deeply, deeply suspect.
For example, I quote here from the final sections which actually have something to do with his ostensible reason for writing the book:
"Neverthless, one still might imagine some kind of natural selection process being effective for producing approximately valid algorithms. Personally, I find this very hard to believe, however."
The entire flourishing, commercially succesful field of evolutionary computing begs to differ here, Mr. Penrose. SUch bonehead errors compells me to point out that this mathematician has no clothes.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't let the non-reader reviews fool you!
Review: There are some DUMB reviewers in here that makes one doubt if they even read the book!
An example: the review titled "The argument is 25 years old and invalid., February 8, 2004" by Jonatan (Norway) claims that the entire book hinges on the argument of Lucas called "Minds, Machines and Goedel" in which Lucas uses Goedel's theorem to disprove strong-AI. Mr. Jonathan, HAVE YOU EVEN READ THE BOOK, BECAUSE THERE ARE COUNTLESS ARGUMENTS AGAINST STRONG-AI THAT YOU HAVEN'T DISCUSSED FROM THE BOOK! Here are some:
1) Searle's Chinese Room: The computer can manipulate language, but can it understand meaning?
2) Platonic argument: The number "2" as understood by a human is NOT a symbol, which is presumably what a computer "understands".
3) Quantum indeterminism: This has been extended by more well-known people recently such as Hameroff.
This is a wonderful book, however it does have its limitations, since it doesn't actually disprove strong-AI, but merely gives several reasons as to why it may not be right.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant !
Review: A wonderful survey of physics, mathematics, philosophy, and the mind. It is a welcome reality check to "Strong AIers" who are for the most part people who have read too much science fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Science, Vision Lacking
Review: Penrose is going after all those who thing that a computer will someday be able to "think" like we do. In other words, he does not believe that - because of some rather esoteric quantum effects - that our electr-organic brain can be replicated by electro-silicate. This does not mean that computers will not be able to mimic, to respond, to act in a way that one has no idea if the person they are talking to is a machine or human. All this is possible, even probable. But Penrose is on a mission to raise human consciousness above machine performance - or rather, to demonstrate that it is of a different kind rather than a different order. My only problem with his analysis is that we simply cannot know what may or may not happen in the future as technologies merge and grow and intertwine. With current technology there is not a chance that a PC will some day "recognize itself". But that is not the question really; everyone knows this. The real question is what does it mean to be human, what is consciousness, and can these characteristics, traits and components be reborn outside of organic matter? Interesting, sometimes difficult read.
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