Human Thinking

Human Thinking
Author: S. Ian Robertson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2020-11-23
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1000224988

Human Thinking: The Basics provides an essential introduction into how we develop thoughts, the types of reasoning we engage in, and how our thinking can be tailored by subconscious processing. Beginning with the fundamentals, the book examines the mental processes that shape our thoughts, the trajectory of how thought evolved within the animal kingdom and the stages of development of thinking throughout childhood. Robertson insightfully explains the effectiveness of political slogans and advertisements in engaging shallow information processing and the effortful, analytical processing required in critical thinking. Delving into fascinating topics such as magical thinking in the form of religion and superstition, fake news, and motivated ignorance, the book explains the discrepancy between reality and our internal mental representations, the influence of semantics on deductive reasoning and the error-prone, yet adaptive nature of biases. Containing student-friendly features including end of chapter summaries, demonstrative puzzles, simple figures, and further reading lists, this book will be essential reading for all students of thinking and reasoning.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence
Author: Melanie Mitchell
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2019-10-15
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0374715238

Melanie Mitchell separates science fact from science fiction in this sweeping examination of the current state of AI and how it is remaking our world No recent scientific enterprise has proved as alluring, terrifying, and filled with extravagant promise and frustrating setbacks as artificial intelligence. The award-winning author Melanie Mitchell, a leading computer scientist, now reveals AI’s turbulent history and the recent spate of apparent successes, grand hopes, and emerging fears surrounding it. In Artificial Intelligence, Mitchell turns to the most urgent questions concerning AI today: How intelligent—really—are the best AI programs? How do they work? What can they actually do, and when do they fail? How humanlike do we expect them to become, and how soon do we need to worry about them surpassing us? Along the way, she introduces the dominant models of modern AI and machine learning, describing cutting-edge AI programs, their human inventors, and the historical lines of thought underpinning recent achievements. She meets with fellow experts such as Douglas Hofstadter, the cognitive scientist and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the modern classic Gödel, Escher, Bach, who explains why he is “terrified” about the future of AI. She explores the profound disconnect between the hype and the actual achievements in AI, providing a clear sense of what the field has accomplished and how much further it has to go. Interweaving stories about the science of AI and the people behind it, Artificial Intelligence brims with clear-sighted, captivating, and accessible accounts of the most interesting and provocative modern work in the field, flavored with Mitchell’s humor and personal observations. This frank, lively book is an indispensable guide to understanding today’s AI, its quest for “human-level” intelligence, and its impact on the future for us all.

A Natural History of Human Thinking

A Natural History of Human Thinking
Author: Michael Tomasello
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2018-10-01
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0674986830

A Wall Street Journal Favorite Read of the Year A Guardian Top Science Book of the Year Tool-making or culture, language or religious belief: ever since Darwin, thinkers have struggled to identify what fundamentally differentiates human beings from other animals. In this much-anticipated book, Michael Tomasello weaves his twenty years of comparative studies of humans and great apes into a compelling argument that cooperative social interaction is the key to our cognitive uniqueness. Once our ancestors learned to put their heads together with others to pursue shared goals, humankind was on an evolutionary path all its own. “Michael Tomasello is one of the few psychologists to have conducted intensive research on both human children and chimpanzees, and A Natural History of Human Thinking reflects not only the insights enabled by such cross-species comparisons but also the wisdom of a researcher who appreciates the need for asking questions whose answers generate biological insight. His book helps us to understand the differences, as well as the similarities, between human brains and other brains.” —David P. Barash, Wall Street Journal

Illusions of Human Thinking

Illusions of Human Thinking
Author: Gabriel Vacariu
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2015-10-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3658104449

The book illustrates that the traditional philosophical concept of the "Universe”, the "World” has led to anomalies and paradoxes in the realm of knowledge. The author replaces this notion by the EDWs perspective, i.e. a new axiomatic hyperontological framework of Epistemologically Different Worlds” (EDWs). Thus it becomes possible to find a more appropriate approach to different branches of science, such as cognitive neuroscience, physics, biology and the philosophy of mind. The consequences are a better understanding of the mind-body problem, quantum physics non-locality or entanglement, the measurement problem, Einstein’s theory of relativity and the binding problem in cognitive neuroscience.

The Psychology of Proof

The Psychology of Proof
Author: Lance J. Rips
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 476
Release: 1994
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780262181532

Lance Rips describes a unified theory of natural deductive reasoning and fashions a working model of deduction, with strong experimental support, that is capable of playing a central role in mental life.

