Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design

Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design
Average customer rating:

What are We to Make of Computers, and Computers Make of Us

Not Just Another Pretty Face

A little disappointed

Illuminates the concept of a user-system system

Biological dependencies for cognition

Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design
Terry Winograd , and Fernando Flores
Manufacturer: Addison-Wesley Professional
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0201112973

Customer Reviews:

What are We to Make of Computers, and Computers Make of Us.......2002-04-20

Winograd and Flores' `Understanding Computers and Cognition' proposes that the rationalist tradition in AI must be replaced by a hermeneutic approach. Associating the rationalist tradition with the goal of building a human mind, the authors propose that a hermeneutic approach must adopt the goal of constructing prostheses which magnify the human mind. This paper argues that what AI needs is not so much a hermeneutic approach as a better appreciation of biology and psychology. Understanding Computers and Cognition is a groundbreaking book that presents an important new approach to understanding what computers do and how their functioning is related to human language, thought and action. Byte Magazine has recognized Understanding Computers and Cognition as one of the all-time 20 most influential books on information technology.

Thank you!

Not Just Another Pretty Face.......2001-07-24

A few years ago Byte Magazine named this one of the 10 most important books in the history of the computer industry. Flores was asked to keynote the 50th anniversary meeting of the ACM on the strength of the work he has done, some of which is shown here.

I am a little surprised not to find a review here that shows awareness of what this book is and was intended to do -- to turn those concerned with the design of the role of computers in society into a new direction. The book offers a fundamental enrichment and extension to the traditional engineering-based foundations that are used for designing computer systems that is drawn from philosophy and biology. It opens the development of a rigorous new design milleau to the reader. This is NOT yet another multi-disciplinary rumination.

I would say this is not a "helpful" book, and it was never intended as an easy read. It is a book to turn to when one has learned enough about what is really at issue in putting computers to work in human life to discover that the likes of input, process, output, "friendly" interfaces, attractive graphical presentations, and logical flow charts are vastly insufficient distinctions for doing work that really makes a contribution to your clients and colleagues. The book challenges the reader strongly, and is not simple to read. I guess that the best way to read it is with someone else, having discussions as you go along.

This is a book to engage and grow with -- a must-read for those serious about designing and building systems that will affect the lives of those who engage with them.

A little disappointed.......2000-03-24

I read the 1986 or 87 version of this book and am of a software/AI background. I didn't follow the biological material that well - either I was being dense or it just wasn't clearly written. I thought the book was repetitious (my chief complaint). Some of the concepts discussed include: "breakdown" (humans become aware of thing X only when something goes awry in which the X is involved), "thrownness" (humans don't rationally consider all possibilities and make perfect decisions because situations they are put in don't permit such cognition and/or we simply we aren't capable of it), "blindness" (we are always somewhat blind to the prejudicies/assumptions that guide our thinking...and we can't totally escape this predicament. Also discusses the co-routine effect (per the software world) of human affects environment and environment affects world circularity.

Illuminates the concept of a user-system system.......1999-03-31

The authors' theme is that we each react to and are changed by our environment which in turn reacts to and is changed by each of us. In the end, one can design computers only within a particular consensual domain that entails at least some commonly understood rules and concepts. The authors rely heavily on the philosophical works of Maturana and Heidegger. Difficult to read as some word meanings are developed through usage and demonstration (e.g., "throwness"). Also, quotes from references are used endlessly to substantiate their theme. This is nice but I wonder after all is done, what contributions the authors' have made and how much is simply a rehash.

Biological dependencies for cognition.......1997-11-14

This is an excellent text which describes an approach to using computers to perform an enabling role within corporate enterprises by using their ability to allow clearer understanding between participants in the workplace. The other aspect of this book looks at current methods of creating AI systems and their fundamental weaknesses. Having read this as part of my MSc. in Information Technology I have re-read it several times and I would recommend it to all those involved in complex system design, implementation and support. In addition a book such as Checklands Soft Systems Methodolgy will give a good introduction to how the systems described in Understanding Computers and Cognition can be designed to meet the demands of "real world" environments.

Life: An Introduction to Complex Systems Biology (Understanding Complex Systems)

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Life: An Introduction to Complex Systems Biology (Understanding Complex Systems)
Kunihiko Kaneko
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3540326669

Book Description

What is life? Has molecular biology given us a satisfactory answer to this question? And if not, why, and how to carry on from there? This book examines life not from the reductionist point of view, but rather asks the question: what are the universal properties of living systems and how can one construct from there a phenomenological theory of life that leads naturally to complex processes such as reproductive cellular systems, evolution and differentiation? The presentation has been deliberately kept fairly non-technical so as to address a broad spectrum of students and researchers from the natural sciences and informatics.

