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Computers And Brains
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Book Synopsis The Computer and the Brain by : John Von Neumann
Download or read book The Computer and the Brain written by John Von Neumann and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book represents the views of one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century on the analogies between computing machines and the living human brain. John von Neumann concludes that the brain operates in part digitally, in part analogically, but uses a peculiar statistical language unlike that employed in the operation of man-made computers. This edition includes a new foreword by two eminent figures in the fields of philosophy, neuroscience, and consciousness.
Book Synopsis Minds, Brains, and Computers by : Ralph Morelli
Download or read book Minds, Brains, and Computers written by Ralph Morelli and published by Intellect Books. This book was released on 1992 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The basic questions addressed in this book are: what is the computational nature of cognition, and what role does it play in language and other mental processes?; What are the main characteristics of contemporary computational paradigms for describing cognition and how do they differ from each other?; What are the prospects for building cognition and how do they differ from each other?; and what are the prospects for building an artificial intelligence?
Book Synopsis Our Brains Are Like Computers! by : Joel Shaul
Download or read book Our Brains Are Like Computers! written by Joel Shaul and published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. This book was released on 2016-01-21 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This highly visual social skills book uses computer metaphors and visual diagrams to help children on the autism spectrum to understand how their words and actions can affect other people. Easily identifiable computing and social networking metaphors are used to explain how memories are saved in the brain, like files in computer folders, and how, just as files can be shared and downloaded on the internet, people learn about you by sharing their positive and negative impressions with each other. The author explains why certain actions may be 'liked' or 'disliked' by others, and offers guidance on appropriate and inappropriate social behavior. This book also features photocopiable worksheets to reinforce the guidance and lessons offered in the book.
Download or read book The Spike written by Mark Humphries and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of a neural impulse and what it reveals about how our brains work We see the last cookie in the box and think, can I take that? We reach a hand out. In the 2.1 seconds that this impulse travels through our brain, billions of neurons communicate with one another, sending blips of voltage through our sensory and motor regions. Neuroscientists call these blips “spikes.” Spikes enable us to do everything: talk, eat, run, see, plan, and decide. In The Spike, Mark Humphries takes readers on the epic journey of a spike through a single, brief reaction. In vivid language, Humphries tells the story of what happens in our brain, what we know about spikes, and what we still have left to understand about them. Drawing on decades of research in neuroscience, Humphries explores how spikes are born, how they are transmitted, and how they lead us to action. He dives into previously unanswered mysteries: Why are most neurons silent? What causes neurons to fire spikes spontaneously, without input from other neurons or the outside world? Why do most spikes fail to reach any destination? Humphries presents a new vision of the brain, one where fundamental computations are carried out by spontaneous spikes that predict what will happen in the world, helping us to perceive, decide, and react quickly enough for our survival. Traversing neuroscience’s expansive terrain, The Spike follows a single electrical response to illuminate how our extraordinary brains work.
Download or read book Electronic Brains written by Mike Hally and published by Granta Books (Uk). This book was released on 2005 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Account of the birth of the modern computer from 1930-1960.
Book Synopsis Strange Glow by : Timothy J. Jorgensen
Download or read book Strange Glow written by Timothy J. Jorgensen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-23 with total page 507 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fascinating science and history of radiation More than ever before, radiation is a part of our modern daily lives. We own radiation-emitting phones, regularly get diagnostic x-rays, such as mammograms, and submit to full-body security scans at airports. We worry and debate about the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the safety of nuclear power plants. But how much do we really know about radiation? And what are its actual dangers? An accessible blend of narrative history and science, Strange Glow describes mankind's extraordinary, thorny relationship with radiation, including the hard-won lessons of how radiation helps and harms our health. Timothy Jorgensen explores how our knowledge of and experiences with radiation in the last century can lead us to smarter personal decisions about radiation exposures today. Jorgensen introduces key figures in the story of radiation—from Wilhelm Roentgen, the discoverer of x-rays, and pioneering radioactivity researchers Marie and Pierre Curie, to Thomas Edison and the victims of the recent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident. Tracing the most important events in the evolution of radiation, Jorgensen explains exactly what radiation is, how it produces certain health consequences, and how we can protect ourselves from harm. He also considers a range of practical scenarios such as the risks of radon in our basements, radiation levels in the fish we eat, questions about cell-phone use, and radiation's link to cancer. Jorgensen empowers us to make informed choices while offering a clearer understanding of broader societal issues. Investigating radiation's benefits and risks, Strange Glow takes a remarkable look at how, for better or worse, radiation has transformed our society.
