Customer Reviews:
Beyond "Learning Styles".......2007-08-19
One of my favorite and most often returned to books. Goes beyond one's so-called "learning style" to include the strengths of the sensory modalities beyond the one preferred for conscious understanding. Fascinating. Very useful, and part of a growing trend which recognizes individual differences as strengths, not as problems to be fixed. Instead of forcing people apart, this kind of understanding can bring people closer together. Highly recommended.
Also by Dawna Markova and Anne Powell, "How Your Child Is Smart" is helpful for parents, or anyone who wants to give their children the gift of a self-validating start in life. This could make a world of difference in a child's experience of school, not to mention life in general. A must for any teacher.
Brilliant theory, comprehensively written.......2003-07-18
Dr. Markova's learning process ideas have vastly altered the way I view, work with, and relate to others. While acknowledging that people's minds work differently (and beautifully in their respective ways), she has made it clear that no two people are fated to lock horns! This book provides practical tips on building and maintaining a relationship with someone whose learning pattern is different from one's own.
I appreciate her brevity, also. It's a simple theory, though an exceptional one. But Markova doesn't embellish her ideas, slapping wordy technical terms on everything. These concepts speak for themselves. She gives further insight where it's needed, but mostly the reader is allowed to make his/her own interpretations. This is not heavy reading, (easily digestible for a college freshman such as myself!) but enlightening nonetheless.
One of the most profound influences in my life.......1998-07-07
From professional colleagues to the family members who drive me crazy to my spouse, this book has truly changed the way I relate to people. Through gaining an understanding of how people communicate--how we all have our own unique mind--I now understand how I can most effectively listen to others, speak my heart and connect with people on their terms. Most importantly, I understand my own particular quirks and needs (and realize they're not "quirks" but simply how my mind processes, etc.) and I cherish those qualities in myself--and work with them--instead of trying to change them to fit another way of thinking. This book has been instrumental in helping me take charge of the interactions I have in my life, and it has been one of the most profound influences of my adult relationship life.
Stimulating theory of personality type, popularly written........1997-04-19
Based on her work as a hypnotherapist, Markova has extended the idea of three channels of communication -- auditory, visual, and kinesthetic -- by matching them to the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious mind, producing six personality types: A in the conscious, V in the sub, and K in the un, with permutations of those. Well-written, with many examples and anecdotes. Stimulating theory. This book is a rewrite of "The Art of the Possible."
Average customer rating:
- Finally, a book that allows us men to remain men while still pursuing a healthy relationship with women.
- More than dating
- All News is Good News
- a clear, concise start for anyone looking to improve in the dating game.
- READS LIKE A UNIVERSITY THESIS ON MALE/FEMALE DYNAMICS...
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Stumbling Naked in the Dark: Overcoming Mistakes Men Make with Women
Bradley Fenton
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Similar Items:
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Understanding Women: The Definitive Guide to Meeting, Dating and Dumping, if Necessary
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ASIN: 1412012155
Release Date: 2006-07-06 |
Book Description
This revolutionary guide offers an alternative to stumbling blindly, outlining the ideal mindset for confident men and opening a new era in men\'s perception of dating and interacting with women.
Customer Reviews:
Finally, a book that allows us men to remain men while still pursuing a healthy relationship with women........2007-07-31
I read this book over and over again while highlighting and taking notes. In the first chapter I was able to identify with the author, and acknowledge that I was the type of guy to whom he was referring.
If you are like me, and suddenly lose all sense of self once you meet a woman that intrigues you on all levels, you NEED this book. Most of the content is very relevant to day to day dating, and acts as a quick reference guide to almost any situation. I bought this three months into dating a girl I really like and it immediately helped me overcome certain insecurities while allowing me to still be myself and give the girl I'm dating the ability to choose me. It's refreshing! Finally I understand how to be the "real" me in any dating situation, and how to feel confident no matter what the outcome may be.
I wouldn't recommend this book to men who are looking to just get laid, or who view women as objects. This book is for guys like me, who, believe there is something real out there, and are willing to work hard on themselves and take the necessary time to have "it."
More than dating.......2007-06-12
I agree with much in the positive reviews, such as those by The Capitol and Mr. Maslanka. We can all agree that the world of personal relationships offers a vast subject that no one book - or even many - can or will ever cover completely. Furthermore, the tips and tricks change as the culture changes: what's in this book would have been inappropriate in 1900 and may be outdated by 2010 (who knows?) So dating books are a bit like the blind men and the elephant - everyone knows something, no one has the full picture. But this short tome offers an excellent, succinct approach that promotes honest and direct communication with the object(s) of your affections. Each chapter deals with a different dimension of the dating relationship, and offers a clearly defined method for 'managing' it. The approach permits - even encourages - honest self-evaluation, improvement and growth with integrity. That's a lot better than macho methods that retail themselves like dimestore aphrodisiacs. The book could also be read profitably for advice on communication generally - with friends or family or in business. Like other things, it will be an amusing, idle read for those who do not put its lessons into practice. Those who do, however, will be well-positioned to learn interesting, positive things about themselves and how they relate to others.
All News is Good News.......2007-05-13
The more I read thees books the more value they have to business. A client, ceo of a small company, once told me that ,in business, all news is good news---you must know where you stand and the context you are operating in. True in business, and---as Fenton demonstrates---true in dating. Find out at the outset if there is any interest and,if not, move on. One other example. I try lawsuits and when you do, a key is to empower the jury to decide so that their answers come from them, from the bottom up, not imposed by you, from the top down. Fenton uses the "Opening No" technique where he advises that empowering a woman by telling her, upfront, that a "no, I am not interested" is OK. This takes off the pressure(on both her as well as the male) , making room for considered and, yes, ethical decision making.There is other good stuff, boiled down to 127 pages.
a clear, concise start for anyone looking to improve in the dating game........2007-02-20
When I first purchased this book, I was purchasing it for the sheer hell of it as I had bought about 5-6 other books on the wide world of dating. Fenton lies out a clear, concise formula for greater success with women both on the first date and after the first date. This isn't a pickup book though, there are no clever lines or strategies to get to that first date, although you could apply some of the first date techniques to pre-first dates as well. There are no magical spots to meet women here, when to call, etc. However, it is a book that will explain a great deal of misconceptions many guys, including myself, have about women and what buttons to push and not to push for gaining that compatibility factor with any woman. More importantly, this book gives you the right mindset in dealing with the opposite sex. Perhaps, that's more important than many of these "pickup 101" and "where and how to seduce women" books. Because if you don't have the right mindset, you can read the player books all you want, but it won't make a damn bit of difference if you lack confidence and the right frame of mind around women. That being said, the four star rating is largely due to the fact that some scenarios the author envisions, I just can't see happening too often. The wording that Fenton suggests in some scenarios seems a little too wordy and almost without a doubt, forced in some cases. Overall, a solid book and I'd recommend "always talk to strangers" by David Wygant for a solid pair of books on the enormous realm of dating.
READS LIKE A UNIVERSITY THESIS ON MALE/FEMALE DYNAMICS..........2007-01-30
... and obviously a great deal of thought went into the analysis of every aspect of the female psyche during the writing of this book, which ironically represents the biggest problem your average frustrated chump encounters when trying to meet women - overanalyzing something that should be fairly simple if you're a guy with a cool vibe who's got his act together.
Although I haven't written a book on the subject (yet), my belief is that playful flirting - without serious intent and being indifferent as to the outcome - is always the best approach. Just play it cool, keep it light and go with the flow. Do this consistently and you will achieve positive results.