Natural Language Understanding (2nd Edition)

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Before the invasion of the statisto-weenies, there was....
A classic
Now THERE'S a good book!
A great text, and useful reference
The standard among NLP textbooks

Natural Language Understanding (2nd Edition)
James Allen
Manufacturer: Addison Wesley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0805303340

Customer Reviews:

Before the invasion of the statisto-weenies, there was...........2005-05-26

Last week, I was looking at the back flap of this book, and I saw something so shocking that I started choking on my pretzels! My wife, after slapping me on the back till I stopped choking, glanced down at the page--filled with bizzare symbols--and said, "How shocking could that page possibly be???"

Well, I was looking at a list abbrieviations of the categories (parts of speech) which the book used, and I noticed, for the first time after owning this book for over 10 years, that there was no abbriviation for "conjunction" listed. And indeed, after consulting the index and looking through the book, it is plain to see that this book doesn't treat conjunction at all!

I have many fond memories of this book--it is the book which my beloved professor at grad school taught me NLP from, and indeed, it contains far more information about NLP than most of its successors. For example, this book gives perhaps the best discussion of quantifier scope ambiguities of all the major NLP textbooks. (cf. with Jurafski and Martin's book, which devotes about 1/2 a sentence to quantifier scope ambiguities).

But it has odd ommissions, one of which is the lack of treatment of conjunction/disjunction. After devoting so much time to quantifier scope, why does Allen leave me in the dark about whether "Every woman" can take scope over "a man" in the sentence "A man and every woman hug each other?" Does that scope differently from "Every woman and a man hug each other?" Or what about "Every woman and her mother fight?" Can that mean "Every woman fights with her mother" or are we to look for another antecedient for "her"?

Or again, Allen's treatment of prolog-esque definite clause grammars. Allen deserves major kudus here for including them. Its obvious that he comes from the LISP side of the tracks, and most LISPy books on NLP ignore DCG's altogether (Norvig's "Paridigms of AI programming" being a notable exception). But it seems almost like Allen goes out of his way to present DCGs in the most unattractive light possible. Prolog has a nice syntactic sugar which makes a DCG look almost exactly like a context-free grammar specification, but you'd never know that if you only read this book--Allen chooses a wierd way to translate strings into clauses, which implies a bizzare-looking prolog grammar for them. The student naturally recoils in horror, but unless she reads a prolog-oriented book on NLP, she would never know how much easier DCGs are to program than ATNs or the bottom-up parsing methods which Allen goes on to expostulate.

Since this book was published, the field of NLP has taken a bit of a side-track through statistical learning of grammars--the thought being that, well, we really don't know how to do knowledge representation or pronoun resolution very well, so lets all spend a decade or so on how to induce grammars from corpora. This book doesn't cover any of this research, but frankly, I really don't consider that a critique of the book. Because now that grammar induction has been done to death, we're right back where this book leaves off--computers can parse sentences all right: heck, these days, computers can even assign numbers between 0 and 1 to parse trees-- but can computers UNDERSTAND sentences?

I would love to see a 3rd edition of this book, and I'm sure I'm not alone. What I'd like to see it cover is (surprise surprise) conjunction/disjunction, discourse representation theory, underspecification, and a more meaty discussion of knowledge representation and inference. Also, a few chapters on natural language generation would be nice, as well as discussions on dialogue. Skip the sections on ATNs and other parsing methods which are only of historical interest now.

Flaws and all, this book is beloved of generations of NLP researchers and is still indispensible, after all these years.

A classic.......2000-11-12

Allen's book is a standard introduction to NLP in industry and academia. His exposition permits straightforward implementation and provides a lucid motivation for the algorithms he describes. "Natural Language Understanding" was the first NLP text I read (for a summer job), and I've always referred to it first for its balance of formal and practical considerations.

However, some developments in the past few years outpace his treatment. In particular, the stochastic viewpoint has become more common in natural-language processing, and Allen does not consider related innovations in great depth. Passing mention of the interaction between NLP and the speech processing and information retrievals would also benefit a revised version.

Now THERE'S a good book!.......1999-02-24

James Allen introduces the concepts required to build a NL system without losing you in the psycholinguistics, psychology and philosophy of language. The great part is that he gives you enough of a background in each of these fields before going into a topic in depth. Plenty of examples help define words like "morpheme" so you don't get lost in the psychobabble jargon of the required disciplines. (Wouldn't that be an ironic thing to have happen in a NLP book?!) :)

I'd love to tell you more, but I only stopped by to catch the author's name and look for whitepapers on his (hopefully existant) website.

