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What Is Thought?

By: Eric B. Baum

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Paperback | 20 January 2006

At a Glance

Paperback
494 Pages

Age
18+

Dimensions(cm)
0.1 x 0.1 x 0.1

Paperback

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In What Is Thought? Eric Baum proposes a computational explanation of thought. Just as Erwin Schrodinger in his classic 1944 work What Is Life? argued ten years before the discovery of DNA that life must be explainable at a fundamental level by physics and chemistry, Baum contends that the present-day inability of computer science to explain thought and meaning is no reason to doubt there can be such an explanation. Baum argues that the complexity of mind is the outcome of evolution, which has built thought processes that act unlike the standard algorithms of computer science and that to understand the mind we need to understand these thought processes and the evolutionary process that produced them in computational terms.

Baum proposes that underlying mind is a complex but compact program that corresponds to the underlying structure of the world. He argues further that the mind is essentially programmed by DNA. We learn more rapidly than computer scientists have so far been able to explain because the DNA code has programmed the mind to deal only with meaningful possibilities. Thus the mind understands by exploiting semantics, or meaning, for the purposes of computation; constraints are built in so that although there are myriad possibilities, only a few make sense. Evolution discovered corresponding subroutines or shortcuts to speed up its processes and to construct creatures whose survival depends on making the right choice quickly. Baum argues that the structure and nature of thought, meaning, sensation, and consciousness therefore arise naturally from the evolution of programs that exploit the compact structure of the world.

Industry Reviews

A book that is admirable as much for its candor as its ambition.... If What is Thought? can inspire a new generation of computer scientists to inquire anew about the nature of thought, it will be a valuable contribution indeed.

-- Gary Marcus * Science *

... [Should] engage general readers who wish to enjoy a clear, understandable description of many advanced principles of computer science.

-- Igor Aleksander * Nature *

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Philosophy Philosophy of The Mind Psychology Cognition & Cognitive Psychology Computing & I.T.Computer Science Artificial Intelligence Medicine Clinical & Internal Medicine Neurology & Clinical Neurophysiology Psychological Theory, Systems, Schools of Thought & Viewpoints

Cognitivism, Cognitive Theory States of Consciousness Drug-Induced States History of Western Philosophy Medieval & Renaissance Philosophy

Introduction	p. 1
The Mind is a Computer Program	p. 33
The Turing Test, the Chinese Room, and What Computers Can't Do	p. 67
Occam's Razor and Understanding	p. 79
Optimization	p. 107
Remarks on Occam's Razor	p. 129
Reinforcement Learning	p. 145
Exploiting Structure	p. 165
Modules and Metaphors	p. 215
Evolutionary Programming	p. 233
Intractability	p. 271
The Evolution of Learning	p. 303
Language and the Evolution of Thought	p. 349
The Evolution of Consciousness	p. 385
What is Thought?	p. 437
Notes	p. 443
References	p. 455
Index	p. 465
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

What Is Thought?

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

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How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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