But if your real problem isn't so much meeting women as much as being the guy who always seems to find himself suffering from migraines due to high-maintenance relationships with difficult/demanding women expecting you to supplicate to them (ie: typical North American ballbreakers with entitlement complexes and/or attitude problems), maybe it's time to think outside the box and consider a more global perspective... perhaps finding a kinder, gentler kind of woman with a sweet disposition and nurturing instinct, like an Oriental woman from the Philippines, or a sexy and passionate South American female who can appreciate a man who makes no apologies for being one (hello, Rio de Janeiro) might be the cure for what ails you... if you'll open your mind to the possibilities, there's many other very appealing options out there that you're missing out on.
Book Description
A bestselling collection of brilliant and quirky essays, on subjects ranging from biology to grammar to artificial intelligence, that are unified by one primary concern: the way people perceive and think.
Customer Reviews:
"This sentence is false." So what?!?.......2007-08-02
Before I begin, I want to first point that I gave Douglas Hofstadter's Godel Escher Bach which won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize, five stars.
His observation that the mathematics of Kurt Godel, the art of Maurits Cornelius Escher and the music of Johann Sabastian Bach which are all "shadows cast by the same source" managed to bring Platonic forms to life in a real and engaging way that, quite frankly, Plato himself failed to do.
Hofstadter discussed the liars paradox, perhaps most simply rendered in the expression "This sentence is false." Obviously, the statement can neither be true nor false in that -- if you accept it's falsehood -- it's an accurate statement about itself and alternatively -- if accept it's truthfulness in self description -- the statement belies its self representation. Either way, you're forced to create a third category by which you describe the statement. For mathematician Kurt Godel, that third category was refered to as undecideable.
And in 1931, Godel set the math world on its head with his paper "On formally undecideable propositions 1" ("1" because Godel thought at the time perhaps another paper may be necessary to make his point). The reason why his paper set the math world on its head was because it found that any sufficiently complex Godelian mathematical system would encounter propositions that it could neither prove true or false. Later research showed that Godelian mathematical systems could not even recognize which propositions they would be stymied by.
Because Godel's mathematical point of departure in proving his theorem was a mathematical version of the liars paradox, Hofstadter saw and wrote of similarities to this paradox in the art of M.C. Escher -- which featured such things as two hands drawing each other -- and the music of J.S. Bach -- which, e.g. the Crab Canon, could be played backwards or forwards.
In Godel Escher Bach, Hofstadter's main emphasis was on the way in which human consciousness resembled these self referential systems and in so doing shared their systematic limitations.
For this reason, I was kind of excited to pick up and read this book because I thought that Hofstadter -- having surveyed self referential systems in relation to consciousness -- would have perhaps been inclined to do so in relation to the natural world as well.
In that way, I remembered my John Wheeler. The physicist Wheeler, professor to Richard Feynman, was one of the great lights of 20th century physics. And in 1965 he said perhaps one of his most thought provoking ideas when he described what he referred to as the self aware universe. To understand his idea, we briefly revisit our Plato. As you may recall, Plato believed that the physical world we inhabit was but a manifestation of what he referred to ideal or perfect forms. Like prisoners chained to wall unable to directly observe each other, Plato said that all we really saw of each were our reflected shadows. In a similar way, Wheeler suggested that laws of nature gave rise to the physical world which -- in the case of certain individuals like us -- gave rise to a sentient world in which the laws of nature were themselves observed. From your quantum mechanics, you may recall that it the act of observation itself which causes probabilistic subatomic wave functions to collapse and thereby -- in a critical way -- "create" reality.
For those interested in an excellent statement of the foregoing, please read section 34 of Roger Penrose's Road to Reality.
In any event, the idea of a self aware universe, litterally creating itself from its own operations, seemed to me to be an excellent example of Hofstadter's self referential activity.
And admittedly, I was hoping somewhere -- anywhere -- in this book (originally a series of columns for Scientific American) -- he would note and discuss the natural connections.
But alas!
The book was merely more examples of ground he elegantly but thoroughly already covered in Godel Escher Bach.
In my own way, but like Hofstadter to be sure, I believe that recursiveness and self referential activity run to the heart of key aspects of how reality and consciousness work, but sadly books such as these only pound into irrelevance topics which legitimately (and maybe better than anything) give us a glimpse into the wonder and enigma of creation.
Brilliant and Thought Provoking.......2004-04-20
This collection of Hofstadter's columns from Scientific American provides wonderful reading.
One of the gems is his simple, but brilliant analysis of the Prisoner's Dilemma. The usual analysis notes that the Nash equilibrium is for both players to defect. Hofstadter notes (correctly) that if both players are rational, then because the game is symmetrical, both players will choose the same strategy. So, the only choices are for both to cooperate or both defect. Since both cooperating has a higher payoff than both defecting, the rational strategy is to cooperate. The Nash equilibrium isn't relevant because it considers pairs of strategies which are impossible if both players are rational, i.e., the pairs where one player defects and the other cooperates.
Hofstadter notes that many people when presented with the above argument still say that they would defect. His descriptions of his attempts to reason with his friends and the results of the lottery he conducted (he told readers of his column they could send in entries for the lottery, but the more that entered, the smaller the prize would be) are, as he says, amusing, disturbing, and disappointing.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.......2003-07-14
This collection of essays previously published as a column in Scientific American is very uneven. There are some true gems like he discussion of the game Nomic in which rule changes are part of ordinary play or the sections on self referential sentences. Basically everything is readable, but not all chapters make much sense.
Some parts are really bad. In chapter 5 he wonders why one can judge the intellectual content of magazines by their cover, not seeing the obvious solution that these magazines try to attract different audiences. He spends some time discussing the prisoners dilemma and he get's it completely wrong. He argues that a rational person would know that other rational persons would think along the same lines and therefore act the same way. So a rational person can use this knowledge to influence another person. This is complete bogus of course. People are rational when they act rational, if I cooperate in the prisoners dilemma, I am not changing the definition of rationality, I'm simply irrational. Hofstadter also discusses Axelrod's famous computer tournaments. A more realistic view on the topic is provided by a review of Axelrod's book by Ken Binmore. That review can be found on the web.
The book is still valuable for the good parts, but one should read the book with a sceptical eye. Hofstadter is a layman on many things he discusses, and sometimes this shines through. Another problem is that some issues like the cold war anren't really interesting anymore. People who like Hofstadter will surely like it and find enough pearls to make the buy worth it though.
Essence of Mind and Pattern.......2003-05-20
At any level of scientific comprehension, this book provides an intelligent subscription to pattern. Includes essays and 'conversations' on Alan Turing, and clear and relevant description of common and interesting science. The most valuable information is hofstaedter's creative description of thought.
Warning to Present-Day Readers.......2002-12-12
I liked GEB, and found it to have been a great influence in my decision to pursue computer science as a career. Much of this later book is similarly good. However, the political commentary that is interwoven throughout the book, and there is much of it, has not aged well. Dr. Hofstadter was a proponent of the popular (at the time) "Nuclear Freeze" Movement. Dr. Hofstadter pauses the narrative of the text often to expound on his beliefs in nuclear disarmament, nuclear war, and his support for activists like Dr. Helen Caldicott. Not only is this (arguably) off-topic and distracting to the narrative, but it seems somewhat aged (and naive) in the context of later lessons of history. These diversions would hardly be more distracting, and anachronistic, if he stopped every few paragraphs to laud how wonderful a President that Jimmy Carter was (or Walter Mondale will be), and why we should all vote for him in the next election, or even what a great invention brown polyester Sans-a-Belt (TM) slacks are, and why we should all wear them.
