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Author: Eric B. Baum
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262025485
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 506
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Book Description
Toward a computational explanation of thought: an argument that underlying mind is a complex but compact program that corresponds to the underlying complex structure of the world.
Author: Eric B. Baum
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262025485
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 506
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Book Description
Toward a computational explanation of thought: an argument that underlying mind is a complex but compact program that corresponds to the underlying complex structure of the world.
Author: Tim Bayne
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191642533
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 145
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Book Description
There is no denying that thinking comes naturally to human beings. But what are thoughts? How is thought realized in the brain? Does thinking occur in public or is it a purely private affair? Do young children and non-human animals think? Is human thought the same everywhere, or are there culturally specific modes of thought? What is the relationship between thought and language? What kind of responsibility do we have for our thoughts? In this compelling Very Short Introduction, Tim Bayne looks at the nature of thought. Beginning with questions about what thought is and what distinguishes it from other kinds of mental states, he goes on to examine various interpretations of thought from philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and anthropology. By exploring the logical structures of thought and the relationship between thought and other mental phenomena, as well as the mechanisms that make thought possible and the cultural variations that may exist in our thought processes, Bayne looks at what we know - and don't know - about our great capacity for thought. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Author: Dr. Thomas Stark
Publisher: Magus Books
ISBN:
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 247
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Book Description
What connects your thoughts to the world? If your thoughts are not connected to the world, how can you understand the world? How can you bridge the gulf between thought and non-thought? If you don't understand what your own thoughts are, and what they are made of, how can you understand reality, and what reality is made of? The universe is literally made of language - a single, ubiquitous language, which is exactly why every part can communicate with every other part. To express it in other terms, the universe is an intelligence, made of thought, constantly thinking in terms of its intrinsic language. Have you guessed what the language is? It's an eternal, absolute, infallible, immutable, ubiquitous, perfect language. This book reveals exactly how the whole of reality can be constructed from this language, the language of thought itself.
Author: Krishnagopal Dharani
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0128011610
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
The question of "what is thought" has intrigued society for ages, yet it is still a puzzle how the human brain can produce a myriad of thoughts and can store seemingly endless memories. All we know is that sensations received from the outside world imprint some sort of molecular signatures in neurons – or perhaps synapses – for future retrieval. What are these molecular signatures, and how are they made? How are thoughts generated and stored in neurons? The Biology of Thought explores these issues and proposes a new molecular model that sheds light on the basis of human thought. Step-by-step it describes a new hypothesis for how thought is produced at the micro-level in the brain – right at the neuron. Despite its many advances, the neurobiology field lacks a comprehensive explanation of the fundamental aspects of thought generation at the neuron level, and its relation to intelligence and memory. Derived from existing research in the field, this book attempts to lay biological foundations for this phenomenon through a novel mechanism termed the "Molecular-Grid Model" that may explain how biological electrochemical events occurring at the neuron interact to generate thoughts. The proposed molecular model is a testable hypothesis that hopes to change the way we understand critical brain function, and provides a starting point for major advances in this field that will be of interest to neuroscientists the world over. Written to provide a comprehensive coverage of the electro-chemical events that occur at the neuron and how they interact to generate thought Provides physiology-based chapters (functional anatomy, neuron physiology, memory) and the molecular mechanisms that may shape thought Contains a thorough description of the process by which neurons convert external stimuli to primary thoughts
Author: National Academy of Sciences
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309045290
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 195
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Book Description
The brain ... There is no other part of the human anatomy that is so intriguing. How does it develop and function and why does it sometimes, tragically, degenerate? The answers are complex. In Discovering the Brain, science writer Sandra Ackerman cuts through the complexity to bring this vital topic to the public. The 1990s were declared the "Decade of the Brain" by former President Bush, and the neuroscience community responded with a host of new investigations and conferences. Discovering the Brain is based on the Institute of Medicine conference, Decade of the Brain: Frontiers in Neuroscience and Brain Research. Discovering the Brain is a "field guide" to the brainâ€"an easy-to-read discussion of the brain's physical structure and where functions such as language and music appreciation lie. Ackerman examines: How electrical and chemical signals are conveyed in the brain. The mechanisms by which we see, hear, think, and pay attentionâ€"and how a "gut feeling" actually originates in the brain. Learning and memory retention, including parallels to computer memory and what they might tell us about our own mental capacity. Development of the brain throughout the life span, with a look at the aging brain. Ackerman provides an enlightening chapter on the connection between the brain's physical condition and various mental disorders and notes what progress can realistically be made toward the prevention and treatment of stroke and other ailments. Finally, she explores the potential for major advances during the "Decade of the Brain," with a look at medical imaging techniquesâ€"what various technologies can and cannot tell usâ€"and how the public and private sectors can contribute to continued advances in neuroscience. This highly readable volume will provide the public and policymakersâ€"and many scientists as wellâ€"with a helpful guide to understanding the many discoveries that are sure to be announced throughout the "Decade of the Brain."
