Simulating Minds

Simulating Minds PDF Author: Alvin I. Goldman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195138929
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
People are minded creatures; we have thoughts, feelings and emotions. More intriguingly, we grasp our own mental states, and conduct the business of ascribing them to ourselves and others without instruction in formal psychology. How do we do this? And what are the dimensions of our grasp of the mental realm? In this book, Alvin I. Goldman explores these questions with the tools of philosophy, developmental psychology, social psychology and cognitive neuroscience. He refines an approach called simulation theory, which starts from the familiar idea that we understand others by putting ourselves in their mental shoes. Can this intuitive idea be rendered precise in a philosophically respectable manner, without allowing simulation to collapse into theorizing? Given a suitable definition, do empirical results support the notion that minds literally create (or attempt to create) surrogates of other peoples mental states in the process of mindreading? Goldman amasses a surprising array of evidence from psychology and neuroscience that supports this hypothesis.

Simulating Minds

Simulating Minds PDF Author: Alvin I. Goldman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195138929
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 377

Get Book Here

Book Description
People are minded creatures; we have thoughts, feelings and emotions. More intriguingly, we grasp our own mental states, and conduct the business of ascribing them to ourselves and others without instruction in formal psychology. How do we do this? And what are the dimensions of our grasp of the mental realm? In this book, Alvin I. Goldman explores these questions with the tools of philosophy, developmental psychology, social psychology and cognitive neuroscience. He refines an approach called simulation theory, which starts from the familiar idea that we understand others by putting ourselves in their mental shoes. Can this intuitive idea be rendered precise in a philosophically respectable manner, without allowing simulation to collapse into theorizing? Given a suitable definition, do empirical results support the notion that minds literally create (or attempt to create) surrogates of other peoples mental states in the process of mindreading? Goldman amasses a surprising array of evidence from psychology and neuroscience that supports this hypothesis.

Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience

Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience PDF Author: Randall C. O'Reilly
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262650540
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 540

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Book Description
This text, based on a course taught by Randall O'Reilly and Yuko Munakata over the past several years, provides an in-depth introduction to the main ideas in the computational cognitive neuroscience. The goal of computational cognitive neuroscience is to understand how the brain embodies the mind by using biologically based computational models comprising networks of neuronlike units. This text, based on a course taught by Randall O'Reilly and Yuko Munakata over the past several years, provides an in-depth introduction to the main ideas in the field. The neural units in the simulations use equations based directly on the ion channels that govern the behavior of real neurons, and the neural networks incorporate anatomical and physiological properties of the neocortex. Thus the text provides the student with knowledge of the basic biology of the brain as well as the computational skills needed to simulate large-scale cognitive phenomena. The text consists of two parts. The first part covers basic neural computation mechanisms: individual neurons, neural networks, and learning mechanisms. The second part covers large-scale brain area organization and cognitive phenomena: perception and attention, memory, language, and higher-level cognition. The second part is relatively self-contained and can be used separately for mechanistically oriented cognitive neuroscience courses. Integrated throughout the text are more than forty different simulation models, many of them full-scale research-grade models, with friendly interfaces and accompanying exercises. The simulation software (PDP++, available for all major platforms) and simulations can be downloaded free of charge from the Web. Exercise solutions are available, and the text includes full information on the software.

The Personal MBA

The Personal MBA PDF Author: Josh Kaufman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101446080
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
Master the fundamentals, hone your business instincts, and save a fortune in tuition. The consensus is clear: MBA programs are a waste of time and money. Even the elite schools offer outdated assembly-line educations about profit-and-loss statements and PowerPoint presentations. After two years poring over sanitized case studies, students are shuffled off into middle management to find out how business really works. Josh Kaufman has made a business out of distilling the core principles of business and delivering them quickly and concisely to people at all stages of their careers. His blog has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to the best business books and most powerful business concepts of all time. In The Personal MBA, he shares the essentials of sales, marketing, negotiation, strategy, and much more. True leaders aren't made by business schools-they make themselves, seeking out the knowledge, skills, and experiences they need to succeed. Read this book and in one week you will learn the principles it takes most people a lifetime to master.