For example, we now know that this "Freeze" movement was influenced by the KGB, both via funding (cash, in U.S. Dollars, for full-page advertisements in the New York Times was air-lifted from Moscow in diplomatic pouches), and with personnel (lots of so-called "grass roots" local freeze groups were unknowingly populated by "agent provocateurs" who were members of the KGB. By way of analogy, imagine an "Inflation Freeze" movement heavily (and secretly) funded by corporations to influence labor unions by propagandizing such a movement as a grass-roots labor agenda. Consider the outrage among organized labor in response to a movement that used fear-mongering over inflation, economic recession, and potential job loss to pressure labor into rolling over and unilaterally accepting wage freezes and other labor concessions. Such freezes and concessions would be expected by management to be accepted without discussion or negotiation, including trying to correct present injustices, looking at the company's books, or verifying the future financial condition of the company. Look up the name "Lemuel Boulware" and the company "General Electric" for an example of how to negotiate in bad faith (and yes, I'm aware of the ironic connection to Ronald Reagan, see below).
If a nuclear freeze was adopted without question or consideration, or without even a workable verification system, it would have frozen into place a very tenuous situation with Soviet SS-20's poised over Western Europe and with nothing to counter them (or if countered, a hair-trigger nuclear standoff). What happened was that Reagan and Gorbachev negotiated a workable, verifiable, and stabilizing disarmament treaty that pulled back the SS-20's (and the U.S. missiles in Western Europe) and established a framework for realistic future treaty verification (leading to the establishment of a joint flyover program known as "Open Skies"). It was ironic that a individual recruited by Lemuel Boulware as a spokesman for GE would find GE Boulwarism and bad-faith "take it or leave it" negotiating tactics used against the United States by the Soviet Union. President Reagan's response, to approach from a position of mutual strength and dignity, and assure mutually-agreeable and verifiable terms, was almost pure anti-Boulwarism.
Very few people discuss, let alone advocate, a "Nuclear Freeze" today because the lessons of history have shown such a movement to be naive, tantamount to unilateral disarmament, driven mostly by emotion and FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt), infiltrated by foreign influences not in our best interests, intended by our adversaries as bad-faith negotiations, and substantially overcome by later events.
Book Description
Social visionary Joseph Chilton Pearce’s indictment of cultural imprinting as the cause of humankind’s cruel and violent behavior
• Refutes the Neo-Darwinist assumption that violence is inherent in humanity
• Identifies religion as the sustaining force behind our negative cultural imprinting
• Shows how infant-adult interactions unconsciously block the creative spirit
We are all too aware of the endless variety of cruel and violent behavior reported to us in the media, reminded daily that in every corner of the world someone is suffering or dying at the hands of another. We have to ask: Is this violence and cruelty endemic to our nature? Are we, at our foundation, really so murderous? In
The Death of Religion and the Rebirth of Spirit, Joseph Chilton Pearce, life-long advocate of human potential, sounds an emphatic and convincing no.
Pearce explains that beneath our awareness, culture imprints a negative force-field that blocks the natural rise of the spirit toward its innate nature of love and altruism. Further, he identifies religion as the primary cultural force behind this negative imprinting. Drawing from recent neuroscience, neurocardiology, cultural anthropology, and brain development research, Pearce explains that the key to reversing this trend can be found in the interaction between infants and adults. The adult mind-set effectively compromises the infant’s neural and hormonal interactions between the heart and the higher evolutionary structures of the developing brain, thus keeping us centered primarily in our most primitive and defensive neural foundations, generation after generation. Pearce shows us that if we allow the intelligence of the heart to take hold and flourish, we can reverse this unconscious loss of our true nature.
Customer Reviews:
Either this or the author's previous title, not both........2007-07-02
I ordered this, Pearce's latest offering, together with his preceding 2002 effort, "Biology of Transcendence" and read them back to back, in chronological order. This is the one book, in his output so far, Joseph Pearce needn't have written.
Given that Pearce's incentive for writing this book (p. 190) was triggered by an altogether demonic experience, that behold-and-become function stressed so often in his authorship has here become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Really, a previous reviewer put it mildly in saying "Death of Religion" shows the author retreading familiar ground. In fact, this is an about 80% rehash or rewrite of his previous title "Biology." The very same material has been reorganized, rewritten - sometimes expanded upon a bit, sometimes contracted. I would not say the presentation of it has improved, it is merely a different version. It even uses the same batch of quotes from a select number of, to Pearce's mind, outstanding thinkers.
So because the bulk of the contents is yet again the discussion of the "New Biology," the title of the new book is a bit of a misnomer. The post 9/11 impetus to writing a book on "violent culture" is a thin veneer, a couple of dozen pages bracketing the older material. Pearce carries over not only his favourite quotes but even repeats a number of his own punch lines already used up in "Biology."
Some mistakes slipped through editing: using cases from, to some, controversial para-psychology, one would expect facts to be absolutely in order. Still famous French explorer Alexandra David-Neel turns into an Englishwoman (and gets her name slightly misspelled). From where Pearce got the etymological explanation that "sin" originally meant "separate" (p. 166) baffles. See [...]resource for more trustworthy facts. From "Biology" one remembers Pearce explaining "existence" as "to set apart" (p. 78), e.g. separate, so perhaps he misread his old notes while revamping them.
Commenting upon the ability to live without food (p. 178) without previously having introduced the subject, is another hint this book was hardly the fruit of that "Heureka! effect" Pearce is rightfully fascinated by. Presumably a paragraph was lifted out from an early draft and this reference to supernatural non-food eaters remained in place.
I heartily recommend the previous "Biology of Transcendence" as a great reading experience, upon which this rewrite has nothing substantially more to offer. The book gets three stars given the intrinsic value of Pearce's observations and if you have not read "Biology," nor intend to, you may consider this a very thought-provoking read. But as Pearce devotes quite a number of pages to describing a theory of Julian Jaynes' (The Origin of Consciousness) - a summary not present in his previous work - I really recommend you to go for Pearce's previous "Biology" and also Jaynes' 1970s classic in its entirety instead. That would be a crucial reading experience.
It's a pick recommended for any spirituality collection.......2007-06-09
The Death of Religion and the Rebirth of Spirit: A Return to the Intelligence of the Heart could've been featured in our New Age column but deserves wider mention here for its far-reaching survey blending philosophy, religion and sociology. The study begins with a survey of violence in human society and the question of whether cruelty is part of human nature - and argues that the roots of human behavior aren't violent, but a cultural imprint. Chapters use recent neuroscience, cultural anthropology and brain development research to explore the violent trends, spiritual understanding, and how to reverse violence to achieve a higher level of being. It's a pick recommended for any spirituality collection - particularly at the college level - strong on added cultural analysis.
I've been here before.......2007-05-13
I have been reading Joseph Chilton Pearce for years beginning with "Crack in the Cosmic Egg". His work has been very valuable to me because he explains the spiritual search in ways that are understandable and not all woo woo. This book seemed to me to pretty much cover territory that I was familiar with from previous books. His ideas about the proper birthing and raising of children are important and probably will never have a wide following because of the strength of cultural ways of doing things (another topic that he is very good on). I think this book would be very interesting to someone who had never read any other of his works.
Manifesto of a Spritual (R)evolution.......2007-04-12
Beware! The photo of the author on the book jacket is deceptive. It pictures a soulful, Quaker like grandfather--when all the time the contents of his book are loaded with intellectual hand grenades aimed at the very heart of our culture!
I began writing this review in the usual manner, underlining a phrase here, a word there, scribbling little notes at corners, on the edge--you know, the usual. But after a couple pages I saw that practically every word, every phrase was highlighted, and that there were copious notes all over the place. The book contains so much knowledge, so much insight, and addresses so many of the most vital subjects of life--that to attempt restricting myself to a few ideas here and there seemed almost sacrilegious.
And in the most positive sense this book IS sacrilegious.
In his call for humans to approach the next step of evolution, JC Pearce challenges us to overcome the greatest obstacle to that evolution--our very culture based on organized religion and orthodox science, that in turn arise from humanity's apparent need for PREDICTION and CONTROL. The author is such a master of phraseology that he'll have you convinced in a matter of a few pages that, yeah, they really ARE holding us back.