Author: Steven Pinker
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101202602
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 522
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Book Description
This New York Times bestseller is an exciting and fearless investigation of language from the author of Rationality, The Better Angels of Our Nature and The Sense of Style and Enlightenment Now. "Curious, inventive, fearless, naughty." --The New York Times Book Review Bestselling author Steven Pinker possesses that rare combination of scientific aptitude and verbal eloquence that enables him to provide lucid explanations of deep and powerful ideas. His previous books - including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Blank Slate - have catapulted him into the limelight as one of today's most important popular science writers. In The Stuff of Thought, Pinker presents a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. Considering scientific questions with examples from everyday life, The Stuff of Thought is a brilliantly crafted and highly readable work that will appeal to fans of everything from The Selfish Gene and Blink to Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
Author: David McNeill
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226561348
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 432
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Book Description
A research subject is shown a cartoon like the 1950 Canary Row--a classic Sylvester and Tweedy Bird caper that features Sylvester climbing up a downspout, swallowing a bowling ball and slamming into a brick wall. After watching the cartoon, the subject is videotaped recounting the story from memory to a listener who has not seen the cartoon. Painstaking analysis of the videotapes revealed that although the research subjects--children as well as adults, some neurologically impaired--represented a wide variety of linguistic groupings, the gestures of people speaking English and a half dozen other languages manifest the same principles. Relying on data from more than ten years of research, McNeill shows that gestures do not simply form a part of what is said and meant but have an impact on thought itself.
Author: Rachel Held Evans
Publisher: Convergent Books
ISBN: 0593193318
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 42
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Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The late, beloved Rachel Held Evans answers many children's first question about God in this gorgeous picture book, fully realized by her friend Matthew Paul Turner, the bestselling author of When God Made You. Children who are introduced to God, through attending church or having loved ones who speak about God, often have a lot of questions, including this ever-popular one: What is God like? The late Rachel Held Evans loved the Bible and loved showing God’s love through the words and pictures found in that ancient text. Through these pictures from the Bible, children see that God is like a shepherd, God is like a star, God is like a gardener, God is like the wind, and more. God is a comforter and support. And whenever a child is unsure, What Is God Like? encourages young hearts to “think about what makes you feel safe, what makes you feel loved, and what makes you feel brave. That's what God is like.”
Author: Philip Ball
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226822044
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 513
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Book Description
Popular science writer Philip Ball explores a range of sciences to map our answers to a huge, philosophically rich question: How do we even begin to think about minds that are not human? Sciences from zoology to astrobiology, computer science to neuroscience, are seeking to understand minds in their own distinct disciplinary realms. Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where to find them—including in plants, aliens, and God—Philip Ball pulls the pieces together to explore what sorts of minds we might expect to find in the universe. In so doing, he offers for the first time a unified way of thinking about what minds are and what they can do, by locating them in what he calls the “space of possible minds.” By identifying and mapping out properties of mind without prioritizing the human, Ball sheds new light on a host of fascinating questions: What moral rights should we afford animals, and can we understand their thoughts? Should we worry that AI is going to take over society? If there are intelligent aliens out there, how could we communicate with them? Should we? Understanding the space of possible minds also reveals ways of making advances in understanding some of the most challenging questions in contemporary science: What is thought? What is consciousness? And what (if anything) is free will? Informed by conversations with leading researchers, Ball’s brilliant survey of current views about the nature and existence of minds is more mind-expanding than we could imagine. In this fascinating panorama of other minds, we come to better know our own.
Author: A. Stern
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 9780080540139
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 600
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Book Description
Making Sense of Inner Sense 'Terra cognita' is terra incognita. It is difficult to find someone not taken abackand fascinated by the incomprehensible but indisputable fact: there are material systems which are aware of themselves. Consciousness is self-cognizing code. During homo sapiens's relentness and often frustrated search for self-understanding various theories of consciousness have been and continue to be proposed. However, it remains unclear whether and at what level the problems of consciousness and intelligent thought can be resolved. Science's greatest challenge is to answer the fundamental question: what precisely does a cognitive state amount to in physical terms? Albert Einstein insisted that the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple and can be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone. When one thinks about the complexities which present themselves in modern physics and even more so in the physics of life, one may wonder whether Einstein really meant what he said. Are we to consider the fundamental problem of the mind, whose understanding seems to lie outside the limits of the mind, to be essentially simple too? Knowledge is neither automatic nor universally deductive. Great new ideas are typically counterintuitive and outrageous, and connecting them by simple logical steps to existing knowledge is often a hard undertaking. The notion of a tensor was needed to provide the general theory of relativity; the notion of entropy had to be developed before we could get full insight into the laws of thermodynamics; the notice of information bit is crucial for communication theory, just as the concept of a Turing machine is instrumental in the deep understanding of a computer. To understand something, consciousness must reach an adequate intellectual level, even more so in order to understand itself. Reality is full of unending mysteries, the true explanation of which requires very technical knowledge, often involving notions not given directly to intuition. Even though the entire content and the results of this study are contained in the eight pages of the mathematical abstract, it would be unrealistic and impractical to suggest that anyone can gain full insight into the theory that presented here after just reading abstract. In our quest for knowledge we are exploring the remotest areas of the macrocosm and probing the invisible particles of the microcosm, from tiny neutrinos and strange quarks to black holes and the Big Bang. But the greatest mystery is very close to home: the greatest mystery is human consciousness. The question before us is whether the logical brain has evolved to a conceptual level where it is able to understand itself.