A great text, and useful reference.......1998-06-24

This books serves as a very useful introduction to computational linguistics. It is clearly laid out, and will serve the reader for many years as a continuing reference.

The TRAINS project at Rochester (the author's institution) was based on many of the concepts outlined in this book... proof that they work and can be made to handle real-world situations.

I continue to use it, now in its second edition as a reference for myself, and to train those who need to work with our project.

I cannot recommend a book more highly. If you want to learn computational linguistics, or need to push the state of the art, this is the book you need.

The standard among NLP textbooks.......1998-04-18

An excellent book; the best introduction to the subject of Natural Language Processing, made even better by its second edition. If you wish to learn how computers can be made to process human language, go no further.

Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing

Average customer rating:

Important and timely
A Worthwhile Introduction to Open Source Licensing
good quick reference
Clearly defines licensing standards - great reference
Not at all as dry as I thought it would be

Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing
Andrew M. St. Laurent
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0596005814

Book Description

If you've held back from developing open source or free software projects because you don't understand the implications of the various licenses, you're not alone. Many developers believe in releasing their software freely, but have hesitated to do so because they're concerned about losing control over their software. Licensing issues are complicated, and both the facts and fallacies you hear word-of-mouth can add to the confusion. Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing helps you make sense of the different options available to you. This concise guide focuses on annotated licenses, offering an in-depth explanation of how they compare and interoperate, and how license choices affect project possibilities. Written in clear language that you don't have to be a lawyer to understand, the book answers such questions as: What rights am I giving up? How will my use of OS/FS licensing affect future users or future developers? Does a particular use of this software--such as combining it with proprietary software--leave me vulnerable to lawsuits? Following a quick look at copyright law, contracts, and the definition of "open source," the book tackles the spectrum of licensing, including:

The MIT (or X), BSD, Apache and Academic Free licenses
The GPL, LGPL, and Mozilla licenses
The QT, Artistic, and Creative Commons licenses
Classic Proprietary licenses
Sun Community Source license and Microsoft Shared Source project

The book wraps up with a look at the legal effects--both positive and negative--of open source/free software licensing. Licensing is a major part of what open source and free software are all about, but it's still one of the most complicated areas of law. Even the very simple licenses are tricky. Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing bridges the gap between the open source vision and the practical implications of its legal underpinnings. If open source and free software licenses interest you, this book will help you understand them. If you're an open source/free software developer, this book is an absolute necessity.

Customer Reviews:

Important and timely.......2005-03-30

People don't realize how important licensing is with open source, but there is a lot.

Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing is a very needed book and well written.

A Worthwhile Introduction to Open Source Licensing.......2005-01-30

Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing
Andrew M. St. Laurent
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/osfreesoft/

When sharing with others that I was reviewing an O'Reilly book through their User Group & Professional Association Program, the first question was always the same: "What book are you reviewing?" After saying the title was "Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing", responses ranged from "What's that?" to "Well, you won't have any trouble sleeping!" One might think that this list of people included relatives and coworkers who were not attuned to the open source community and its issues. On the contrary, the responses came from those within my circle of acquaintances that include software developers, system administrators, and even an intellectual property lawyer. Licensing is not exactly the sort of topic where people slide forward in their seats and ask to be told more. Such is the appeal of software licensing; however, the importance of understanding licensing, particularly within the context of open source development, cannot be overstated.

Those familiar with the O'Reilly product offerings have no doubt seen or purchased one or more their Pocket Reference series (http://pocketrefs.oreilly.com/). They are not comprehensive references, but rather convenient guides for a specific topic to provide the sort of information one is not likely to have committed to memory, particularly as the trend of having cross-disciplined technologists continues. This book could be considered the analog of pocket guides for open source and free software licensing. Open source licenses and their legal interpretation are subject matter that easily warrant a "pocket reference" that is a full-sized book of nearly 200 pages.

Frankly, reading through a software license and maintaining a reasonable level of comprehension is a rather tough job. The author manages to make the task far more bearable and fruitful at the same time; a difficult balance to strike. The pace of the annotation works well to break up the various licenses (twelve in total) into bite-sized chunks. Chapters 2 and 3, which address the BSD/MIT family of licenses and the GPL/LGPL/MPL family of licenses respectively, each end with a section titled "Application and Philosophy" that serves as a sort of reward for making it through the license and establishes a touchstone to summarize and provide meaningful context for what has been covered.

The annotations of the different licenses are a great introduction, but the book should not be considered as a complete reference for open source licensing issues. The book seems to affirm this at points where the author indicates that particular topics fall outside the book's scope, even to the point of recommending experienced legal counsel for certain issues. It also has a wonderful collection of footnotes and reference to other resources to allow the reader to flesh out topics of interest beyond the focus of this work.