Deep Thinking

Deep Thinking
Author: Garry Kasparov
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2017-05-02
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1610397878

Garry Kasparov's 1997 chess match against the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue was a watershed moment in the history of technology. It was the dawn of a new era in artificial intelligence: a machine capable of beating the reigning human champion at this most cerebral game. That moment was more than a century in the making, and in this breakthrough book, Kasparov reveals his astonishing side of the story for the first time. He describes how it felt to strategize against an implacable, untiring opponent with the whole world watching, and recounts the history of machine intelligence through the microcosm of chess, considered by generations of scientific pioneers to be a key to unlocking the secrets of human and machine cognition. Kasparov uses his unrivaled experience to look into the future of intelligent machines and sees it bright with possibility. As many critics decry artificial intelligence as a menace, particularly to human jobs, Kasparov shows how humanity can rise to new heights with the help of our most extraordinary creations, rather than fear them. Deep Thinking is a tightly argued case for technological progress, from the man who stood at its precipice with his own career at stake.

Adapting Human Thinking and Moral Reasoning in Contemporary Society

Adapting Human Thinking and Moral Reasoning in Contemporary Society
Author: Yama, Hiroshi
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2019-11-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1799818136

Studies on human thinking have focused on how humans solve a problem and have discussed how human thinking can be rational. A juxtaposition between psychology and sociology allows for a unique perspective of the influence on human thought and morality on society. Adapting Human Thinking and Moral Reasoning in Contemporary Society is an in-depth critical resource that provides comprehensive research on thinking and morality and its influence on societal norms as well as how people adapt themselves to the novel circumstances and phenomena that characterize the contemporary world, including low birthrate, the reduction of violence, and globalization. Furthermore, cultural differences are considered with research targeted towards problems specific to a culture. Featuring a wide range of topics such as logic education, cognition, and knowledge management systems, this book is ideal for academicians, sociologists, researchers, social scientists, psychologists, and students.

Discognition

Discognition
Author: Steven Shaviro
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2016-03-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1910924067

What is consciousness? What is it like to feel pain, or to see the color red? Do robots and computers really think? For that matter, do plants and amoebas think? If we ever meet intelligent aliens, will we be able to understand what they say to us? Philosophers and scientists are still unable to answer questions like these. Perhaps science fiction can help. In Discognition, Steven Shaviro looks at science fiction novels and stories that explore the extreme possibilities of human and alien sentience.

Thinking Animals

Thinking Animals
Author: Paul Shepard
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2011-07-01
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0820342343

In a world increasingly dominated by human beings, the survival of other species becomes more and more questionable. In this brilliant book, Paul Shepard offers a provocative alternative to an "us or them" mentality, proposing that other species are integral to humanity's evolution and exist at the core of our imagination. This trait, he argues, compels us to think of animals in order to be human. Without other living species by which to measure ourselves, Shepard warns, we would be less mature, care less for and be more careless of all life, including our own kind.

Thinking Big: How the Evolution of Social Life Shaped the Human Mind

Thinking Big: How the Evolution of Social Life Shaped the Human Mind
Author: Robin Dunbar
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2014-06-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 0500772142

A closer look at genealogy, incorporating how biological, anthropological, and technical factors can influence human lives We are at a pivotal moment in understanding our remote ancestry and its implications for how we live today. The barriers to what we can know about our distant relatives have been falling as a result of scientific advance, such as decoding the genomes of humans and Neanderthals, and bringing together different perspectives to answer common questions. These collaborations have brought new knowledge and suggested fresh concepts to examine. The results have shaken the old certainties. The results are profound; not just for the study of the past but for appreciating why we conduct our social lives in ways, and at scales, that are familiar to all of us. But such basic familiarity raises a dilemma. When surrounded by the myriad technical and cultural innovations that support our global, urbanized lifestyles we can lose sight of the small social worlds we actually inhabit and that can be traced deep into our ancestry. So why do we need art, religion, music, kinship, myths, and all the other facets of our over-active imaginations if the reality of our effective social worlds is set by a limit of some one hundred and fifty partners (Dunbar’s number) made of family, friends, and useful acquaintances? How could such a social community lead to a city the size of London or a country as large as China? Do we really carry our hominin past into our human present? It is these small worlds, and the link they allow to the study of the past that forms the central point in this book.