Simulating the Mind

Simulating the Mind PDF Author: Dietmar Dietrich
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3211094512
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Can psychoanalysis offer a new computer model? Can computer designers help psychoanalysts to understand their theory better?In contemporary publications human psyche is often related to neural networks. Why? The wiring in computers can also be related to application software. But does this really make sense? Artificial Intelligence has tried to implement functions of human psyche. The reached achievements are remarkable; however, the goal to get a functional model of the mental apparatus was not reached. Was the selected direction incorrect?The editors are convinced: yes, and they try to give answers here. If one accepts that the brain is an information processing system, then one also has to accept that computer theories can be applied to the brain’s functions, the human mental apparatus. The contributors of this book - Solms, Panksepp, Sloman and many others who are all experts in computer design, psychoanalysis and neurology are united in one goal: finding synergy in their interdisciplinary fields.

Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation

Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation PDF Author: Keith D. Markman
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1136678093
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 811

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Book Description
Over the past thirty years, and particularly within the last ten years, researchers in the areas of social psychology, cognitive psychology, clinical psychology, and neuroscience have been examining fascinating questions regarding the nature of imagination and mental simulation – the imagination and generation of alternative realities. Some of these researchers have focused on the specific processes that occur in the brain when an individual is mentally simulating an action or forming a mental image, whereas others have focused on the consequences of mental simulation processes for affect, cognition, motivation, and behavior. This Handbook provides a novel and stimulating integration of work on imagination and mental simulation from a variety of perspectives. It is the first broad-based volume to integrate specific sub-areas such as mental imagery, imagination, thought flow, narrative transportation, fantasizing, and counterfactual thinking, which have, until now, been treated by researchers as disparate and orthogonal lines of inquiry. As such, the volume enlightens psychologists to the notion that a wide-range of mental simulation phenomena may actually share a commonality of underlying processes.

Anatomy of the Mind

Anatomy of the Mind PDF Author: Ron Sun
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199794707
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
This book aims to understand human cognition and psychology through a comprehensive computational theory of the human mind, namely, a computational "cognitive architecture" (or more specifically, the Clarion cognitive architecture). The goal of this work is to develop a unified framework for understanding the human mind, and within the unified framework, to develop process-based, mechanistic explanations of a large variety of psychological phenomena. Specifically, the book first describes the essential Clarion framework and its cognitive-psychological justifications, then its computational instantiations, and finally its applications to capturing, simulating, and explaining various psychological phenomena and empirical data. The book shows how the models and simulations shed light on psychological mechanisms and processes through the lens of a unified framework. In fields ranging from cognitive science, to psychology, to artificial intelligence, and even to philosophy, researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, and practitioners of various kinds may have interest in topics covered by this book. The book may also be suitable for seminars or courses, at graduate or undergraduate levels, on cognitive architectures or cognitive modeling (i.e. computational psychology).

Simulating the Mind II

Simulating the Mind II PDF Author: Dietmar Dietrich
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783031695292
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The declared goal of this book, an extended and revised translation of the German edition (2021), is to show how a unified model of the psyche and body can be developed via insights from psychoanalysis, neurology and computer technology. On the one hand, such a model allows for the testing of psychological and social theories on a scientific basis with the help of simulation experiments. On the other hand, the model developed according to the functional structures of the human brain and psyche provides the basis for artificial intelligence systems. These are systems with cognitive capabilities that can save human lives, save energy, ensure safety at airports, provide support in old-age care and in the medical field; in other words and generally speaking, systems that can simplify our lives in a relevant way and on a broad basis. A great deal of time and money is invested in genetic engineering and neurology, but research into the mental apparatus in the context of the neurological part, i.e., modeling the brain in a holistic way, is sparse in every respect. However, the results of the scientific project SiMA, of which the first author has been a driving force, show that the research of this organ, which in the authors’ understanding includes the mental apparatus, as a whole, is quite feasible today. This is also the main message of the book, which addresses topics such as artificial intelligence, the brain, psychoanalysis, behavioral models, complexity, bionics of the mental, emotions and feelings, consciousness and awareness, preconscious and unconscious, the functional (and not only behavioral) description and modeling of the brain and especially of the mental apparatus, and some more. In the world of technology, there is generally little interest in psychoanalysis, whereas in the world of psychoanalysis, people usually refuse to deal with mathematics and technology, especially computer technology. Is there an information theory of the brain on the one hand, and of computer technology on the other hand? The authors attempt to answer this question from both sides. With the goal to reach as many readers as possible and to provoke, the authors break with traditions and give space to new forms of thinking and argue that it is crucial to take a new path in automation, in artificial intelligence and in (technical) cognitive science, but also in psychoanalysis and neurology, in order to create a common basis for scientific and technical possibilities that have been previously inaccessible.