Download or read book Spark written by Timothy J. Jorgensen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-06-06 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh look at electricity and its powerful role in life on Earth When we think of electricity, we likely imagine the energy humming inside our home appliances or lighting up our electronic devices—or perhaps we envision the lightning-streaked clouds of a stormy sky. But electricity is more than an external source of power, heat, or illumination. Life at its essence is nothing if not electrical. The story of how we came to understand electricity’s essential role in all life is rooted in our observations of its influences on the body—influences governed by the body’s central nervous system. Spark explains the science of electricity from this fresh, biological perspective. Through vivid tales of scientists and individuals—from Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk—Timothy Jorgensen shows how our views of electricity and the nervous system evolved in tandem, and how progress in one area enabled advancements in the other. He explains how these developments have allowed us to understand—and replicate—the ways electricity enables the body’s essential functions of sight, hearing, touch, and movement itself. Throughout, Jorgensen examines our fascination with electricity and how it can help or harm us. He explores a broad range of topics and events, including the Nobel Prize–winning discoveries of the electron and neuron, the history of experimentation involving electricity’s effects on the body, and recent breakthroughs in the use of electricity to treat disease. Filled with gripping adventures in scientific exploration, Spark offers an indispensable look at electricity, how it works, and how it animates our lives from within and without.
Book Synopsis Brain-Computer Interfacing by : Rajesh P. N. Rao
Download or read book Brain-Computer Interfacing written by Rajesh P. N. Rao and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-30 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of interfacing minds with machines has long captured the human imagination. Recent advances in neuroscience and engineering are making this a reality, opening the door to restoration and augmentation of human physical and mental capabilities. Medical applications such as cochlear implants for the deaf and neurally controlled prosthetic limbs for the paralyzed are becoming almost commonplace. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are also increasingly being used in security, lie detection, alertness monitoring, telepresence, gaming, education, art, and human augmentation. This introduction to the field is designed as a textbook for upper-level undergraduate and first-year graduate courses in neural engineering or brain-computer interfacing for students from a wide range of disciplines. It can also be used for self-study and as a reference by neuroscientists, computer scientists, engineers, and medical practitioners. Key features include questions and exercises in each chapter and a supporting website.
Book Synopsis The Biological Mind by : Alan Jasanoff
Download or read book The Biological Mind written by Alan Jasanoff and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pioneering neuroscientist argues that we are more than our brains To many, the brain is the seat of personal identity and autonomy. But the way we talk about the brain is often rooted more in mystical conceptions of the soul than in scientific fact. This blinds us to the physical realities of mental function. We ignore bodily influences on our psychology, from chemicals in the blood to bacteria in the gut, and overlook the ways that the environment affects our behavior, via factors varying from subconscious sights and sounds to the weather. As a result, we alternately overestimate our capacity for free will or equate brains to inorganic machines like computers. But a brain is neither a soul nor an electrical network: it is a bodily organ, and it cannot be separated from its surroundings. Our selves aren't just inside our heads -- they're spread throughout our bodies and beyond. Only once we come to terms with this can we grasp the true nature of our humanity.