One subtlety of the book that should not be missed is how the history of the open source movement is woven throughout the book to provide the context in which these licenses came into being and were modified to accommodate the vibrant, emerging world of open development models. The book's last two chapters bring that context to the foreground, fully developing the consequence of the licenses in daily development activity. It is far too easy to view these licenses and as mere legal documents that exist in and of themselves; the author reminds us that these licenses are the manifestations of a spirit of selfless contribution and work toward social good made possible by the considerable sacrifice of quite gifted individuals. For those passionate about the open source and free software movements, the section of chapter 7 titled "Models of Open Source and Free Software Development" is a poignant and stirring encapsulation of the first years of the GNU and Linux projects and the work that brought them into being. The cliché rings true; we do indeed "stand on the shoulders of giants."

The number of editorial errors involving misspelled and/or missing words seemed relatively high; this is a trend that seems to have developed in technical books in recent years, to a point that the technical community has come to accept it as some sort of side effect of the rapid pace with which books must be produced in order to keep pace with the rate of change. Given that this is an issue present in other works as well as this one, it should not particularly count as a mark against the work, but rather serve to underscore an issue publishers should consider improving.

"Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing" is a book which strikes a balance between completeness of subject matter coverage and manageability of size. Given the amount of attention the average open source user or developer has given to licensing, reading this book would be a considerable improvement. This book is recommended for a couple of audiences. First, it serves as a great foundation for developers either active in or contemplating participation in open source development. Searching most any open source mailing list for the term "license" can usually turn up some of its hottest flame wars. If most developers had this introductory level of understanding about the main open source licenses, hundreds of message threads arguing about licensing could be avoided.

A second audience for this book is the project manager and/or CTO in most corporate IT shops. Most corporate projects are making use of numerous open source libraries and frameworks. This is particularly true with J2EE, but also with .Net as a number of .Net counterparts to popular J2EE resources arise, e.g. NAnt, NUnit, etc. This book can dispel unnecessary apprehension regarding the use of these libraries that often arises from fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) propagated in much of the mainstream technology media. It can also equip managers to make informed decisions about team members' potential contributions to open source projects and the potential legal implications.

good quick reference.......2005-01-13

I am an attorney who does open source software license work for a living. When this book came along, I picked it up, mostly because I was interested in seeing how O'Reilly does branching out well beyond its usual technical subjects. As you are probably aware, 2004 was the year of open source, according to some publications. Well, it was also the year of open source books. I have seen at least five that deal with the topic directly.

Getting to the merits of St. Laurent's book, I struggled with whether to give it three or four stars. You see, even as a lawyer I found it lacking in clarity and flow. Overall, I am opposed to the route he took in excerpting almost every term of each license and then providing exposition of his own that was a lot of times hardly more helpful than the original license language. A better approach to explaining the licenses can be found in Larry Rosen's wonderful book "Open Source Licensing." However, this downside becomes an upside when using the book as a reference, instead of an educational guide (justifying the fourth star). St. Laurent's approach here is useful for going into more depth on a particular license. Perhaps that was the goal all along.

Another advantage this book has over Rosen's is its broader treatment of the growing array of licenses and license types. St. Laurent covers more licenses and for that I am thankful. In the end, I would recommend having a copy of both Rosen's and St. Laurent's book handy. And whatever you do, skip Rod Dixon's "Open Source Software Law."

Clearly defines licensing standards - great reference.......2004-12-28

Software licensing can be one of the most confusing issues of software installation and development. Most people assume that there are few if any issues with Open Source and Free Software Licensing but that often is not the case. While it may be free to install you wade into murky waters when you change the code, make a new program that uses some of the coding of the open source program, make a derivative program, or a host of other situations. Part of the confusion is that all Open Source or Free Software licensing is not the same. For example there are the MIT, BSD, Apache, and Academic Free Licenses. Or what about the GNU license? Most people don't realize that there are two different versions of GNU licenses, the GNU General Public License (GPL) and the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)? Then there is the Mozilla Public License, Q Public License, Artistic License, and Creative Commons License.

Author Andrew M. St. Laurent does an excellent job explaining all these various licenses, what you can do and can't do, the various benefits and shortcomings of the licenses and pitfalls to watch for. If you are doing development in this arena, have made an improvement to one of the programs, or have written a program for internal use that might have resell value you can't afford to not understand the nuances of the various licensing agreements. Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing is highly recommended and required reading for anyone in this situation.

Not at all as dry as I thought it would be.......2004-10-14

I honestly didn't think I'd find this as interesting as I did. As important as licenses are, an annotated listing of them didn't sound like anything I wanted to flop back on the couch with. However, the author has managed to make this both interesting and educational.