Mental Simulation

Mental Simulation PDF Author: Martin Davies
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0631198733
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Many philosophers and psychologists argue that out everyday ability to predict and explain the actions and mental states of others is grounded in out possession of a primitive 'folk' psychological theory. Recently however, this theory has come under challenge from the simulation alternative. This alternative view says that human beings are able to predict and explain each other's actions by using the resources of their own minds to simulate the psychological aetiology of the actions of the others. This book and the companion volume Folk Psychology: The Theory of Mind Debate together offer a richly woven fabric of philosophical and psychological theory, which promises to yield real insights into the nature of our mental lives.

The Simulation Hypothesis

The Simulation Hypothesis PDF Author: Rizwan Virk
Publisher: Bayview Books, LLC
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
The Simulation Hypothesis, by best-selling author, renowned MIT computer scientist and Silicon Valley video game designer Rizwan Virk, is the first serious book to explain one of the most daring and consequential theories of our time. Riz is the Executive Director of Play Labs @ MIT, a video game startup incubator at the MIT Game Lab. Drawing from research and concepts from computer science, artificial intelligence, video games, quantum physics, and referencing both speculative fiction and ancient eastern spiritual texts, Virk shows how all of these traditions come together to point to the idea that we may be inside a simulated reality like the Matrix. The Simulation Hypothesis is the idea that our physical reality, far from being a solid physical universe, is part of an increasingly sophisticated video game-like simulation, where we all have multiple lives, consisting of pixels with its own internal clock run by some giant Artificial Intelligence. Simulation theory explains some of the biggest mysteries of quantum and relativistic physics, such as quantum indeterminacy, parallel universes, and the integral nature of the speed of light. Recently, the idea that we may be living in a giant video game has received a lot of attention: “There’s a one in a billion chance we are not living in a simulation” -Elon Musk “I find it hard to argue we are not in a simulation.” -Neil deGrasse Tyson “We are living in computer generated reality.” -Philip K. Dick Video game technology has developed from basic arcade and text adventures to MMORPGs. Video game designer Riz Virk shows how these games may continue to evolve in the future, including virtual reality, augmented reality, Artificial Intelligence, and quantum computing. This book shows how this evolution could lead us to the point of being able to develop all encompassing virtual worlds like the Oasis in Ready Player One, or the simulated reality in the Matrix. While the idea sounds like science fiction, many scientists, engineers, and professors have given the Simulation Hypothesis serious consideration. Futurist Ray Kurzweil has popularized the idea of downloading our consciousness into a silicon based device, which would mean we are just digital information after all. Some, like Oxford lecturer Nick Bostrom, goes further and thinks we may in fact be artificially intelligent consciousness inside such a simulation already! But the Simulation Hypothesis is not just a modern idea. Philosophers like Plato have been telling us that we live in a “cave” and can only see shadows of the real world. Mystics of all traditions have long contended that we are living in some kind of “illusion “and that there are other realities which we can access with our minds. While even Judeo-Christian traditions have this idea, Eastern traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism make this idea part of their core tradition — that we are inside a dream world (“Maya” or illusion, or Vishnu’s Dream), and we have “multiple lives” playing different characters when one dies, continuing to gain experience and “level up” after completing certain challenges. Sounds a lot like a video game! Whether you are a computer scientist, a fan of science fiction like the Matrix movies, a video game enthusiast, or a spiritual seeker, The Simulation Hypothesis touches on all these areas, and you will never look at the world the same way again!

Louder Than Words

Louder Than Words PDF Author: Benjamin K. Bergen
Publisher:
ISBN: 0465028292
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
A cognition expert describes how meaning is conveyed and processed in the mind and answers questions about how we can understand information about things we've never seen in person and why we move our hands and arms when we speak.