New Releases by Douglas R. Hofstadter

Accostando a testi fondamentali di Turing, Hofstadter, Searle, Dennett, curiose e suggestive incursioni nella narrativa in compagnia di Borges, Lem, Miedaner, gli autori ci presentano molte delle principali questioni aperte sull''argomento. Cos''è una mente? Una macchina può pensare? Gli animali hanno una soggettività? Una copia fisicamente esatta di me stesso sarebbe "me"? Queste domande ed altre vengono toccate nel libro, e in molti casi in modo da disorientare il lettore.

A micro-world is described, in which many analogies involving strikingly different concepts and levels of subtlety can be made. The question ''What differentiates the good ones from the bad ones? is discussed, and then the problem of how to implement a computational model of the human ability to come up with such analogies (and to have a sense for their quality) is considered. A key part of the proposed system, now under development, is its dependence on statistically emergent properties of stochastically interacting ''codelets'' (small pieces of ready-to-run code created by the system, and selected at random to run with probability proportional to heuristically assigned ''urgencies''). Another key element is a network of linked concepts of varying levels of ''semanticity'', in which activation spreads and indirectly controls the urgencies of new codelets. There is pressure in the system toward maximizing the degree of ''semanticity'' or ''intensionality'' of descriptions of structures, but many such pressures, often conflicting, must interact with one another, and compromises must be made.

Essays from some of the 20th century''s greatest thinkers explore topics as diverse as artificial intelligence, evolution, science fiction, philosophy, reductionism, and consciousness, presenting a variety of conflicting visions of the self and the soul. Illustrations.