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Society of Mind | 
| Author: Marvin Minsky
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $17.00
Buy Used: $2.45
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Avg. Customer Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 123779
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0671657135
Dewey Decimal Number: 153
EAN: 9780671657130
ASIN: 0671657135
Publication Date: March 15, 1988
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Amazon.com
For some artificial intelligence researchers, Minsky's book is too far removed from hard science to be useful. For others, the high-level approach of The Society of Mind makes it a gold mine of ideas waiting to be implemented. The author, one of the undisputed fathers of the discipline of AI, sets out to provide an abstract model of how the human mind really works. His thesis is that our minds consist of a huge aggregation of tiny mini-minds or agents that have evolved to perform highly specific tasks. Most of these agents lack the attributes we think of as intelligence and are severely limited in their ability to intercommunicate. Yet rational thought, feeling, and purposeful action result from the interaction of these basic components. Minsky's theory does not suggest a specific implementation for building intelligent machines. Still, this book may prove to be one of the most influential for the future of AI.
Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 31 more reviews...
 Agents and Emergence before it was popular. June 17, 2008
This book by one of the most important pioneers in artificial intelligence was ahead of its time.
It deals with a society of agents that interact with each other, organize into hierarchies and networks, and give rise to "emergent" properties (in Minsky's view, the mind).
The ideas in this book were highly influential in artificial intelligence, computer science, the philosophy of mind, and psychology.
The book may seem a "popular" exposition and it was geared, in a sense, to be so. However, the fundamental underlying ideas are extremely important to a variety of fields and have made a substantial impact.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in artificial intelligence, computer science or emergent phenomena.
Simple agents and the human mind April 11, 2008
According to Marvin Minsky the mind is composed of a collection of simple objects, agents. Working together these agents creates our mind.
Some might find this approach somewhat reductionist. However, in broad terms it lines up with my understanding of the mind. So this is ok for me. However, I think that there are many mysteries of the mind that we need to address.
I.e. How can two agents, say sound and sight, bind together and give you an experience which includes both? And how do you really get from something as basic as cells to a conscious experience. All of this is hardly crystal clear .... And the books doesn't bring you any further in
understanding these questions.
Yet, it is, as other readers have stated, a highly original and thought provoking introduction to the major questions involving mental states, concept formation in the brain, learning theory, and artificial intelligence.
-Simon
 Professor, where is your scientific rigor? October 22, 2007
1 out of 17 found this review helpful
This book is full of sweet tales cooked up in some guy's head. This is okay for Tom Clancy but absolutely dumb for an MIT professor (which the author is). The author never backs up his ideas with rigorous experiments/proof- Its just a pile of sweet-sounding personal opinions. If you like that and have no interest in scientific rigor; just a good story then its a great book. However, if you need to learn about REAL Artificial Intelligence, the mind and similar fields and how a good book in these fields are written then this book is a waste of time and fit only for consumption by a trash bin. I am surprise an MIT professor considers this fit material to publish. Its time for this guy to make a home in Florida and start loading on viagra to keep the wife happy.
 Understanding how the mind works October 14, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a very unusual book. 270 chapters of one page grouped under 30 headings. Minsky tries to figure out how the mind works, by splitting what it does in one page very interesting bits. The discipline of one subject per page is unusual but effective. The brain is recognised as enormously complicated, but not so complicated that nothing can be understood about it. In fact it can only be understood by understanding its many different bits. Minsky built the first "randomly wired neural network learning machine" the SMRAC Such a type of machine has some kind of intelligence and some learning capabilities. Marvin Minsky is one of the pioneers of "artificial intelligence". He found that to make these machines work intelligently it was useful to figure out how the brain solved the challenges of for example seeing in a useful way. To understand those brain processes Minsky delved into the workings of evolution.He found that you can learn a lot by figuring out how evolution in different steps increased brain capabilities. For example: why are we much more capable to remember faces of people rather than their names? Simply because vision is much older than language. Or why do people have strong egocentric tendencies? That is the result of a child having to learn how to survive. Why blind desire for prestige, money and sex? Our shared ancestry with chimpanzees etc
To me surprisingly the book contains many useful rules that can make you more effective. For example if you want to convince somebody it is better to use parallel than serial arguments. A serial argument is more vulnerable because if one link in the chain is weak you lose. Another example. "Virtually any problem will be easier to solve the more one learns about the context world in which that problem occurs". Finally "Whatever happens, where or when, we're prone to wonder who or what's responsible?" That is why people are uncomfortable inside and outside organisations if they cannot find out who is responsible.
An unusual and very stimulating book.
a very interesting book September 24, 2007
This is a strange book, when i start read it i was astonished about the book organization. There are a lot of brief chapter that introduce the arguments. No one is full explained but it starts you thinking about that little part. At the end you have a full picture of reasoing as whole as a sum of little pictures
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