Computing the Mind: How the Mind Really Works Review

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Computing the Mind: How the Mind Really Works ReviewThis book is very ambitious introductory text to both cognitive psychology and philosophy of the mind, and is able to integrate the two fields seamlessly. To be quite honest, it contains the best summary of modern, scientifically based philosophy of the mind that I have seen so far. What's more, the book contains ample references to art, music, literature, pop culture, and the history of philosophical and psychological thought, to help put the material in the context of the human experience. The chapters on ethics, happiness, the self, and the future of brains/minds also do an excellent job of exploring the different angles of brains/minds and conscious experience.
With regards to the previous reviewer: this book is a survey text, and it doesn't go as in depth on some issues as would be ideal. But since it was built to be a survey text, the author probably was working within certain confines regarding length and depth of exploration of the topics. For a fuller exploration of the material, the reader will need to rely on the footnotes, citations, and Google searches. However, a course instructor can get around this by supplementing the book with journal articles and other additional material.
There are a number of passages where a lot of information is packed into 3-4 sentences, and the passage needs to be 'unpacked', in a sense, to be fully understood. I don't know if this is simply the authors writing style, or if this was done to meet length requirements set by the publisher. Either way, do not be dismayed if a certain passage takes 4-5 reads to make any sense. Because on that 5th read, you'll finally get it, and then be in awe of just how much insight was tightly packed into the three sentences you just spent 5 minutes on ;).Computing the Mind: How the Mind Really Works OverviewIn a culmination of humanity's millennia-long quest for self knowledge, the sciences of the mind are now in a position to offer concrete, empirically validated answers to the most fundamental questions about human nature. What does it mean to be a mind? How is the mind related to the brain? How are minds shaped by their embodiment and environment? What are the principles behind cognitive functions such as perception, memory, language, thought, and consciousness? By analyzing the tasks facing any sentient being that is subject to stimulation and a pressure to act, Shimon Edelman identifies computation as the common denominator in the emerging answers to all these questions. Any system composed of elements that exchange signals with each other and occasionally with the rest of the world can be said to be engaged in computation. A brain composed of neurons is one example of a system that computes, and the computations that the neurons collectively carry out constitute the brain's mind. Edelman presents a computational account of the entire spectrum of cognitive phenomena that constitutes the mind. He begins with sentience, and uses examples from visual perception to demonstrate that it must, at its very core, be a type of computation. Throughout his account, Edelman acknowledges the human mind's biological origins. Along the way, he also demystifies traits such as creativity, language, and individual and collective consciousness, and hints at how naturally evolved minds can transcend some of their limitations by moving to computational substrates other than brains. The account that Edelman gives in this book is accessible, yet unified and rigorous, and the big picture he presents is supported by evidence ranging from neurobiology to computer science. The book should be read by anyone seeking a comprehensive and current introduction to cognitive psychology.

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The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely Review

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The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely ReviewI first became interested in this book after seeing it in a bookshop. Having read some Darwin and a fair bit of Bergson I was interested. It is rare indeed nowadays to see any work at all on the concept of time in any other form than the typical linear classical physics/relativity idea. This posits time as something that either acts as a medium through which matter moves or in the case of relativity as another dimension much like the three known space dimensions. In both cases time is strongly spatialised i.e. thought of in the same way that space is.
Time is of course strongly linked to change whether it is the idea of change prevalent in ancient times e.g. Plato and Aristotle, Heraclitus or the more modern versions used in science. Grosz has studied time's presence through three well known figures Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche and Henri Bergson. Darwin's concern was how organisms evolved over time, Nietzsche how the human being uses the "Will to Power" to become more and Bergson was interested in both. That is in how organisms evolved and what duration (time) actually is, especially in comparison to space.
Grosz analyses all of them in turn. She does something unexpected with Darwin, she suggests that natural selection is in fact a positive "force" rather than a purely negative influence on species. I did not find myself believing this, it makes more of natural selection that it is originally posited to be. In turn she considers the ideas of Nietzsche who did foresee Bergson to some degree in that he proposed "The Will to Power" which can be recognised a little in Bergson's elan vital. Finally she discusses Bergson's ideas on time/duration, evolution, intelligence, instinct and so on. She studies Bergson far more deeply than either of the other two.
She also relates these concepts to politics especially those of feminism, racism and other forms of political struggle. Her discussion of Bergson is deep and she understands his work well. At times I found myself impressed at her whole grasp of Bergson's issues. She locates a kind of complete whole within his work which eluded me. I had read Creative Evolution, Time and Free Will and The Creative Mind but have not as yet covered Duration and Simultaneity or Mind-Energy.
I find that she takes the most from Bergson and relates it at the highest level to much else in our current cultural and political reality. However I did not feel convinced by her study of Darwin and the earlier parts of the book felt a little disjointed. Some parts, especially those on Bergson flowed well together. A good piece of work with more potential.The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely OverviewIn this pathbreaking philosophical work, Elizabeth Grosz points the way toward a theory of becoming to replace the prevailing ontologies of being in social, political, and biological discourse. Arguing that theories of temporality have significant and underappreciated relevance to the social dimensions of science and the political dimensions of struggle, Grosz engages key theoretical concerns related to the reality of time. She explores the effect of time on the organization of matter and on the emergence and development of biological life. Considering how the relentless forward movement of time might be conceived in political and social terms, she begins to formulate a model of time that incorporates the future and its capacity to supersede and transform the past and present.Grosz develops her argument by juxtaposing the work of three major figures in Western thought: Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Henri Bergson. She reveals that in theorizing time as an active, positive phenomenon with its own characteristics and specific effects, each of these thinkers had a profound effect on contemporary understandings of the body in relation to time. She shows how their allied concepts of life, evolution, and becoming are manifest in the work of Gilles Deleuze and Luce Irigaray. Throughout The Nick of Time, Grosz emphasizes the political and cultural imperative to fundamentally rethink time: the more clearly we understand our temporal location as beings straddling the past and the future without the security of a stable and abiding present, the more transformation becomes conceivable.

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