The Computer and the Brain by John von Neumann (PDF)

Description

John von Neumann is generally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians in modern history. His last work „The Computer and the Brain“ was begun shortly before his death in 1957 and compares the human brain with the computing machines of his time. Von Neumann discusses analogies and differences with unparalleled clarity and precision, making his thoughts still relevant today.

User’s Reviews

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

⭐Even though the book is from the mid 80’s, Excellent information on Neural Computing when it come to the computer and the brain.

⭐I could not locate my old copy of von Neumann’s book so ordered a new one. The book, if a bit dated in its outlook, is still a fascinating intro to AI. What I can’t figure out is why the Churchlands were asked to write a preface to the book, I wish they had at least done their homework or just checked their facts; mistaking William Church (a relative unknown in spite of a patent on typesetting machine dating back to early 1800’s) for Alonzo Church, a towering figure in the foundations of computing is plain unacceptable.Reza Langari

⭐While the metaphor of brain as computer (or computer is brain) is highly misleading , von Neumann’s book is an illuminating mid-century perspective on the relation between the two. von Neumann writes with a clarity that is often missing in the individual fields he straddles here – even now his book would serve as an introduction to both computer science and neuroscience for the general reader.

⭐I got this book after seeing Jacob Bronowski mention it on his ‘Ascent of Man’ series. It certainly may seem dated in some parts now, but some of the fundamentals it goes over are timeless.I think it would be better to start reading this book while thinking of from an historical perspective instead of expecting current scientific schools of thought.

⭐After 50 years, this book by the genius John von Neumann is still relevant in many aspects. I wish I had read this before I started my cognitive science education or before I have written my cog. sci. thesis. Neumann’s insights into the architecture of the information processing of the brain is what many scientists today consider a nearly standard framework.Anybody in interested in the intersection of computing science and brain research should read this short and sharp book, not only for its contents but also for Neumann’s style.

⭐Very good book

⭐A genius that changes the world

⭐Today, the idea of the computer (and more recently, the network) as a model of the human brain, and by extension, the human mind, is not a particularly novel idea. But in von Neumann’s time, it was in many ways a radical notion. Computers at that time were sometimes referred to as “mechanical brains,” but that was more a metaphor for the masses than an idea that was taken seriously. In 1958, there were two types of computers, neither of which had anything approaching the memory or the speed or the complexity of the human brain. There were mechanical analog computers, like the Bush Differential Analyzer, that could be set up to provide numeric approximations of differential equations, and a few very large, expensive, and slow electronic computers that could be “programmed”- I think “configured” is a more descriptive term- to solve certain numeric computations, or approximations. It was more of a programmable calculator than a computer in the modern sense, as it was not able to change its own program code while running.But von Neumann (and to be fair, a few other far sighted mathematicians like Turing) understood that the contemporary computers of his time were but a glimpse of what was theoretically possible, given a more advanced technology. It might even be possible, he thought, to achieve a level of complexity and speed that would approximate that of the human brain, and implicit in that was a very important insight: The specific hardware used to implement a given program was unimportant. While there were certainly parallels between the function of the brain and the electronic computers of the 1950s, what was important was not that both used electrical impulses, or that both had certain types of electrical switches. Here, he applies Turing’s notion of a “code”- a set of instructions that allows any machine to perform in a manner identical to any other machine, given a suitable set of specifications and enough speed. And if the brain is , in fact, a deterministic biochemical machine, it should be possible to instantiate an equivalent of the human brain, and by extension, human mind, in artifical hardware.There are of course several objections to that idea, like Hubert Dreyfus’ objection regarding whether all knowledge can be formalized, and what I think of as the Wittgensteinian objections, that thought, like language, must be based on interaction with other actors in the world. But that’s not to say that some kind of intelligence, some kind of self-aware computational being can be instantiated in some conceptual advanced hardware system. Regardless, von Neumann was among the first to realize that the true power of the computer lie not in faster and faster solution of computational problems, but in the abstract manipulation of symbols, and that through this manipulation, the computer of the future would be able to perform the actions of any machine, and possibly of living organisms as well. This is stimulating reading both for its historical import and for its logical presentation of issues that are still important in the cognitive sciences.

⭐A good little read. Worth it.

⭐Awesome connections between computer and the brain. How mathematics as we know it may not be sufficient to explain all the possible brain and cell phenomenons.

Keywords

Free Download The Computer and the Brain in PDF format
The Computer and the Brain PDF Free Download
Download The Computer and the Brain 2012 PDF Free
The Computer and the Brain 2012 PDF Free Download
Download The Computer and the Brain PDF
Free Download Ebook The Computer and the Brain