| How to Build a Mind: Toward Machines with Imagination Contributor(s): Aleksander, Igor (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 0231120133 ISBN-13: 9780231120135 Publisher: Columbia University Press OUR PRICE: $31.68 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: November 2003 Annotation: "One of the pioneers of neural computers that borrow heavily on the brain's design" (NEW SCIENTIST) unravels the debate on replicating human consciousness |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Science | Philosophy & Social Aspects - Computers | Intelligence (ai) & Semantics |
| Dewey: 006.3 |
| LCCN: 2001017431 |
| Series: Maps of the Mind |
| Physical Information: 0.66" H x 5.99" W x 8.93" (0.83 lbs) 205 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Igor Aleksander heads a major British team that has applied engineering principles to the understanding of the human brain and has built several pioneering machines, culminating in MAGNUS, which he calls a machine with imagination. When he asks it (in words) to produce an image of a banana that is blue with red spots, the image appears on the screen in seconds. The idea of such an apparently imaginative, even conscious machine seems heretical and its advocates are often accused of sensationalism, arrogance, or philosophical ignorance. Part of the problem, according to Aleksander, is that consciousness remains ill-defined. Interweaving anecdotes from his own life and research with imagined dialogues between historical figures--including Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein, Francis Crick, and Steven Pinker--Aleksander leads readers toward an understanding of consciousness. He shows not only how the latest work with artificial neural systems suggests that an artificial form of consciousness is possible but also that its design would clarify many of the puzzles surrounding the murky concept of consciousness itself. The book also looks at the presentation of "self" in robots, the learning of language, and the nature of emotion, will, instinct, and feelings. |