Society of Mind (1986)

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A book like no other. 270 one-page essays carefully outlining Minsky's theory of the mind. These range in topic and complexity from casual anecdotes and folk reasoning to dense, neologism-laden academic work. Minsky's style is crisp and enjoyable, so he helps you swim through the difficult stuff. It all feels like a text whose aphoristic tone and broad scope will reward each return to it, saying more than it seems to say at first. ( )

Selected e-content from Google Books: https://goo.gl/6SS7U8
Review from Google Books:
Marvin Minsky -- one of the fathers of computer science and cofounder of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT -- gives a revolutionary answer to the age-old question: "How does the mind work?"
Minsky brilliantly portrays the mind as a "society" of tiny components that are themselves mindless. Mirroring his theory, Minsky boldly casts The Society of Mind as an intellectual puzzle whose pieces are assembled along the way. Each chapter -- on a self-contained page -- corresponds to a piece in the puzzle. As the pages turn, a unified theory of the mind emerges, like a mosaic. Ingenious, amusing, and easy to read, The Society of Mind is an adventure in imagination.

For anyone interested in the nature of his or her mind and how it functions this is a basic book. Although decades have passed and much work has been done in the higher reaches of the theory and science suggested in this book, it remains a useful basic reader. To just see the complexity suggested (and arguments remain about there being less complex descriptions of the mind) is a useful provocation. The clarity of Minsky's presentation, he breaks down his larger ideas into pieces that will fit on a page, often with supporting graphics, is one good reason for this work to still be considered. Sections on Space, Seeing and Believing, are of special concern to photographers, but should not be isolated from the many other mental processes involved in our daily approach to life.

Human nature as seen by a computer scientist. Minsky goes for breadth, at the severe expense of depth. ( )