Pearce is no mere iconoclast--he skillfully demonstrates that the natural replacement for these cultural misconceptions exists and has existed all around us from the beginning of our collective jump from chimp to human (via the common shrew we are now told.) The author illustrates the power & biological source of both the individual & collective creative process, and how they interconnect in "fields of mind." We go along with the author on a developmental human journey from pre-natal conditions, thru birth and from there to the many stages that, where they should release ever higher levels of freedom & pleasure, in reality bind us ever tighter to conformity, frustration & social violence.
And never fear--just because THE DEATH OF RELIGION is a mental revelation, it's a pleasure to read. The writer's source material is life itself & is a record of every day situations and their evolutionary potential.
Reading THE DEATH OF RELIGION allegorically feels like lifting a boulder from one's very soul.
This is one of the most relevant books of our time.
It's a stunning achievement.
Do your Mind a favor & read this book!
The Origins of Psychic Phenomena: Poltergeists, Incubi, Succubi, and the Unconscious Mind
Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld
Average customer rating:
- 15 years on, still relavant. We have a long way to go....
- Another piece of the puzzle
- A serious read for AI wonks
- Too distant from my usual routes ...
- Wonderful but quite dry in parts
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Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies
Douglas Hofstadter
Manufacturer: Basic Books
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Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
ASIN: 0465024750 |
Amazon.com
Douglas Hofstadter, best known for his masterpiece Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, tackles the subject of artificial intelligence and machine learning in his thought-provoking work Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies, written in conjunction with the Fluid Analogies Research Group at the University of Michigan. Driven to discover whether computers can be made to "think" like humans, Hofstadter and his colleagues created a variety of computer programs that extrapolate sequences, apply pattern-matching strategies, make analogies, and even act "creative." As always, Hofstadter's work requires devotion on the part of the reader, but rewards him with fascinating insights into the nature of both human and machine intelligence.
Book Description
"Will change your idea of what it is to be creative and even what it is to be human."--(William Poundstone, New York Times Book Review)
Customer Reviews:
15 years on, still relavant. We have a long way to go...........2007-05-14
Hofstadter provides effectively a series of articles published elsewhere, edited in his engaging, verbose style.
Basically the question of the book hwo would a computer solve the following:
"X:x as Y:?"
You can get much more complex, but basically his group spents the 80's and early 90s researching this questions and trying to figure out, "know when to break the rules" applied.
His overall appraisl of AI is that even within confined realms, it still produces inconsistent results, and there is a long way to go.
Processing power is ~1000x greater than when he wrote this book, but as he observed with Deep Blue, "Brute force methods tell us nothing about Human thought".
I realized this was a small sampling of the issues facing the whole approach. Enjoy.
Another piece of the puzzle.......2007-04-09
When I first starting reading "Fluid Concepts" I found myself puzzled; what, exactly, was Hofstader up to? He and his team of grad studenst seemed to be spending a tremendous amount of time on something that at first struck me as very trivial- solving puzzles of the "what number comes next" variety. I didn't see the connection to cognition. I put the book down for a while.
When I returned to it, after having done some refresher reading in cognitive psychology, Hofstaders' intent was much clearer. To understand his program, you have to start by discarding GOFAI ideas about the stored representation being primary, and look at the problem as a psychologist would: Before you can even ask how representations are stored, you have to ask how they got there in the first place, and that's what Hofsatder is looking at here.
Perception consists in large part of taking a mass of sensory data, and looking for patterns- in it. That's a critical part of cognition. It's both how we extract words from marks on paper or sounds uttered by another, and why we see a face when we look at a full moon, or a stain on a curtain, or a piece of burned toast. Hofstader and his team are looking for those fundamental processes that allow to both match raw perceptual data to representation, and to generate those representations in the first place.
Since the publication of this book he's moved on to another research program, and having been away from the field for over a decade, I'm not sure how influential it has been. But as far as I can tell, no one else has done as in-depth an analysis of this sort of primitive pattern matching, and for that reason alone, I think it's a program that every cognitive scientist should familiarize themselves with to some degree.
A serious read for AI wonks.......2005-05-24
I read this book when it first came out. At the time I had a deep interest in all things AI. The book presents Dr. Hofstadter's experiences (along with those of his graduate students) of implementing creativity modeling systems (and others) at the Fluid Analogies Research Group (FARG). The book is not an easy read. The reader will need to be diligent and not get deterred. The book also is a bit dry in areas, but those who are truly interested in the subject matter will not mind, much.
Too distant from my usual routes ..........2004-04-22
Many books by D. Hofstadter are at the top standings of my personal parade, but in reading this book I found myself very likely too distant from my usual interests and preferred styles. The initial part is very interesting, but when the author carries on detailed descriptions about programs' features in conversational shape, I have been quickly bored, and I have given up attentive reading turning to an eagle eye approach. I would have been by far more comfortable with a more formal explanation, because, once I make the effort to follow the thourough description of what and how a program does, it is more convenient to study its algorithms.
So, the book is surely very pleasing for people professionally involved in semantics, but I am not confident in its general interest.
Wonderful but quite dry in parts.......2004-04-18
This book is, as others have commented, different from DH's other more entertaining books.
It is a serious attempt to discuss the real issues and difficulties with AI research. There is a lot of quite dry material and in places it is repetitive.
It provides terrific insight into the problem of imitating human thinking at a deep level, and I found it very rewarding. It was also very interesting to follow the threads of how he went about doing research, and what he thought of other AI research.
His views of various flavours of AI research were very instructive and inightful I thought.
In summary a good book, but this is not (high quality) brain candy like Godel Escher Bach etc.
Amazon.com
The winter holidays are usually a quiet time for news, but the December 2005 revelations of the Bush administration's extensive, off-the-books domestic spying program by New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau made headline after headline, raising criticism from both sides of the aisle and an immediate, unapologetic response from President Bush himself. On the heels of those scoops comes Risen's State of War, which goes beyond his Times stories to provide a wide-ranging, if anecdotal, "secret history" of U.S. intelligence following 9/11.
Risen's description of what he says was called "the Program"--the ongoing eavesdropping operation, done with almost no judicial or congressional oversight, on the phone calls and emails of hundreds of Americans (and potentially millions more)--is only a chapter in his larger tale of the recent missteps and oversteps of U.S. intelligence. His evidence ranges from insider White House accounts of Donald Rumsfeld, "the ultimate turf warrior," outmaneuvering his rivals to make the Defense Department the dominant voice in foreign policy, to on-the-ground reports of the administration's willful ignorance of crucial intelligence on the dormancy of Saddam's weapons programs, Saudi support for al Qaeda, and the startlingly rapid transformation of Afghanistan into a "narco-state" under American authority. Some of the episodes he recounts--Saudi security officials with Osama bin Laden screensavers, an Iraqi scientist who had told the CIA his country had no nuclear program watching Colin Powell testify to the UN that they did--would be comical were the stakes less high.
Risen's loyalties are not with the opposition party--he's sharply critical of Clinton's disinterest in the CIA--but with the career field agents who are his best sources. Those agents and their expertise, he argues, have been cast aside, along with the long centrist tradition of U.S. foreign policy and the basic checks and balances of the American system of government, by the Bush administration's radical politicization and militarization of intelligence. He covers a lot of ground in a book of just over 200 pages, some of it familiar from other accounts, and at times his tradecraft anecdotes can be hard to assess without context. But his specific revelations and his well-sourced, angry overview of the way the battles against terror have been fought make for startling, newsmaking reading. --Tom Nissley
Book Description
James Risen has broken story after story on the abuses of power of the Bush administration.
