CiteULike: mthomure's Hofstadter

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Douglas Hofstadter — 2008-04-16T20:06:57-00:00

(12 September 1980)

The emergence of understanding in a computer model of concepts and analogy-making

Melanie Mitchell — 2008-04-15T19:53:14-00:00

Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, Vol. 42, No. 1-3. (June 1990), pp. 322-334.

This paper describes Copycat, a computer model of the mental mechanisms underlying the fluidity and adaptability of the human conceptual system in the context of analogy-making. Copycat creates analogies between idealized situations in a microworld that has been designed to capture and isolate many of the central issues of analogy-making. In Copycat, an understanding of the essence of a situation and the recognition of deep similarity between two superficially different situations emerge from the interaction of a large number of perceptual agents with an associative, overlapping, and context-sensitive network of concepts. Central features of the model are: a high degree of parallelism; competition and cooperation among a large number of small, locally acting agents that together create a global understanding of the situation at hand; and a computational temperature that measures the amount of perceptual organization as processing proceeds and that in turn controls the degree of randomness with which decisions are made in the system.

High-level perception, representation, and analogy: A critique of artificial intelligence methodology

David Chalmers — 2008-04-01T00:32:37-00:00

Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 4, No. 3. (1992), pp. 185-211.

High-level perception—the process of making sense of complex data at an abstract, conceptual level—is fundamental to human cognition. Through high-level perception, chaotic environmental stimuli are organized into mental representations that are used throughout cognitive processing. Much work in traditional artificial intelligence has ignored the process of high-level perception, by starting with hand-coded representations. In this paper, we argue that this dismissal of perceptual processes leads to distorted models of human cognition. We examine some existing artificial-intelligence models—notably BACON, a model of scientific discovery, and the Structure-Mapping Engine, a model of analogical thought—-and argue that these are flawed precisely because they downplay the role of high-level perception. Further, we argue that perceptual processes cannot be separated from other cognitive processes even in principle,and therefore that traditional artificial-intelligence models cannot be defended by supposing the existence of a ‘representation module’ that supplies representations ready-made. Finally, we describe a model of high-level perception and analogical thought in which perceptual processing is integrated with analogical mapping, leading to the flexible build-up of representations appropriate to a given context.

I Am a Strange Loop

Douglas Hofstadter — 2006-03-29T01:30:28-00:00

(31 July 2006)

Douglas R. Hofstadter's long-awaited return to the themes of Gšdel, Escher, Bach--an original and controversial view of the nature of consciousness and identity What do we mean when we say "I"? Can thought arise out of matter? Can a self, a soul, a consciousness, an "I" arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here? I Am a Strange Loop argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the "strange loop"--a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. Deep down, a human brain is a chaotic seething soup of particles, on a higher level it is a jungle of neurons, and on a yet higher level it is a network of abstractions that we call "symbols." The most central and complex symbol in your brain or mine is the one we both call "I." The "I" is the nexus in our brain where the levels feed back into each other and flip causality upside down, with symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse. For each human being, this "I" seems to be the realest thing in the world. But how can such a mysterious abstraction be real--or is our "I" merely a convenient fiction? Does an "I" exert genuine power over the particles in our brain, or is it helplessly pushed around by the all-powerful laws of physics? These are the mysteries tackled in I Am a Strange Loop, Douglas R. Hofstadter's first book-length journey into philosophy since Godel, Escher, Bach. Compulsively readable and endlessly thought-provoking, this is the book Hofstadter's many readers have long been waiting for.

Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought

Douglas Hofstadter — 2006-05-10T21:12:24-00:00

(1995)

Douglas Hofstadter, best known for his masterpiece Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, tackles the subject of artificial intelligence and machine learning in his thought-provoking work Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies, written in conjunction with the Fluid Analogies Research Group at the University of Michigan. Driven to discover whether computers can be made to "think" like humans, Hofstadter and his colleagues created a variety of computer programs that extrapolate sequences, apply pattern-matching strategies, make analogies, and even act "creative." As always, Hofstadter's work requires devotion on the part of the reader, but rewards him with fascinating insights into the nature of both human and machine intelligence. "Will change your idea of what it is to be creative and even what it is to be human."--(William Poundstone, New York Times Book Review)

Waking UP from the Boolean Dream, or, Subcognition as Computation

Douglas Hofstadter — 2006-08-31T06:19:55-00:00

(14 May 1996)

Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern

Douglas Hofstadter — 2006-03-29T01:29:24-00:00

(14 May 1996)

A bestselling collection of brilliant and quirky essays, on subjects ranging from biology to grammar to artificial intelligence, that are unified by one primary concern: the way people perceive and think.