Book Synopsis Brain, Mind, and Computers by : Stanley L. Jaki
Download or read book Brain, Mind, and Computers written by Stanley L. Jaki and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis The Idea of the Brain by : Matthew Cobb
Download or read book The Idea of the Brain written by Matthew Cobb and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An "elegant", "engrossing" (Carol Tavris, Wall Street Journal) examination of what we think we know about the brain and why -- despite technological advances -- the workings of our most essential organ remain a mystery. "I cannot recommend this book strongly enough."--Henry Marsh, author of Do No Harm For thousands of years, thinkers and scientists have tried to understand what the brain does. Yet, despite the astonishing discoveries of science, we still have only the vaguest idea of how the brain works. In The Idea of the Brain, scientist and historian Matthew Cobb traces how our conception of the brain has evolved over the centuries. Although it might seem to be a story of ever-increasing knowledge of biology, Cobb shows how our ideas about the brain have been shaped by each era's most significant technologies. Today we might think the brain is like a supercomputer. In the past, it has been compared to a telegraph, a telephone exchange, or some kind of hydraulic system. What will we think the brain is like tomorrow, when new technology arises? The result is an essential read for anyone interested in the complex processes that drive science and the forces that have shaped our marvelous brains.
Book Synopsis The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by : Nicholas Carr
Download or read book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains written by Nicholas Carr and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-06-06 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction: “Nicholas Carr has written a Silent Spring for the literary mind.”—Michael Agger, Slate “Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question, in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Now, Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. As he describes how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools of the mind”—from the alphabet to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the computer—Carr interweaves a fascinating account of recent discoveries in neuroscience by such pioneers as Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel. Our brains, the historical and scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our experiences. The technologies we use to find, store, and share information can literally reroute our neural pathways. Building on the insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a convincing case that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic—a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. He explains how the printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many sources. Its ethic is that of the industrialist, an ethic of speed and efficiency, of optimized production and consumption—and now the Net is remaking us in its own image. We are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are losing is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection. Part intellectual history, part popular science, and part cultural criticism, The Shallows sparkles with memorable vignettes—Friedrich Nietzsche wrestling with a typewriter, Sigmund Freud dissecting the brains of sea creatures, Nathaniel Hawthorne contemplating the thunderous approach of a steam locomotive—even as it plumbs profound questions about the state of our modern psyche. This is a book that will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.
Book Synopsis An Internet in Your Head by : Daniel Graham
Download or read book An Internet in Your Head written by Daniel Graham and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether we realize it or not, we think of our brains as computers. In neuroscience, the metaphor of the brain as a computer has defined the field for much of the modern era. But as neuroscientists increasingly reevaluate their assumptions about how brains work, we need a new metaphor to help us ask better questions. The computational neuroscientist Daniel Graham offers an innovative paradigm for understanding the brain. He argues that the brain is not like a single computer—it is a communication system, like the internet. Both are networks whose power comes from their flexibility and reliability. The brain and the internet both must route signals throughout their systems, requiring protocols to direct messages from just about any point to any other. But we do not yet understand how the brain manages the dynamic flow of information across its entire network. The internet metaphor can help neuroscience unravel the brain’s routing mechanisms by focusing attention on shared design principles and communication strategies that emerge from parallel challenges. Highlighting similarities between brain connectivity and the architecture of the internet can open new avenues of research and help unlock the brain’s deepest secrets. An Internet in Your Head presents a clear-eyed and engaging tour of brain science as it stands today and where the new paradigm might take it next. It offers anyone with an interest in brains a transformative new way to conceptualize what goes on inside our heads.
Book Synopsis Toward Brain-computer Interfacing by : Guido Dornhege
Download or read book Toward Brain-computer Interfacing written by Guido Dornhege and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents a timely overview of the latest BCI research, with contributions from many of the important research groups in the field.
Book Synopsis Minds, Brains and Science by : John R. Searle
Download or read book Minds, Brains and Science written by John R. Searle and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1986-01-01 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Minds, Brains and Science takes up just the problems that perplex people, and it does what good philosophy always does: it dispels the illusion caused by the specious collision of truths. How do we reconcile common sense and science? John Searle argues vigorously that the truths of common sense and the truths of science are both right and that the only question is how to fit them together. Searle explains how we can reconcile an intuitive view of ourselves as conscious, free, rational agents with a universe that science tells us consists of mindless physical particles. He briskly and lucidly sets out his arguments against the familiar positions in the philosophy of mind, and details the consequences of his ideas for the mind-body problem, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, questions of action and free will, and the philosophy of the social sciences.
