The mechanical mind in history /
Husbands, Phil.
Holland, Owen.
Wheeler, Michael,1960-
The idea of intelligent machines has become part of popular culture. But tracing the history of the actual science of machine intelligence reveals a rich network of cross-disciplinary contributions--the unrecognized origins of ideas now central to artificial intelligence, artificial life, cognitive science, and neuroscience. In The Mechanization of Mind in History, scientists, artists, historians, and philosophers discuss the multidisciplinary quest to formalize and understand the generation of intelligent behavior in natural and artificial systems as a wholly mechanical process. The contributions illustrate the diverse and interacting notions that chart the evolution of the idea of the mechanical mind. They describe the mechanized mind as, among other things, an analogue system, an organized suite of chemical interactions, a self-organizing electromechanical device, an automated general-purpose information processor, and an integrated collection of symbol manipulating mechanisms. They investigate the views of pivotal figures that range from Descartes and Heidegger to Alan Turing and Charles Babbage, and they emphasize such frequently overlooked areas as British cybernetic and pre-cybernetic thinkers. The volume concludes with the personal insights of five highly influential figures in the field: John Maynard Smith, John Holland, Oliver Selfridge, Horace Barlow, and Jack Cowan.Philip Husbands is Professor of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Informatics at the University of Sussex and Codirector of the Sussex Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics. Owen Holland is Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Essex. Michael Wheeler is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Stirling. He is the author of Reconstructing the Cognitive World: The Next Step (MIT Press, 2005).ContributorsPeter Asaro, Horace Barlow, Andy Beckett, Margaret Boden, Jon Bird, Paul Brown, Seth Bullock, Roberto Cordeschi, Jack Cowan, Ezequiel Di Paolo, Hubert Dreyfus, Andrew Hodges, Owen Holland, Jana Hork̀ov,̀ Philip Husbands, Jozef Kelemen, John Maynard Smith, Donald Michie, Oliver Selfridge, Michael Wheeler.
Contents; Preface; 1 Introduction: The Mechanical Mind; 2 Charles Babbage and the Emergence of Automated Reason; 3 D'Arcy Thompson: A Grandfather of A-Life 1; 4 Alan Turing's Mind Machines; 5 What Did Alan Turing Mean by ''Machine''?; 6 The Ratio Club: A Hub of British Cybernetics; 7 From Mechanisms of Adaptation to Intelligence Amplifiers: The Philosophy of W. Ross Ashby; 8 Gordon Pask and His Maverick Machines; 9 Santiago Dreaming; 10 Steps Toward the Synthetic Method: Symbolic Information Processing and Self-Organizing Systems in Early Artificial Intelligence Modeling
11 The Mechanization of Art 12 The Robot Story: Why Robots Were Born and How They Grew Up; 13 God's Machines: Descartes on the Mechanization of Mind; 14 Why Heideggerian AI Failed and How Fixing It Would Require Making It More Heideggerian; 15 An Interview with John Maynard Smith; 16 An Interview with John Holland; 17 An Interview with Oliver Selfridge; 18 An Interview with Horace Barlow; 19 An Interview with Jack Cowan; About the Contributors; Index
Mode of access: World Wide Web
Made available online by Ebrary.
"A Bradford book."
Includes bibliographical references and index.
The idea of intelligent machines has become part of popular culture. But tracing the history of the actual science of machine intelligence reveals a rich network of cross-disciplinary contributions--the unrecognized origins of ideas now central to artificial intelligence, artificial life, cognitive science, and neuroscience. In The Mechanization of Mind in History, scientists, artists, historians, and philosophers discuss the multidisciplinary quest to formalize and understand the generation of intelligent behavior in natural and artificial systems as a wholly mechanical process. The contributions illustrate the diverse and interacting notions that chart the evolution of the idea of the mechanical mind. They describe the mechanized mind as, among other things, an analogue system, an organized suite of chemical interactions, a self-organizing electromechanical device, an automated general-purpose information processor, and an integrated collection of symbol manipulating mechanisms. They investigate the views of pivotal figures that range from Descartes and Heidegger to Alan Turing and Charles Babbage, and they emphasize such frequently overlooked areas as British cybernetic and pre-cybernetic thinkers. The volume concludes with the personal insights of five highly influential figures in the field: John Maynard Smith, John Holland, Oliver Selfridge, Horace Barlow, and Jack Cowan.Philip Husbands is Professor of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Informatics at the University of Sussex and Codirector of the Sussex Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics. Owen Holland is Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Essex. Michael Wheeler is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Stirling. He is the author of Reconstructing the Cognitive World: The Next Step (MIT Press, 2005).ContributorsPeter Asaro, Horace Barlow, Andy Beckett, Margaret Boden, Jon Bird, Paul Brown, Seth Bullock, Roberto Cordeschi, Jack Cowan, Ezequiel Di Paolo, Hubert Dreyfus, Andrew Hodges, Owen Holland, Jana Hork̀ov,̀ Philip Husbands, Jozef Kelemen, John Maynard Smith, Donald Michie, Oliver Selfridge, Michael Wheeler.
Description based on PDF viewed 12/23/2015.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence.
Also available in print.

Restricted to subscribers or individual electronic text purchasers.