From warrantless wiretapping to secret financial data mining to the CIA's rogue operations, he has shown again and again that the executive branch has dangerously overreached, repudiated checks and balances on its power, and maintained secrecy even with its allies in Congress. In no small part thanks to Risen and State of War, the "secret history" of the Bush years has now come partially into view.
In a new epilogue for the paperback edition, Risen describes the two-front war that President Bush is now fighting: at home against Congress and the Supreme Court, as his administration is increasingly reined in from its abuses; and in the Middle East, where George W. Bush's great gamble to bring a democratic revolution is failing radically. We must learn the lessons of Risen's history now, before it is too late.
Download Description
"With relentless media coverage, breathtaking events, and extraordinary congressional and independent investigations, it is hard to believe that we still might not know some of the most significant facts about the presidency of George W. Bush. Yet beneath the surface events of the Bush presidency lies a secret history -- a series of hidden events that makes a mockery of current debate. James Risen has covered national security for The New York Times for years. Based on extraordinary sources from top to bottom in Washington and around the world, drawn from dozens of interviews with key figures in the national security community, this book exposes an explosive chain of events. Not since the revelations of CIA and FBI abuses in the 1970s have so many scandals in the intelligence community come to light. More broadly, Risen's secret history shows how power really works in George W. Bush's presidency.
Customer Reviews:
I could not put it down once I started reading it........2007-05-29
James Risen describes an institution of the CIA decaying after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the retirement of many long time career CIA officers, the CIA in a politically weak and compromised position.
Former CIA director, George Tenet became entangled in the Bush administration's politics and seemed to be directing the CIA in a manner to save his own job while sacrificing the CIA's credibility by having the CIA produce reports to support the Bush administration's propaganda which was not supported by observable evidence or credible sources. The Bush administration wanted the CIA to manufacture intelligence propaganda to support Bush's claims that the Saddam regime in Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction, WMD, and allied to or supporting terrorist groups such as al Qaeda.
The CIA was able to produce neither credible sources nor evidence to support Bush's claims. In fact, credible sources and evidence produced by the CIA in its investigations contradicted Bush's claims to indicate that the reverse was true. Production of WMDs had been abandoned as a result of America's first war against Iraq. No evidence or credible reasoning was ever discovered to support the claims of any links between Saddam and al Qaeda.
The observation that James Risen points out that I find most fascinating is the contrast with the Bush administration's great expenditure in time, effort and resources to persuade Americans that al Qaeda was somehow linked to the Saddam regime and that Bush continues to portray the war on Iraq as a war on al Qaeda's terrorism despite evidence to the contrary. However, the Bush administration shows no interest at all in following up ample evidence that points out links between Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and high level Saudi officials. On the contrary, such evidence at times has simply disappeared without explanation at the hands of Saudi officials or has been aggressively suppressed by American politicians. There is no American political support for U.S. intelligence services investigating terror evidence that leads back to Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, Saudi official's faster and more direct contacts with politicians in Washington, including Bush have been put to use by Saudis to hinder CIA and FBI investigations about terrorism originating out of Saudi Arabia.
One very ancient principle of war that both the CIA and the pentagon are guilty of neglecting is to know the enemy.
The CIA allowed its intelligence sources in Iraq to wither away without recruiting new intelligence sources in that country after operation desert storm and Saddam's non compliance with the terms of surrender to end the Persian Gulf war and his defiance against U.N. investigators searching for WMD.
The CIA accidently blinded itself in Iran by transmitting data to an Iranian double agent that enabled Iran to identify all CIA intelligence sources in Iran. Even worse, the CIA attempted an extremely dangerous and stupid stunt to get the Iranians to reveal their stage of nuclear weapons development by sending them flawed designs for a nuclear weapon through a former Russian scientist who revealed to the Iranians that the designs were flawed.
George Tenet established communication protocols between himself and high level Saudi officials. But, there was a complaint that George Tenet did not share the intelligence he received with CIA analysts. Saudis continue to ignore CIA requests for intelligence at lower levels and have even shared intelligence provided by the CIA with members of al Qaeda.
The Pentagon was unable to recognize that some hired Afghan allies were sympathizers of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda who took bribes in exchange for allowing them to escape from the Americans. The Pentagon was also unable or unwilling to recognize that some of their drug lord allies were funding the al Qaeda and Taliban which led to the revival of both in 2005.
Recurrent failures of the Bush administration which almost led to reversals of American victories in Afghanistan and Iraq include over optimism while committing minimal numbers of troops to both theaters of war, too trusting of native afghan fighters, drug lords and Iraqi intelligence sources lacking credibility while overly suspicious and suppressive of American military and intelligence sources whose reports contradicted manufactured realities the Bush administration was attempting to project, a lack of coherent planning and communication and cooperation between the administration, the department of defense, the state department and intelligence agencies.
James Risen points out briefly ineffective management and poor leadership characteristics of the Bush administration with which I agree.
Basic Management and leadership functions are planning, organizing, directing and control. Anyone who has been through such training will be able to identify failures of these functions by extracting them from the readings in James Risens book.
I wish that leaders and future leaders would read this book and others I list below so as to able to recognize poor crisis management and leadership and resolve to do better in the future.
Here are some other sources of related material which I recommend:
Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror by Anonymous AKA Michael Scheuer
Al Qaeda's Great Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror's Trail by Philip Smucker
No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah by Bing West
House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties by Craig Unger
Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude by Robert Baer
Uncovered - The Whole Truth About the Iraq War by Robert Greenwald
Illegals: The Imminent Threat Posed by Our Unsecured U.S.-Mexico Border by Jon E. Dougherty
The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills
Disinformation at its Best !.......2007-05-16
Dont waste more than a couple of dollars on this breezy lite read. The real problem I had with this book is that it revolves around and gives creedence to the "Offical Version" or the propaganda we get on the idiot box. Too Verbose and Not Enough Hard Hitting Content. Example : What happened, why didnt the CIA catch 9/11 ? We just dropped the ball !!! HAHAHHAHA what bs. This book is full of diversionary crap like this. Really folks, there are tons of books that give more information than this, I suggest you start with
House of Bush House of Saud and Petrodollar Recycling.
An expose proven to be true.......2007-02-15
I had just finished this book when CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviewed Feith from the State Department, and I became totally convinced (as if I were not already) that the Bush administration has lied its way into war and has no clue as to how to get us out. I was impressed with the following: (1) Charlie Allen contacted 30 families to visit relatives in Iraq to do undercover spying in regard to WMD, and all 30 of them reported that there were no weapons. It was not a surprise that the information was stuffed into a file and forgotten by his superiors. (2) Tenet was a puppet for whatever George and Rumsfeld wanted. (3) The drug trade in Afghanistan was not stopped, and Rumsfeld ordered the military to concentrate only on terrorists and ignore the poppies. It is obvious that we should have finished our job in Afghanistan and stayed out of Iraq.
No wonder we are a laughing stock. The FBI and CIA are incompetent and corrupt. Everyone should read this book before the election hoohaw starts.
Useful study of a disastrous, failed state.......2007-01-25
This useful book explores the conflict within the US state between the CIA and the rest of the Bush administration. Risen's thesis is that a flawed administration has overridden and distorted a trusting and trustworthy CIA. He writes, "It is a cautionary tale, one that shows how the most covert tools of American national security policy have been misused. It involves domestic spying, abuse of power, and outrageous operations." What he actually shows is that the whole US state is corrupt.
He notes of the thirty Iraqi sources on WMD, "All of them - some thirty - had said the same thing. They all reported to the CIA that the scientists had said that Iraq's program to develop nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons had long since been abandoned."
The US state protects its allies in the Saudi autocracy, and thus protects their allies, Al Qa'ida. As Risen notes, "Yet it is still true that, both before and after 9/11, President Bush and his administration have displayed a remarkable lack of interest in aggressively examining the connections between Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the Saudi power elite. Even as the Bush administration spent enormous time and energy trying in vain to prove connections between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden in order to help justify the war in Iraq, the administration was ignoring the far more conclusive ties with Saudi Arabia."