Book Synopsis The Digital Mind by : Arlindo Oliveira
Download or read book The Digital Mind written by Arlindo Oliveira and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-03-09 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How developments in science and technology may enable the emergence of purely digital minds—intelligent machines equal to or greater in power than the human brain. What do computers, cells, and brains have in common? Computers are electronic devices designed by humans; cells are biological entities crafted by evolution; brains are the containers and creators of our minds. But all are, in one way or another, information-processing devices. The power of the human brain is, so far, unequaled by any existing machine or known living being. Over eons of evolution, the brain has enabled us to develop tools and technology to make our lives easier. Our brains have even allowed us to develop computers that are almost as powerful as the human brain itself. In this book, Arlindo Oliveira describes how advances in science and technology could enable us to create digital minds. Exponential growth is a pattern built deep into the scheme of life, but technological change now promises to outstrip even evolutionary change. Oliveira describes technological and scientific advances that range from the discovery of laws that control the behavior of the electromagnetic fields to the development of computers. He calls natural selection the ultimate algorithm, discusses genetics and the evolution of the central nervous system, and describes the role that computer imaging has played in understanding and modeling the brain. Having considered the behavior of the unique system that creates a mind, he turns to an unavoidable question: Is the human brain the only system that can host a mind? If digital minds come into existence—and, Oliveira says, it is difficult to argue that they will not—what are the social, legal, and ethical implications? Will digital minds be our partners, or our rivals?
Book Synopsis The Tides of Mind: Uncovering the Spectrum of Consciousness by : David Gelernter
Download or read book The Tides of Mind: Uncovering the Spectrum of Consciousness written by David Gelernter and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-02-22 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “rock star” (New York Times) of the computing world provides a radical new work on the meaning of human consciousness. The holy grail of psychologists and scientists for nearly a century has been to understand and replicate both human thought and the human mind. In fact, it's what attracted the now-legendary computer scientist and AI authority David Gelernter to the discipline in the first place. As a student and young researcher in the 1980s, Gelernter hoped to build a program with a dial marked "focus." At maximum "focus," the program would "think" rationally, formally, reasonably. As the dial was turned down and "focus" diminished, its "mind" would start to wander, and as you dialed even lower, this artificial mind would start to free-associate, eventually ignoring the user completely as it cruised off into the mental adventures we know as sleep. While the program was a only a partial success, it laid the foundation for The Tides of Mind, a groundbreaking new exploration of the human psyche that shows us how the very purpose of the mind changes throughout the day. Indeed, as Gelernter explains, when we are at our most alert, when reasoning and creating new memories is our main mental business, the mind is a computer-like machine that keeps emotion on a short leash and attention on our surroundings. As we gradually tire, however, and descend the "mental spectrum," reasoning comes unglued. Memory ranges more freely, the mind wanders, and daydreams grow more insistent. Self-awareness fades, reflection blinks out, and at last we are completely immersed in our own minds. With far-reaching implications, Gelernter’s landmark "Spectrum of Consciousness" finally helps decode some of the most mysterious wonders of the human mind, such as the numinous light of early childhood, why dreams are so often predictive, and why sadism and masochism underpin some of our greatest artistic achievements. It’s a theory that also challenges the very notion of the mind as a machine—and not through empirical studies or "hard science" but by listening to our great poets and novelists, who have proven themselves as humanity's most trusted guides to the subjective mind and inner self. In the great introspective tradition of Wilhelm Wundt and René Descartes, David Gelernter promises to not only revolutionize our understanding of what it means to be human but also to help answer many of our most fundamental questions about the origins of creativity, thought, and consciousness.