It covers all the common open source licenses, explaining what each section means, and digging into problems that might come up for the licensor or licensee. Open Source isn't all that it covers: standard shrink-wrap licenses are examined, as is Sun's Community Source License and Microsoft's "Shared Source Initiative".

Finally, the book itself is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license. It is interesting that O'Reilly is willing to publish works like this, but I'm glad they are.

Understanding Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic: Basic Concepts and Applications (IEEE Press Understanding Science & Technology Series)

Average customer rating:

a reasonable overview but don't expect too much detail
best for beginners

Understanding Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic: Basic Concepts and Applications (IEEE Press Understanding Science & Technology Series)
Stamatios V. Kartalopoulos
Manufacturer: Wiley-IEEE Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Fuzzy Logic: The Revolutionary Computer Technology That Is Changing Our World
An Introduction to Fuzzy Logic for Practical Applications

ASIN: 0780311280

Book Description

Understand the fundamentals of the emerging field of fuzzy neural networks, their applications and the most used paradigms with this carefully organized state-of-the-art textbook. Previously tested at a number of noteworthy conference tutorials, the simple numerical examples presented in this book provide excellent tools for progressive learning. UNDERSTANDING NEURAL NETWORKS AND FUZZY LOGIC offers a simple presentation and bottom-up approach that is ideal for working professional engineers, undergraduates, medical/biology majors, and anyone with a nonspecialist background.

Sponsored by:
IEEE Neural Networks Council

Customer Reviews:

a reasonable overview but don't expect too much detail.......2004-10-12

As the other reviewer said, if you know nothing about neural networks, then this is a good place to start. It begins with an overview of neural networks in the brain, using the visual processing system as a detailed example. Once this is done, it moves on to general concepts and basic theory encountered in the field. The drawback is topics tend to be skimmed over with the minimum of detail and very few examples, some of which are barely explained - often there are figures of networks with no real discussion of what is going on. Having said that, reading this book gave me enough understanding of the underlying ideas so that i was able to pick up a more mathematical treatment of the subject and follow what was going on and i definitely think it was worth the purchase.

best for beginners.......2001-06-08

If you have no idea what this subject is all about or if you are interested in knowing the concept of neural networks then try this book, it gives you the conceptual view in a simple matter which is perfectly enough to gain your interest in the subject. If any one wanna work in this field I strongly suggest them to read this book before they want to continue in the field.

Book Description

In these essays Heinz von Foerster discusses some of the fundamental principles that govern how we know the world and how we process the information from which we derive that knowledge. Included are path- breaking articles concerning the principles of computation in neural nets (1967), the definition of self-organizing systems (1960), the nature of cognition (1970), as well as recent expansions on these themes (e.g. "How recursive is communication," 1993). Working with Norbert Wiener, Warren McCullough, and others in the 1960s and 1970s, von Foerster was one of the founders of the science of cybernetics, which has had profound effects both on modern systems theory and on the philosophy of cognition. At the Biological Computer Laboratory at the University of Illinois he produced the first parallel computers and contributed to many other developments in the theory of computation and cognition.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Intelligent Design (Complete Idiot's Guide to)

Average customer rating:

I am a Blind Cave Fish
Out With ID
Interestingly comprehensible to people like you and me
The Best Book on the Topic
Book Is Far From Objective

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Intelligent Design (Complete Idiot's Guide to)
Christopher Carlisle , and W. Thomas Smith Jr.
Manufacturer: Alpha
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1592575552

Book Description

An objective overview of the biggest controversy in American education.

Intelligent Design is one of the hottest issues facing parents and educators to day, but it can be hard to separate the facts from the heated rhetoric. This expert and objective guide gets to the bottom of the questions: What is Intelligent Design? Should it replace or complement traditional science? WhatÂ's all the fuss about?
Â• Explains the terms, the controversy, and the involvement of the American courts
Â• Indispensable guide for concerned educators and parents
Â• Written by an expert in the field

Customer Reviews:

