Artificial Minds

About this book

Recent decades have produced a blossoming of research in artificial systems thatexhibit important properties of mind. But what exactly is this dramatic new work and how does itchange the way we think about the mind or even about who or what has mind?Stan Franklin is theperfect tour guide through the contemporary interdisciplinary matrix of artificial intelligence cognitive science cognitive neuroscience artificial neural networks artificial life and roboticsthat is producing a new paradigm of mind. Leisurely and informal but always informed his tourtouches on all of the major facets of mechanisms of mind.Along the way Franklin makes the case fora perspective that rejects a rigid distinction between mind and non-mind in favor of a continuumfrom less to more mind and for the role of mind as a control structure with the essential task ofchoosing the next action. Selected stops include the best of the work in these different fields with the key concepts and results explained in just enough detail to allow readers to decide forthemselves why the work is significant.Major attractions include animal minds Allan Newells SOAR the three Artificial Intelligence debates John Hollands genetic algorithms Wilsons Animat Brooks subsumption architecture Jacksons pandemonium theory Ornsteins multimind MarvinMinskys society of mind Pattie Maess behavior networks Gerald Edelmans neural Darwinism Dreschers schema mechanisms Pentti Kanervas sparse distributed memory Douglas Hofstadter andMelanie Mitchells Copycat and Agre and Chapmans deictic representations.A Bradford Book