Afghanistan is now a narco-state and a large part of its drug profits goes to Al Qa'ida. "For Afghanistan's drug lords, business was very good under the United States Central Command. Flush with drug money, the insurgency in Afghanistan intensified in the summer of 2005 to its most dangerous levels since the American invasion nearly four years earlier. There were steady reports that the rebels, a confusing mix of Taliban, al Qaeda, and others, were surprisingly well armed and equipped - evidence that they were also well financed. The Bush administration had purchased an illusion of stability in Afghanistan at the price of billions of dollars' worth of heroin that was flooding into the streets of Europe and the United States."
Risen summarises, "The establishment of a series of secret prisons around the world and the widespread use of harsh interrogation tactics against prisoners in American custody has been part of a broader and disquieting pattern by the Bush administration. The White House has interpreted the constitutional powers of the president to fight terrorism in such an expansive way that long-standing rules governing the military and intelligence communities have been skirted or ignored, and secret intelligence activities inside the United States have been approved that may be violating the civil liberties of American citizens. In particular, the technical wizards of the National Security Agency have been engaged in a program of domestic data mining that is so vast, and so unprecedented, that it makes a mockery of long-standing privacy rules."
Unbiased, Well Researched, Informative.......2007-01-15
Mr. Risen presents well-researched data with information coming from many inside resources. He is unbiased and presents the information with no partiality to democrats or republicans, something truly valuable if one wants "real" information. The book covers many current topics, such as wire tapping, prisoner-of-war abuses, the lack of planning for the initial Iraq invasion, as well as the president and his cabinet's refusal to look at the facts indicating we need not go in there, drug profits in Afghanistan, and more. Information is current, spanning perhaps the last 6 years. The book does not go into deeper issues of who is really pulling the strings of those who give the appearance of being in power.
Mr. Risen's style is straight forward, but definitely not as dry as this type of book tends to be. Because of his research and impartiality, I would read further work by him.
Book Description
Anthropologist Jeremy Narby has altered how we understand the shamanic cultures and traditions that have undergone a worldwide revival in recent years. Now, in one of his most extraordinary journeys, Narby travels around the globe-from the Amazon basin to the Far East-to probe what traditional healers and pioneering researchers perceive about the intelligence present in all forms of life.
Intelligence in Nature offers overwhelming illustrative evidence that independent intelligence is not unique to humanity. Indeed, bacteria, plants, animals, and other forms of nonhuman life display an uncanny proclivity for self-deterministic decisions, patterns, and actions. The Japanese possess a word for this universal knowing: chi-sei. For the first time, Narby presents an in-depth anthropological study of this concept in the West. He not only uncovers a mysterious thread of intelligent behavior within the natural world but also probes the question of what humanity can learn from nature's economy and knowingness in its own search for a saner and more sustainable way of life.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating as far as it goes.......2007-06-24
This book opens up some fascinating non-theological questions about the nature of life and how it evolves. The point of view is of an anthropologist who has studied shamanism in the Amazon and who seeks to find parallels in scientific inquiry. In doing so, he is moving from a subjective, experiential point of view of the shaman, who claims to communicate with animal spirits, to an objective observer's view of one working under the discipline of the scientific method. The first few chapters concern field trips he has taken to the Amazon basin, and the remainder deals mainly with discussions with scientists in different parts of the world who are pursuing studies that are directly concerned with intelligence in nature.
The main part of the book ponders the question of how certain brainless organisms apprehend their environments in a way that suggests that they know or can compute efficient ways to adapt. How does a slime mold solve a maze? How does ground ivy know not to sink its roots in non-nutritous ground? In order to survive and extend itself, all of life cannot afford to make poor choices on how to use its energy. But how does life, especially the simplest forms without brains, make the correct decisions? Somehow, they know how to proceed in an efficient manner despite complexity. A Japanese scientist, Toshiyuki Nakagaki, notes that most information processing in humans takes place in the unconscious, as in calculating balance in riding a bicycle.
I have not yet read the author's first book THE COSMIC SERPENT. So, perhaps I am missing something; but I thought the author left the trail he was following a bit too abruptly and lost some momentum in the last two chapters, which were mainly a recapitulation. I was looking forward to more examples from science or perhaps more about shamanism. But clearly the author is on to something here, and I enjoyed the clear, conversational writing style.
Thought Provoking.......2006-12-26
In "Intelligence in Nature" Jeremy Narby shares his journeys as he attempts to answer the question regarding whether or not there is truly intelligence in nature - Do animals have intelligence, or do they act purly on instincts alone? How about plant life, is there intelligence there?
Mr. Narby travels all over the world, to places like the Amazon, Japan, Tokyo, Great Britain, etc..., speaking with scientists & shamans alike - learning about, and sharing with us, the evidence & experiences related to this question about intelligence. What he finds is truly amazing! In the last decade or so, it appears that science is beginning to find out what shamans have said all along - that naure is intelligent, including animals, insects, plant life, and even uni-cellular organisms.
The author also discusses the benefits of science & shamanism coming together to learn from one another, as well as some of the problems encountered when attempting to answer questions dealing with intelligence, including the problem with using the word "intelligence", as it has become a "loaded word" in many countries, and the current scientific view that all things not human must by machine-like (although he also shows that this view is starting to change, with the abundance of research being contrary to this mechanistic view of nature).
Overall, I found this to be a thought provoking, interesting read. As such, I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the possibilities concerning intelligence in nature.
The intelligence: a valuated tool within the evolution! .......2006-07-09
It sounds quite pretentious to believe we are the only owners of this prodigious gift, as the intelligence is, just because we are the are the most advanced link of the chain or we have the faculty to articulate words, ideas and thoughts and to be conscious about the idea of our own death. The intelligence is a most extensive and dynamic concept.
Moreover, if you pay special attention around the paradigmatic essence of many invents, you will realize the human being has simply conveyed the paradigmatic model into the process of investigation and eventual development.
The inner mechanism of the bats and the radar; the magic of the flight of birds and the future airplanes, the nocturnal vision and the improved visual devices for troops at night. As a matter of fact, the camouflage in chameleons and other species, not only agrees with Darwin's theory but it props and affiances with major strength this statement.
On the other hand, the intelligence in the nature is just a matter of surviving, preservation and evolution of the specie; so under this perspective to deny forehand the existence of a primordial intelligence in many animal species, as soon to understand the different levels of development according the case, is just a sample of lack of perception and supine intellectual arrogance.
This book is a pleasant reading around this interesting issue, that recreates without those formal hindrances, relevant examples about this fact.
Intelligence in nature- Narby.......2006-06-05
highly recommended. this is an easy read which makes several striking points. It is quite different than his previous book, the Cosmic Serpent which is a little more academic. But Narby captures the same essence here with objective examples from the most recent research on a variety of topics. very good, the only reason it is not a 5 is because it is fairly brief. I found the footnotes to be a regirgitation of the text. I was eager to read this book because his previous one was great. But Intelligence in Nature is more of a one-two punch than a 10 round bout. But it is a potent one-two, I'd say Tyson just a little bit after his prime.
Intelligence in Nature.......2006-04-01
Readers of Jeremy Narby's first book, The Cosmic Serpent, might wonder as I did, after reading Intelligence in Nature, why he wrote this latest book. They might also wonder what happened to the spirit of personal discovery that was so present in his previous work. Where Cosmic Serpent fairly rings with the kind of unbridled enthusiasm that comes with uncovering splendid mysteries, Intelligence in Nature reads more like a transcription from the Discovery channel.