I am a Blind Cave Fish.......2007-09-07

The Parable of the Ichthropic Principle

Sixty meters underground, a river used to run through the limestone of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Because the limestone was uneven in density and porosity, the river carved an irregular channel, widening and contracting. Eventually, over a very long period of time, the surface of the land above underwent changes resulting from diminished rainfall. As the volume of water draining through the underground river decreased, the channel it had carved became a cave. Nonetheless, a trickle of rain still flowed through cracks and crevices, enough to maintain stable pools of fresh water in the lightless depths.
In one such pool lived a small school of fish of the family Characidae. Characids are an adaptable group, occupying many ecological niches of the planet Earth. The characids of this geologically isolated pool had several distinctive adaptations, the most unusual being that they were eyeless. Thus we can identify them henceforth as blind cave fish. Lacking sight, the blind cave fish were well equipped to detect vibrations of any sort through the sensory cells of their lateral lines, which was how they foraged for food as well as how they located each other for mating purposes. Fortunately, water is a superb transmitter of vibrations. Greater self-awareness would not have been adaptive in the bleak conditions of their pool, but if they'd possessed it, they would have had no reason to suppose that any other characids inhabited any other pool in this or any other cave, or indeed that any other pool in any other cave was inhabitable.
The blind cave fish had two rigid requirements for survival--oxygen and food. The oxygen in the pool was maintained at roughly the level they required by the dependable trickle of rain which replenished the loss of water through the porous limestone bed of the pool. Also, the water was cold--a constant forty-one degrees Fahrenheit--which of course allowed maximal oxygenation. Although the fish had no "knowledge" of it, a grave danger to their survival existed in two kinds of pollution: nitrates from their own metabolic waste products, and gradual mineralization from the influx of acid rain water seeping through the soil. Periodically, however, drenching storms would flood the land, refilling the underground river channel and flushing the pool. Most of the blind cave fish would be swept away to an uncertain fate, but enough would survive to rebuild their population. Even the most catastrophic flushing would not decimate them, since their eggs, which were adhesive, were always laid in protected chinks and cracks. Had the floor of the pool been smooth, or had the flooding carried other menaces into their cave, no doubt the blind cave fish couldn't have thrived as they did. It should be noted that the thick layers of rock above, which shielded them from hot sunlight, also shielded them from ultra-violet and other forms of radiation that might have threatened their survival.
The blind cave fish were dependent for their nutrition on another intricate and improbable set of circumstances. Since no light whatsoever penetrated the cavern, no photosynthesizing plants or algae could flourish. Nonetheless, populations of microbes and nearly microscopic arthropods shared the pool. These were the food source upon which the blind cave fish depended, though they supplemented their diet by scavenging the corpses of their own dead. In turn the arthropods and microbes were dependent on bat droppings for 100% of their nutrients. The bats, in huge numbers, infested a large dry cavern of the same cave. The only above-water outlet from their cavern to the fresh air above passed through the grotto of the pool, the ceiling of which was too encrusted with stalactites to attract bats to nest. Thus the quantity of guano the bats dropped in flight was always enough to sustain the pool's organisms yet never enough to poison the water. The blind cave fish were by far the largest and most metabolically active of these aquatic creatures. Having neither predators nor competition, they had ample reason to be happy with their lives--that is, had they had enough self-awareness to exhibit happiness--since each and every condition of their environment seemed specifically suitable to their needs, while any variation of those conditions would have made their life impossible. Indeed, the conditions in which they subsisted were so random yet so improbably assembled that it must have seemed to the fish--again granting them the self-awareness to consider probabilities--that the pool had been designed to provide for their existence. Allowing them just a bit more rationality than they truly possessed, logic would surely have suggested to the blind cave fish that where there is design, there must be a designer. No matter how much intellect we attribute to our three-inch long albino eyeless characids, however, it's clear they had no means of fathoming the nature of the designer, unless it were itself an inscrutable but omnipotent blind cave fish.

Out With ID.......2007-08-14

The sooner we let these ancient myths fall away to sooner we'll get to where we're supposed to be (peace, understanding, progess, you know, the stuff we all want to be dealing with). So, let's put God up there with Zeus and the rest of them, and move on. God, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny... quaint, cute, all commercial and driven by greed and money. Hang it up. ID is another thinly disguised attempt at stupidity and backwardness.

Interestingly comprehensible to people like you and me.......2007-07-03

A fascinating, useful, scholarly book, Understanding Intelligent Design comes from a well-qualified author. Professor and Episcopal chaplain, Christopher Carlisle has taken an active interest in the hot topic of ID (Intelligent Design). Blending The Complete Idiot's Guide's breezy format with his knowledge and teaching abilities, Carlisle skillfully makes this subject interestingly comprehensible to people like you and me.

This book opens with an explanation of ID, and similarities and differences with Creationism. At this point some may want to argue, but it will be worthwhile to keep reading - Understanding Intelligent Design presents information important to understand. The next section looks at the history of ID from the ancients through medieval science into the Age of Reason and on through American history. Physics, chemistry, and biology are then contrasted between the traditional science standpoint and the ID standpoint, two very different positions. Then Darwin comes into the picture, and it becomes apparent that ID does not agree with him. A discussion of outstanding differences on both sides of the debate and any possible resolutions sum up this thesis. The appendices are as absorbing as the main body of this volume, including: a glossary to help you understand things like the anthropic principle or punctuated equilibrium; two interviews, one with a noted proponent of ID, one with a noted opponent; and, a bibliography and listing of pertinent websites.

