Mind and Mechanism (MIT Press) 1st Edition by Drew V. McDermott (PDF)

Description

In Mind and Mechanism, Drew McDermott takes a computational approach to the mind-body problem (how it is that a purely physical entity, the brain, can have experiences). He begins by demonstrating the falseness of dualist approaches, which separate the physical and mental realms. He then surveys what has been accomplished in artificial intelligence, clearly differentiating what we know how to build from what we can imagine building. McDermott then details a computational theory of consciousness claiming that the mind can be modeled entirely in terms of computation — and deals with various possible objections. He also discusses cultural consequences of the theory, including its impact on religion and ethics.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review In this book, Drew McDermott, one of today’s shrewdest thinkers on the role of computation in cognitive capacity, tackles the problem of meaning and consciousness. (Stevan Harnad, Research Chair of Canada, and Center for Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Quebec) About the Author Drew V. McDermott is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Computer Science at Yale University.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Mind and Mechanism is an excellent look at the mind-body problem from the viewpoint of a computer scientist. McDermott does a very good job not just explaining his hypotheses, but also showing how they compete with well know philosophical points of view as well. In Mind and Mechanism, McDermott makes the bold, yet not so far fetched, assumption that the brain is simply an enormous computational machine. Thus, all the things that people regard as stemming from their internal “mind” are simply by-products of a self-modeling of the world within our computational structure, the brain. McDermott does an amazing job supporting his thesis with thorough and exhaustive examples, without falling into the pit trap of overextending metaphors. McDermott even includes a section in his book titled “Objections and Replies”. This section is brilliant in its placement and content in that it addresses many of my early concerns with his reasoning, allowing me to continue with the second half of the book without dwelling on my objections to the first half of the book. Though the book gets off to a fairly slow start and some material might be a bit too technical for people not familiar with formal computer models to immediately grasp, this is a great read for anyone interested in another point of view on the mind-body problem.

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