Narby's search for intelligence in nature takes us into the biology labs of a select group of scientists around the world who are trying to identify humanlike intelligence within the plant and animal life of the natural world. From the Peruvian Amazon to Japan, we meet scientists whose investigations are undoubtedly fascinating. But Narby's inquiry begins and ends with large questions hanging in the air. We learn interesting things about how slime mold, for example, appears to make decisions, or how certain tropical birds ingest clay to prevent disease in much the same way that we use antibiotics. But then what? Why is intelligence in nature such a puzzling question to science when it seems so obvious to anyone who regularly walks in the woods with a curious and observant eye? And why should it be left to mainstream science to decree the existence of something for which scientists themselves can reach no defining consensus?
Narby asks good questions in this book but he doesn't go very far with them. His tentativeness in the company of scientists is curious given the open-minded enthusiasm he brought to his experiences with shamans in the Peruvian Amazon, which he first wrote about in The Cosmic Serpent. There, far from his academic and cultural roots, he eagerly pushed the edge of conventional knowledge. Describing his experience with ayahuasca, the hallucinogenic healing plant of the Amazonian basin, Narby made a symbolic connection between the double-helix imagery of DNA and what the shamans described as the "language twisting-twisting" experience of ritualistically altered consciousness. Through their profound knowledge of the natural world, the shamans revealed a larger intelligence governing all life. Narby's experience and subsequent description of this revelation was truly inspiring.
But it's possible that The Cosmic Serpent was more than Western science could handle, which may be one reason why Intelligence in Nature is so tentative and inconclusive. Once bitten, twice shy, perhaps. In 1997, following publication of The Cosmic Serpent, Harvard biophysicist Jacques Dubochet roundly criticized Narby for insufficiently testing his hypothesis about DNA and universal intelligence. Accusing Narby of "blindly charging down the wrong path," Dubochet made it clear that in his opinion Narby had succumbed to the least responsible path of science.
But it was never meant to be a formal scientific inquiry. Jeremy Narby is an anthropologist, not a scientist, and his intent clearly was to use his own experience to inspire us to think more deeply about our intelligence and what our potential could be. Subjective experience is not admissible to established scientific methodology, which is fine for science. But for the rest of us, personal experience is the only real knowledge there is. That's where Jeremy Narby is strongest, and where he can be an inspiration for all of us. He's done it once, he can do it again.
- Swami Gopalananda
ascent magazine, Issue 27
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- Can machines mimic human intelligence?
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The Turing Test: The Elusive Standard of Artificial Intelligence (Studies in Cognitive Systems)
Manufacturer: Springer
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ASIN: 1402012047 |
Book Description
The Turing Test gives the most comprehensive, in depth and contemporary assessment of this classic topic in artificial intelligence. This is the first book to elaborate in such detail the numerous conflicting points of view on many aspects of this multifaceted, controversial subject. It offers new insights into Turing's own interpretation and traces the history of the debate about the merits of the Turing test in more detail than anywhere else. Turing's famous predictions (1950) are assessed fifty years after they were made. The book also gives competing views about how the Turing test should be interpreted, and novel contemporary criticisms of the test. Justifications for the test and its future applications are suggested and alternatives to the Turing test are examined in detail. Recent results of the Loebner competition are analyzed.
This highly readable volume is essential reading for research on the Turing test and for teaching undergraduate and graduate students in philosophy, computer science, and cognitive science.
Customer Reviews:
Can machines mimic human intelligence?.......2004-12-10
Can a computer program running on a computer demonstrate aspects of human intelligence? If so, what tests could be performed to demonstrate this?
Well, it is easy to think of some tests. Here are seven simple ones. 1) Look up a word in a dictionary. 2) Add a very long column of numbers. 3) Play Chess really well. 4) Play Go really well. 5) Solve a really difficult research problem in theoretical physics. 6) Write a really good novel. 7) Compose a really good classical symphony.
Today, computers have passed tests 1), 2), and 3). But they play chess well by using a very poor program indeed, relying instead on a computer that is extremely fast and has plenty of memory. We're seeing really good computers. But the programs we're seeing are awful.
Maybe better tests would be to see if a team of a human plus a computer could do much better than two humans with no computer at each of those seven tasks. And here, I'm sure the answer is yes to many of these seven tasks, and could easily be yes to all of them.
Still, those who work in the field of artificial intelligence have wanted to come up with programs that exhibit some intelligent features. And one test they have tried is one proposed by Turing in 1950: if a human or computer may be in the next room and you exchange messages with her, him, or it, (maybe at a rate of one message every 15 seconds), can you tell with better than 70% accuracy after 5 minutes if the entity in the other room is human or computer?
The book discusses whether or not such a test has much to do with intelligence or artificial intelligence. And it describes the failure of programs to pass that test so far.
In 2000, several programs were entered into a contest to try to mimic a human in this manner. No judge thought a program was in fact a human. And worse than that, the book tells us that all nine of the following questions were answered correctly by all the humans, while no computer got any of the nine questions right:
1) What is the color of a blue truck?
2) Where is Sue's nose when Sue is in her house?
3) What happens to an ice cube in a hot drink?
4) Altogether how many feet do four cats have?
5) How is the father of Andy's mother related to Andy?
6) What does the letter 'M' look like when turned upside down?
7) What comes next after A1, B2, C3?
8) Reverse the digits in 41.
9) PLEASE IMITATE MY TYPING STYLE.
That shows how utterly the programs failed Turing's test.
In short, programs today are horrible at understanding, reasoning, learning, judgment, and creativity.
I liked this book. It showed that no matter what one thinks of machine intelligence, AI people have made shockingly little progress in the past fifty years.
Book Description
In Matter and Consciousness, Paul Churchland clearly presents the advantages and disadvantages of such difficult issues in philosophy of mind as behaviorism, reductive materialism, functionalism, and eliminative materialism. This new edition incorporates the striking developments that have taken place in neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence and notes their expanding relevance to philosophical issues.
Churchland organizes and clarifies the new theoretical and experimental results of the natural sciences for a wider philosophical audience, observing that this research bears directly on questions concerning the basic elements of cognitive activity and their implementation in real physical systems. (How is it, he asks, that living creatures perform some cognitive tasks so swiftly and easily, where computers do them only badly or not at all?) Most significant for philosophy, Churchland asserts, is the support these results tend to give to the reductive and the eliminative versions of materialism.
Paul M. Churchland is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. A Bradford Book.
Customer Reviews:
Extremely accessible introduction.......2007-01-27
"Matter and Consciousness" is a very accessible introduction to basic issues in the philosophy of mind. Paul Churchland divides the book into several sections, with each one serving to give a broad overview of the relevant issues, the main positions and controversies, as well as the major lines of research inquiry that have been developed in the past few decades as ways of approaching the study of brain/mind.
The first problem that Churchland addresses in the book is the ontological one - that is, what is the real nature of mental phenomena and in what relation do they stand to the physical world? He surveys the different types of dualism, including substance dualism, property dualism (a category which subsumes epiphenomenalism, interactionist property dualism and elemental property dualism). He also gives a flavor for the many different species of materialism such as reductive materialism/identity theory, functionalism (which currently serves as the main philosophical position for those involved in the fields of cognitive science and artificial intelligence) and eliminative materialism. Some really important questions are addressed in this first section, such as the feasibility of reducing mental states to neurobiological states. The history of science offers plenty of examples of successful intertheoretic reductions - for example, the theory of optics being reduced to the theory of electromagnetism. However, different arguments have been made (not just by dualists, but also by materialists) as to why mental states will not be capable of reduction to neurobiological states. For the functionalists this is because there are no universal correspondences between physical and mental states (there are many potential physical states that can instantiate mental states) and for the eliminative materialists, this is because our current folk psychological framework is radically wrong. Instead of intertheoretic reduction, the eliminative position holds that there will instead be a full-scale elimination, with our folk psychological concepts going the way of phlogiston in the physical sciences.