With cartoons and sidebars to encourage the reader and its interest-holding writing style, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Intelligent Design capably presents this subject, giving much needed information on an important contemporary focus. - Donna Eggett, Christian Book [...]

The Best Book on the Topic.......2007-06-07

This work is one of the best reviews of both sides of the controversy of the score of books that I have read on this topic. The very readable summary covers in some detail all of the basic issues that are central to the controversy. I was surprised how up-to-date the book was, even covering the Judge Jones Dover decision. The authors document the fact that a climate of fear now exists that prevents those who find problems with Darwinism that is not unlike that which existed during the McCarthy era and, until we are able to discuss the relevant issues the controversy will not be resolved, but will intensify. We must respectfully listen to each others side if we have any hope of resolving this issue. The authors stress that both sides are guilty of not listening to the other side and shows why. The chapter titled "Is Resolution Possible" is especially helpful in this regard. The book also includes a very helpful glossary and long interviews with one person on each side of the controversy to let each side have their say (page 262-290). This book will go a long way toward helping each side talk to one another. The science is also covered as well as the philosophical and social questions

Book Is Far From Objective.......2007-05-08

...Also, it's self-contradictory. In a segment about atheist evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, the authors dismiss Dawkins' arguments entirely on the grounds that Dawkins is a scientist, not theologian, thus he is not qualified to speak (or write) on matters of God. What a convenient method for ignoring his case for a universe without design. Rather unexpected, coming, as it does, from a theologian pretending to write about science.
The book pretends to be a "balanced" look at the Intelligent Design controversy. Nonetheless, the book bulks the argument in such a way so as to give the impression that ID theory is somewhere on balance with Darwinian evolution by putting forward ID claims have long ago been addressed and falsified by scientists. Such claims as "Evolution runs contrary to the 2nd law of thermodynamics" show the willful ignorance of the authors. Many widely available articles explain how this asinine mis-interpretation of entropy depends on a closed system. The authors either have not done their research, or they are intentionally mis-representing the facts.
Every claim made in this book in favour of Intelligent Design has been refuted by scientists. Intellectual honesty demands that these refutations be dealt with if this book is to be considered balanced. This book does not do this.
This is a transparent attempt to make the "teach the controversy" position appear neutral and moderate while pushing the ID agenda.

Learning by Effective Utilization of Technologies: Facilitating Intercultural Understanding - Volume 151 Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications

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Learning by Effective Utilization of Technologies: Facilitating Intercultural Understanding - Volume 151 Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications

Manufacturer: IOS Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1586036874
Release Date: 2006-11-01

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A major theme of this book is the use of computers for supporting collaborative learning. This is not surprising since computer-supported collaborative learning has become both a widespread educational practice and a main domain of research. Moreover, collaborative learning has deep roots in Asian educational traditions. Given the large number of researchers within this field, its scope has become very broad. Under this umbrella, one finds a variety of more specific topics such as: interaction analysis, collaboration scripts (e.g. the Jigsaw script), communities of practice, sociocognitive conflict resolution, cognitive apprenticeship, various tools for argumentation, on-line discussion or collaborative drawing tools (whiteboards), collaborative writing and the role of facilitators. Most research work on collaborative learning focuses on interactions rather than on the contents of environments, which had been the focus in the previous decades of learning technology research. However, there is no reason to focus on one aspect to the detriment of the other. The editors are pleased that the selected papers also cover multiple issues related to the storage, representation and retrieval of knowledge: ontologies for learning environments and the semantic web, knowledge bases and data mining, meta-data and content management systems, and so forth. This publication also reveals a growing interest for non-verbal educational material, namely pictures and video materials, which are already central to new popular web-based applications. This book includes contributions that bridge both research tracks, the one focusing on interactions and the other on contents: the pedagogical use of digital portfolios, both for promoting individual reflections and for scaffolding group interactions.

