Description
Recent breakthroughs in neuro- science have allowed scientists to study the information storage and retrieval capacities of the brains of living subjects and to begin to map our reality-processing systems.
This information is in turn being used by a new class of experts, cognitive scientists, as the basis for designing new generations of computer systems. These systems, known as neural nets, emulate the parallel information-processing systems of the human brain and increasingly display amazingly mindlike capabilities.
In Mind, Machines, and Human Consciousness, author Robert L. Nadeau describes the advances being made in both the study of the human brain and the development of artificial intelligence (AI) computers. He examines the ongoing debate about whether AI computers will someday evolve their own consciousness and ultimately supersede humans in the evolutionary scheme-or whether, as humanists and social scientists insist, humankind is an "ultimate value" in the history of evolution. Within a new framework that challenges the assumption that the scientific view of nature says nothing about the centrality of hu- man life and consciousness, Nadeau reviews the arguments on both sides of the issues. His conclusion, based on his wide-ranging knowledge of neuroscience, physics, evolution, and artificial intelligence, is both startling and profound.
ISBN:0809240254