Churchland also focuses on the semantic problem -- where do our mental terms derive their meaning from? He suggests that this problem can be resolved by the network theory of meaning in which the meaning of a term derives from the term's embedded status in a larger theoretical framework. He addresses the epistemological problem (the problem of other minds and the problem of self-consciousness) and the methodological problem. What should be the structure of a science of mind? Churchland reviews several traditional approaches - idealism/phenomenology, methodological behaviorism, the cognitive/computational approach and the methodological materialist approach.
In the next two chapters Churchland offers a cursory overview of the fields of artificial intelligence and neurophysiology. These sections are meant to give the reader a flavor of some of the research projects that have been initiated in these fields and the manner in which they bear on the problems discussed in earlier portions of the book. For example, can intelligence be represented computationally? How can we develop programs that simulate aspects of intelligence? Churchland reviews fundamental concepts such as universal Turing machines in a very readable manner. However, it should be noted that Churchland sometimes seems to conflate consciousness and intelligence -- intelligence need not imply consciousness, though he sometimes seems to use these two terms almost interchangeably.
The last chapter of the book is devoted to some thoughts on the possible distribution of intelligence in the universe at large. Overall this book should serve as a highly readable introduction to some very difficult problems. Given the amount of the material covered, it is to be expected that many issues will be dealt with in a cursory manner. Some of the author's biases are reflected in the work. However, Churchland does a decent job in trying to present the main arguments and he also provides suggested reading lists at the end of the chapters for those who would want more in-depth coverage.
a necessary prerequisite..........2006-04-01
Richard C. Vitzthum discusses this book in his "Materialism: An Affirmative History and Definition." He explains the animosity certain kinds of philosophers express towards anyone who insists on physical causation of mental processes. Thus, the negative reviews below are understandable and should be ignored.
Now that I understand the nature of the incessant bickering that occurs among philosophers of various biases, I am ready to take this book up seriously. If an individual, trying desperately to understand the nature of the situation here in the world, must choose eventually between physical causation of thought and non-physical causation of thought, then it seems reasonable to me to choose physical causation.
Throughout history, physical causation has ended up explaining away non-physical, i.e., wishful, fantasies.
Quite horrible..........2006-01-16
As much as I respect Paul Churchland as a philosopher, I can't say this book is very good (he's written much better!)
His coverage of the main positions in the philosophy of mind leaves much to be desired. For one thing, the arguments he uses in favor of dualisms and the objections he brings against it are quite bad. Most dualists would probably cringe at the idea (John Foster, William Vacllicella, W. D. Hart, Richard Swinburne, C. J. Ducasse, David Chalmers, William Hasker) that their position can be so sloppily defended (and refuted). Of course there are a number of differences between these dualists, but that is not the point. It is also true that Churchland's book is intended as an introduction. All the more reason for a bit more balance. Frankly, as a dualist I was no impressed--not to mention unmoved.
Churchland goes from there to arguing later in the same chapter (ch. 2) for eliminative materialism. He uses a very bad argument. He argues that an objection against eliminative materialism which appeals to introspection begs the question. After all, this is the very thing which Churchland is calling into question. So far of course, this is only an assertion, as much in need of justification as he claims the non-eliminative materialist advocate requires. He then claims that introspection is as 'theory-laden' as empirical judgments (I suppose a la Kuhn). But this claim is very weak. For the claim itself rests on a sort of introspection, and requires that Churchland's critics accept the a number of controversial claims (the empirical judgements are theory laden, and that introspection is somehow analogous to empirical judgments). It would also seem that his view of introspection is a bit simplistic (straw man).
But at the very least, the argument is unconvincing.
Pretty good introduction to a vexing problem.......2002-11-03
The mind-body problem, as it is called in Western philosophy, still has the attention of philosophers, despite centuries of debate. It will no doubt occupy more of philosophers time in the upcoming decades due to the resurging interest (and advances) in artificial intelligence. But the goal of most research in A.I. is now geared towards computational algorithms that are able to learn and can discover new knowledge or data patterns. The "hard A.I." problem, that of creating conscious machines, is not top priority it seems.
But philosophers will continue with the analysis of the nature of conscious intelligence, and the author is one of these. Interestingly though, and correctly, he asserts that progress in this analysis has been made, and he notes that philosophy has joined hands with psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, ethology, and evolutionary theory in making this progress. And this will no doubt continue as advances in these fields are made, and the 21st century will see the advent of the "industrial philosopher". Once thought to be a purely academic profession, the ethical considerations behind genetic engineering and the legal rights of thinking machines will require the presence of philosophers in the rank and file of engineers, technicians, and managers. And because of this, these philosophers, and their coworkers will themselves have considerable knowledge outside their own field.
Again, the refreshing feature of this book is that the author believes that philosophy has made considerable process on the nature of mind. This was done, he says, by understanding the mind's self-knowledge, by providing a much clearer idea of the nature of the different theories of mind, and by clarifying the sorts of evidence that must be acquired in order to distinguish between these different theories. Empirical evidence, he states, has enabled the making of these distinctions much more rational and scientific. But he is careful to note that the evidence is still ambigious, and much work still needs to be done before the these ideas can be differentiated with more clarity. He discusses in detail the different theories of dualism and materialism. An entire chapter is devoted to discussing substance dualism, property dualism, philosophical behaviorism, reductive materialism, functionalism, and eliminative materialism. The author asks readers to start anew and throw away their convictions while analyzing these conceptions of mind and matter.
For the author, the mind-body problem cannot be solved without considering three problems: 1. Semantical: The meaning of ordinary common-sense terms for mental states. 2. Epistemological: The problem of other minds and the capacity for introspection. 3. Methodological: The proper methodology to use in constructing a theory of mind. Entire chapters are devoted to these, and after reading them the reader entering the debate on the mind-body problem for the first time will have an over-abundance of food for thought.
An entire chapter is spent on the topic of artificial intelligence. If this book were updated, this chapter would probably have to be considerably expanded, in that many advances have been made in A.I. since this book was first published. Research in A.I. has been rocky, and many promises that were unfullfilled were made in the past about it. But now it seems a more rational and realistic attitude is taken about the claims of A.I. Most everyone involved in it understands that it is an enormously complex problem, and have concentrated their efforts on building intelligent machines from a piece-meal, microscopic approach, i.e. from solving the simplest problems first before tackling the more difficult ones.
A chapter is also devoted to neuroscience. Thanks to imaging technologies and other approaches to mapping the brain, this field has mushroomed in recent years. The author only gives a cursory overview of the brain and the nervous system in this chapter, due no doubt to lack of space. The reverse engineering of the human brain has been pointed to by some researchers in artificial intelligence as being the best hope for building intelligent machines. The dramatic increases in chip technology and bus design have made this belief certainly more feasible. It remains to be seen, via actual empirical research, whether the reverse engineering of the human brain, and then its subsequent implementation in electronic devices, will indeed result in the rise of intelligent machines.
Whatever the future of artificial intelligence and neuroscience, the mind-body problem will no doubt be of interest to philosophers for decades to come. It will be fascinating to see what kinds of conceptual frameworks and methodologies will be employed in attempts to solve this problem. Without doubt some new ideas would be welcome in this regard, as proposals for solutions to the mind-body problem seem to be stuck in a local minimum. But, as the author argues well for, the solution will bring in many areas and possibly some radical ideas, all supported by painstaking experimentation.
The philpsophy is pretty interesting but.........2002-08-31
This book is dated when it comes to AI coverage. Among other things, it talkes briefly about the backpropagation algorithm , invented some 15++ years ago. While this book is about philosophy, it would be nice to have an updated version of this book giving a short overview of how the AI field is borrowing more and more ideas from natural evolution and real neural networks
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