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The Mind's I
''The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul'' is a 1981 collection of essays and other texts about the nature of the mind and the self, edited with commentary by philosophers Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett. The texts range from early philosophical and fictional musings on a subject that could seemingly only be examined in the realm of thought, to works from the twentieth century where the nature of the self became a viable topic for scientific study. Summary The book's chapters are each made up of a previously published work by authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Alan Turing, Richard Dawkins, Raymond Smullyan, John Searle, Stanisław Lem, Thomas Nagel (as well as Hofstadter and Dennett themselves), each followed up by a commentary by Hofstadter and/or Dennett. Dennett and Hofstadter both support the idea that we can learn much about human minds and souls by exploring human mentality in terms of information processing. Dennett and Hofstadter are b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas R
Douglas may refer to: People * Douglas (given name) * Douglas (surname) Animals *Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking *Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil War Businesses * Douglas Aircraft Company * Douglas (cosmetics), German cosmetics retail chain in Europe * Douglas (motorcycles), British motorcycle manufacturer Peerage and Baronetage * Duke of Douglas * Earl of Douglas, or any holder of the title * Marquess of Douglas, or any holder of the title * Douglas Baronets Peoples * Clan Douglas, a Scottish kindred * Dougla people, West Indians of both African and East Indian heritage Places Australia * Douglas, Queensland, a suburb of Townsville * Douglas, Queensland (Toowoomba Region), a locality * Port Douglas, North Queensland, Australia * Shire of Douglas, in northern Queensland Belize * Douglas, Belize Canada * Douglas, New Brunswick * Douglas Parish, New Brunswick * Douglas, Onta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Room
The Chinese room argument holds that a digital computer executing a program cannot have a " mind," "understanding" or "consciousness," regardless of how intelligently or human-like the program may make the computer behave. The argument was presented by philosopher John Searle in his paper, "Minds, Brains, and Programs", published in ''Behavioral and Brain Sciences'' in 1980. Similar arguments were presented by Gottfried Leibniz (1714), Anatoly Dneprov (1961), Lawrence Davis (1974) and Ned Block (1978). Searle's version has been widely discussed in the years since. The centerpiece of Searle's argument is a thought experiment known as the ''Chinese room''. The argument is directed against the philosophical positions of functionalism and computationalism, which hold that the mind may be viewed as an information-processing system operating on formal symbols, and that simulation of a given mental state is sufficient for its presence. Specifically, the argument is intended to ref ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophical Investigations
''Philosophical Investigations'' (german: Philosophische Untersuchungen) is a work by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, published posthumously in 1953. ''Philosophical Investigations'' is divided into two parts, consisting of what Wittgenstein calls, in the preface, ''Bemerkungen'', translated by Anscombe as "remarks". A survey among American university and college teachers ranked the ''Investigations'' as the most important book of 20th-century philosophy. Relation to Wittgenstein's body of work In its preface, Wittgenstein says that ''Philosophical Investigations'' can be understood "only by contrast with and against the background of my old way of thinking". That "old way of thinking" is to be found in the only book Wittgenstein published in his lifetime, the ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus''. Many of the ideas developed in the ''Tractatus'' are criticised in the ''Investigations'', while other ideas are further developed. The ''Blue and Brown Books'', a set of note ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' (widely abbreviated and cited as TLP) is a book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein which deals with the relationship between language and reality and aims to define the limits of science. Wittgenstein wrote the notes for the ''Tractatus'' while he was a soldier during World War I and completed it during a military leave in the summer of 1918. It was originally published in German in 1921 as ''Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung'' (Logical-Philosophical Treatise). In 1922 it was published together with an English translation and a Latin title, which was suggested by G. E. Moore as homage to Baruch Spinoza's ''Tractatus Theologico-Politicus'' (1670). The ''Tractatus'' is written in an austere and succinct literary style, containing almost no arguments as such, but consists of altogether 525 declarative statements, which are hierarchically numbered. The ''Tractatus'' is recognized by philosophers as a signi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considered by some to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. From 1929 to 1947, Wittgenstein taught at the University of Cambridge. In spite of his position, during his entire life only one book of his philosophy was published, the 75-page ''Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung'' (''Logical-Philosophical Treatise'', 1921), which appeared, together with an English translation, in 1922 under the Latin title ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus''. His only other published works were an article, "Some Remarks on Logical Form" (1929); a book review; and a children's dictionary. His voluminous manuscripts were edited and published posthumously. The first and best-known of this posthumous series is the 1953 book ''Philosophical Investigations''. A su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Logical System