Artificial Intelligence: An MIT Perspective, Volume 1: Expert Problem Solving, Natural Language Understanding and Intelligent Computer Coaches, Representation ... Press Series in Artificial Intelligence)

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Artificial Intelligence: An MIT Perspective, Volume 1: Expert Problem Solving, Natural Language Understanding and Intelligent Computer Coaches, Representation ... Press Series in Artificial Intelligence)

Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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ASIN: 0262230968

Understanding Intelligence (Bradford Books)

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Excellent intro to embodied AI
A return to behaviorism?
Great overview

Understanding Intelligence (Bradford Books)
Rolf Pfeifer , and Christian Scheier
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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How the Body Shapes the Way We Think: A New View of Intelligence (Bradford Books)
Evolutionary Robotics: The Biology, Intelligence, and Technology of Self-Organizing Machines (Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents)
Semantic Cognition: A Parallel Distributed Processing Approach (Bradford Books)
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ASIN: 026266125X

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Most artificial intelligence seems artificially dumb. Sure, Deep Blue can beat a chess grand master two games out of three, but could it get out of the way of an oncoming bus? AI researchers are coming to understand that if we want more than idiot savants for machines, we'll need to build them from the ground up--a behavior-based approach. Rolf Pfeifer, head of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Zurich, and Christian Scheier, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Zurich and Caltech, have put together Understanding Intelligence, the definitive introduction to this approach for students, amateurs, and professionals alike. As they admit, there are plenty of gaps in our knowledge, so they take pains to make our ignorance as well as our knowledge explicit, and encourage thinking beyond the text with "Issues to Think About" at the end of each chapter.

Delving into neural networks, subsumption architecture, principles and design of intelligent systems, and future applications, the authors strive to exhaust the literature and compress it into concise, readable text with plenty of illustrations where appropriate. Given the freshness of the material, it feels less like a textbook and more like a treasure map--we don't know what we'll find when we get there, but we know it's going to be good. Whether robotics is a career, a hobby, or a side interest for you, Understanding Intelligence will help you get to work from the bottom up. --Rob Lightner

Book Description

By the mid-1980s researchers from artificial intelligence, computer science, brain and cognitive science, and psychology realized that the idea of computers as intelligent machines was inappropriate. The brain does not run "programs"; it does something entirely different. But what? Evolutionary theory says that the brain has evolved not to do mathematical proofs but to control our behavior, to ensure our survival. Researchers now agree that intelligence always manifests itself in behavior--thus it is behavior that we must understand. An exciting new field has grown around the study of behavior-based intelligence, also known as embodied cognitive science, "new AI," and "behavior-based AI."

This book provides a systematic introduction to this new way of thinking. After discussing concepts and approaches such as subsumption architecture, Braitenberg vehicles, evolutionary robotics, artificial life, self-organization, and learning, the authors derive a set of principles and a coherent framework for the study of naturally and artificially intelligent systems, or autonomous agents. This framework is based on a synthetic methodology whose goal is understanding by designing and building.

The book includes all the background material required to understand the principles underlying intelligence, as well as enough detailed information on intelligent robotics and simulated agents so readers can begin experiments and projects on their own. The reader is guided through a series of case studies that illustrate the design principles of embodied cognitive science.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent intro to embodied AI.......2002-07-01

I'm a masters student in general CS doing a semester of school at the University of Sussex in England. One of the courses that I took used Understanding Intelligence as a reccomended text. The book covers in detail a lot of aspects of embodied artificial intelligence and of some of the conflicts between embodied AI and traditional symbolic AI. The book is easy to read and, at least for me, quite worth it. The only problem that I found was that the books website is obscurely documented in the book and is quite low budget. Other than that it's a great introduction to the field; I found it much easier to assimilate than the lectures from my class.

A return to behaviorism?.......2000-12-12

The new book UNDERSTANDING INTELLIGENCE by Pfeifer and Scheier contains many interesting ideas and is well worth reading though rather long (at nearly 700 pages). In many ways it is similar to the claim that "intelligence is a kludge" but this time more of a hardware kludge. There is also a substantial return to behaviorism though the references are missing. Perhaps the core belief of the book is that "intelligence is...a large number of parallel loosely coupled processes" (page 303). But it seems to me that if the modules are too loosely coupled the system can not be successful as a universal approximator and therefore will not be Turing equivalent. It might be possible to decompose the performance system of an agent into such loosely coupled modules (like Norvig and Russell, AI a Modern Approach, page 202) but for it to learn there must be extensive coupling to most if not all modules. While I agree that sensory motor contact with the world is what grounds symbols there is no need for every agent to perform its own grounding of every symbol. In fact there are modules (agents) in a typical subsumption architecture that are not, themselves, connected to either sensors or actuators. I do like the idea that intelligence is related to some niche. Humans and AIs may not occupy the same niche. Machines are better at statistics than humans while humans are better at emotion. The criticism of GOFAI in UNDERSTANDING INTELLIGENCE is often unfounded.

Great overview.......2000-01-25

I liked this book because it not only gives a conceptual tour d'horizon on the new field of embodied cognitive science/New AI, but also provides tons of concrete (programming) problems to work with. The companion web site contains additional programming examples for download. Overall, this book gave me the much needed realistic perspective on this new field.

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