Embodiments of Mind
Writings by a thinker—a psychiatrist, a philosopher, a cybernetician, and a poet—whose ideas about mind and brain were far ahead of his time.

Warren S. McCulloch was an original thinker, in many respects far ahead of his time. McCulloch, who was a psychiatrist, a philosopher, a teacher, a mathematician, and a poet, termed his work “experimental epistemology.” He said, “There is one answer, only one, toward which I've groped for thirty years: to find out how brains work.” Embodiments of Mind, first published more than fifty years ago, teems with intriguing concepts about the mind/brain that are highly relevant to recent developments in neuroscience and neural networks. It includes two classic papers coauthored with Walter Pitts, one of which applies Boolean algebra to neurons considered as gates, and the other of which shows the kind of nervous circuitry that could be used in perceiving universals. These first models are part of the basis of artificial intelligence.

Chapters range from “What Is a Number, that a Man May Know It, and a Man, that He May Know a Number,” and “Why the Mind Is in the Head,” to “What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's Brain” (with Jerome Lettvin, Humberto Maturana, and Walter Pitts), “Machines that Think and Want,” and “A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity” (with Walter Pitts). Embodiments of Mind concludes with a selection of McCulloch's poems and sonnets. This reissued edition offers a new foreword and a biographical essay by McCulloch's one-time research assistant, the neuroscientist and computer scientist Michael Arbib.

1000001706
Embodiments of Mind
Writings by a thinker—a psychiatrist, a philosopher, a cybernetician, and a poet—whose ideas about mind and brain were far ahead of his time.

Warren S. McCulloch was an original thinker, in many respects far ahead of his time. McCulloch, who was a psychiatrist, a philosopher, a teacher, a mathematician, and a poet, termed his work “experimental epistemology.” He said, “There is one answer, only one, toward which I've groped for thirty years: to find out how brains work.” Embodiments of Mind, first published more than fifty years ago, teems with intriguing concepts about the mind/brain that are highly relevant to recent developments in neuroscience and neural networks. It includes two classic papers coauthored with Walter Pitts, one of which applies Boolean algebra to neurons considered as gates, and the other of which shows the kind of nervous circuitry that could be used in perceiving universals. These first models are part of the basis of artificial intelligence.

Chapters range from “What Is a Number, that a Man May Know It, and a Man, that He May Know a Number,” and “Why the Mind Is in the Head,” to “What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's Brain” (with Jerome Lettvin, Humberto Maturana, and Walter Pitts), “Machines that Think and Want,” and “A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity” (with Walter Pitts). Embodiments of Mind concludes with a selection of McCulloch's poems and sonnets. This reissued edition offers a new foreword and a biographical essay by McCulloch's one-time research assistant, the neuroscientist and computer scientist Michael Arbib.

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Embodiments of Mind

Embodiments of Mind

Embodiments of Mind

Embodiments of Mind

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Overview

Writings by a thinker—a psychiatrist, a philosopher, a cybernetician, and a poet—whose ideas about mind and brain were far ahead of his time.

Warren S. McCulloch was an original thinker, in many respects far ahead of his time. McCulloch, who was a psychiatrist, a philosopher, a teacher, a mathematician, and a poet, termed his work “experimental epistemology.” He said, “There is one answer, only one, toward which I've groped for thirty years: to find out how brains work.” Embodiments of Mind, first published more than fifty years ago, teems with intriguing concepts about the mind/brain that are highly relevant to recent developments in neuroscience and neural networks. It includes two classic papers coauthored with Walter Pitts, one of which applies Boolean algebra to neurons considered as gates, and the other of which shows the kind of nervous circuitry that could be used in perceiving universals. These first models are part of the basis of artificial intelligence.

Chapters range from “What Is a Number, that a Man May Know It, and a Man, that He May Know a Number,” and “Why the Mind Is in the Head,” to “What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's Brain” (with Jerome Lettvin, Humberto Maturana, and Walter Pitts), “Machines that Think and Want,” and “A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity” (with Walter Pitts). Embodiments of Mind concludes with a selection of McCulloch's poems and sonnets. This reissued edition offers a new foreword and a biographical essay by McCulloch's one-time research assistant, the neuroscientist and computer scientist Michael Arbib.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780262340960
Publisher: MIT Press
Publication date: 10/29/2016
Series: The MIT Press
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 488
File size: 7 MB
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Warren S. McCulloch was an American neurophysiologist and cybernetician, known for his work on the foundation for certain brain theories and his contribution to the cybernetics movement.

Michael Arbib has played a leading role at the interface of neuroscience and computer science ever since his first book, Brains, Machines, and Mathematics. From Neuron to Cognition provides a worthy pedagogical sequel to his widely acclaimed Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks. After thirty years at University of Southern California he is now pursuing interests in “how the brain got language” and “neuroscience for architecture” in San Diego.

The late Seymour A. Papert was a Professor in MIT's AI Lab (1960–1980s) and MIT's Media Lab (1985–2000) and the author of Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas.

Table of Contents

Foreword to the 2016 Reissue Michael A. Arbib ix

Foreword to the 1988 Reissue Jerome Lettvin xvii

Preface xxiii

Acknowledgments xxv

Introduction xxix

1 What Is a Number, That a Man May Know It, and a Man, That He May Know a Number? Warren S. McCulloch 1

2 A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity Warren S. McCulloch Walter H. Pitts 19

3 A Heterarchy of Values Determined by the Topology of Nervous Nets Warren S. McCulloch 39

4 How We Know Universal: The Perception of Auditory and Visual Forms Walter Pitts Warren S. McCulloch 47

5 Modes of Functional Organization of the Cerebral Cortex Warren S. McCulloch 69

6 Why the Mind Is in the Head Warren S. McCulloch 79

7 Through the Den of the Metaphysician Warren S. McCulloch 149

8 Mysterium Iniquitatis of Sinful Man Aspiring into the Place of God Warren S. McCulloch 163

9 Effects of Strychnine with Special Reference to Spinal Afferent Fibres P. D. Wall W. S. McCulloch J. Y. Lettvin W. H. Pitts 171

10 Reflex Inhibition by Dorsal Root Interaction B. Howland J. Y. Lettvin W. S. McCulloch W. Pitts P. D. Wall 193

11 Toward Some Circuitry of Ethical Robots or an Observational Science of the Genesis of Social Evaluation in the Mind-Like Behavior of Artifacts W. S. McCulloch 217

12 Agathe Tyche: Of Nervous Nets-the Lucky Reckoners W. S. McCulloch 227

13 Where Is Fancy Bred? Warren S. McCulloch 245

14 What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's Brain J. Y. Lettvin H. R. Maturana W. S. McCulloch W. H. Pitts 261

15 Finality and Form in Nervous Activity Warren S. McCulloch 287

16 The Past of a Delusion Warren S. McCulloch 309

17 Machines That Think and Want Warren S. McCulloch 329

18 The Natural Fit Warren S. McCulloch 343

19 A Historical Introduction to the Postulational Foundations of Experimental Epistemology Warren S. McCulloch 365

20 Physiological Processes Underlying Psychoneuroses Warren S. McCulloch 377

21 "What's in the Brain That Ink May Character?" Warren S. McCulloch 399

Afterword: Warren McCulloch's Search for the Logic of the Nervous System Michael A. Arbib 411

Index 439

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