A formal system is an abstract structure used for inferring theorems from axioms according to a set of rules. These rules, which are used for carrying out the inference of theorems from axioms, are the logical calculus of the formal system. A formal system is essentially an "axiomatic system". In 1921, David Hilbert proposed to use such a system as the foundation for the knowledge in mathematics. A formal system may represent a well-defined system of abstract thought. The term ''formalism'' is sometimes a rough synonym for ''formal system'', but it also refers to a given style of notation, for example, Paul Dirac's bra–ket notation. Background Each formal system is described by primitive symbols (which collectively form an alphabet) to finitely construct a formal language from a set of axioms through inferential rules of formation. The system thus consists of valid formulas built up through finite combinations of the primitive symbols—combinations that are formed from th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mental Processes
Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, intelligence, the formation of knowledge, memory and working memory, judgment and evaluation, reasoning and computation, problem solving and decision making, comprehension and production of language. Imagination is also a cognitive process, it is considered as such because it involves thinking about possibilities. Cognitive processes use existing knowledge and discover new knowledge. Cognitive processes are analyzed from different perspectives within different contexts, notably in the fields of linguistics, musicology, anesthesia, neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, education, philosophy, anthropology, biology, systemics, logic, and computer science. These and other approaches to the analysis of cognition (such as embodied cognition) a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Behavioral And Brain Sciences
''Behavioral and Brain Sciences'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of Open Peer Commentary established in 1978 by Stevan Harnad and published by Cambridge University Press. It is modeled on the journal ''Current Anthropology'' (which was established in 1959 by the University of Chicago anthropologist, Sol Tax). The journal publishes "target articles" followed by 10 to 30 or more peer commentaries and the response of the authors of the target article. The journal covers all areas of the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences (psychology, neuroscience, behavioral biology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, linguistics, philosophy) and articles are judged by four or more referees to be of sufficient importance and interdisciplinary scope to merit Open Peer Commentary. Volume 1 appeared in 1978 and issues appeared quarterly; as its popularity grew it switched to a bimonthly schedule in 1997. Abstracting and indexing According to the ''Journal Citation Reports' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minds, Brains, And Programs
The Chinese room argument holds that a digital computer executing a program cannot have a " mind," "understanding" or "consciousness," regardless of how intelligently or human-like the program may make the computer behave. The argument was presented by philosopher John Searle in his paper, "Minds, Brains, and Programs", published in ''Behavioral and Brain Sciences'' in 1980. Similar arguments were presented by Gottfried Leibniz (1714), Anatoly Dneprov (1961), Lawrence Davis (1974) and Ned Block (1978). Searle's version has been widely discussed in the years since. The centerpiece of Searle's argument is a thought experiment known as the ''Chinese room''. The argument is directed against the philosophical positions of functionalism and computationalism, which hold that the mind may be viewed as an information-processing system operating on formal symbols, and that simulation of a given mental state is sufficient for its presence. Specifically, the argument is intended to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gödel, Escher, Bach
''Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid'', also known as ''GEB'', is a 1979 book by Douglas Hofstadter. By exploring common themes in the lives and works of logician Kurt Gödel, artist M. C. Escher, and composer Johann Sebastian Bach, the book expounds concepts fundamental to mathematics, symmetry, and intelligence. Through short stories, illustrations, and analysis, the book discusses how systems can acquire meaningful context despite being made of "meaningless" elements. It also discusses self-reference and formal rules, isomorphism, what it means to communicate, how knowledge can be represented and stored, the methods and limitations of symbolic representation, and even the fundamental notion of "meaning" itself. In response to confusion over the book's theme, Hofstadter emphasized that ''Gödel, Escher, Bach'' is not about the relationships of mathematics, art, and music—but rather about how cognition emerges from hidden neurological mechanisms. One point in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher, and is administered by Columbia University. Prizes are awarded annually in twenty-one categories. In twenty of the categories, each winner receives a certificate and a US$15,000 cash award (raised from $10,000 in 2017). The winner in the public service category is awarded a gold medal. Entry and prize consideration The Pulitzer Prize does not automatically consider all applicable works in the media, but only those that have specifically been entered. (There is a $75 entry fee, for each desired entry category.) Entries must fit in at least one of the specific prize categories, and cannot simply gain entrance for being literary or musical. Works can also be entered only in a maximum of two categories, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turing Test
The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine's ability to artificial intelligence, exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Turing proposed that a human evaluator would judge natural language conversations between a human and a machine designed to generate human-like responses. The evaluator would be aware that one of the two partners in conversation was a machine, and all participants would be separated from one another. The conversation would be limited to a text-only channel, such as a computer keyboard and screen, so the result would not depend on the machine's ability to render words as speech. If the evaluator could not reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine would be said to have passed the test. The test results would not depend on the machine's ability to give correct question answering, answers to questions, only on how closely its answers resembled t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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