Igor Aleksander

Toward Machines with Imagination

How to Build a Mind

Vassilis Cutsuridis

Amir Hussain

Allan Kardec Barros

Leslie S. Smith

Ron Chrisley

Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems 2008 (June 24-27, 2008; São Luís, Brazil) brought together leading scientists and engineers who use analytic, syntactic and computational methods both to understand the prodigious processing properties of biological systems and, specifically, of the brain, and to exploit such knowledge to advance computational methods towards ever higher levels of cognitive competence. This book includes the papers presented at four major symposia: Part I - Cognitive Neuroscience Part II - Biologically Inspired Systems Part III - Neural Computation Part IV - Models of Consciousness.

Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems 2008

Antonio Chella

Carlos Hernández

Ricardo Sanz

Jaime Gómez Ramirez

Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems - BICS 2010 aims to bring together leading scientists and engineers who use analytic and synthetic methods both to understand the astonishing processing properties of biological systems and specifically of the brain, and to exploit such knowledge to advance engineering methods to build artificial systems with higher levels of cognitive competence. BICS is a meeting point of brain scientists and cognitive systems engineers where cross-domain ideas are fostered in the hope of getting emerging insights on the nature, operation and extractable capabilities of brains. This multiple approach is necessary because the progressively more accurate data about the brain is producing a growing need of a quantitative understanding and an associated capacity to manipulate this data and translate it into engineering applications rooted in sound theories. BICS 2010 is intended for both researchers that aim to build brain inspired systems with higher cognitive competences, and for life scientists who use and develop mathematical and engineering approaches for a better understanding of complex biological systems like the brain. Four major interlaced focal symposia are planned for this conference and these are organized into patterns that encourage cross-fertilization across the symposia topics. This emphasizes the role of BICS as a major meeting point for researchers and practitioners in the areas of biological and artificial cognitive systems. Debates across disciplines will enrich researchers with complementary perspectives from diverse scientific fields. BICS 2010 will take place July 14-16, 2010, in Madrid, Spain.

Brain-Inspired Cognitive Systems 2010

From Brains to Systems

Helen Morton

Aristotle's convincing philosophy is likely to have shaped (even indirectly) many of our current beliefs, prejudices and attitudes to life. This includes the way in which our mind (that is, our capacity to have private thoughts) appears to elude a scientific description. This book is about a scientific ingredient that was not available to Aristotle: the science of information. Would the course of the philosophy of the mind have been different had Aristotle pronounced that the matter of mind was information? This “mind is information” assertion is often heard in contemporary debates, and this book explores the verities and falsehoods of this proposition. Contents:Overview: From Aristotle to the Bits of an Informational MindShannon: The Reluctant Hero of the Information AgeBillions of Brain Cells: Guesses and ModelsImagination in the Circles of a NetworkPhenomenal Information: The World and Neural StatesInformation Integration: The Key to Consciousness?The Joy of Seeing: Gathering Visual InformationThe Informational Mind: Oxymoron or New Science?The Unconscious Mind: Freud's Influential VisionAristotle's Living Soul Readership: Philosophers, scientists and those interested in consciousness and machine consciousness; readers of multidisciplinary books on machine analyses of consciousness. Keywords:Aristotle;Consciousness;Machine Consciousness;Artificial Intelligence;Philosophy;Information;The Information Age;Information Theory;Automata TheoryReviews: “Individual chapters of this book might be used to introduce postgraduates to information theory, and this book is recommended for a university that offers courses in consciousness studies and/or in the history of science. In particular 'Shannon: The Reluctant Hero of the Information Age' provides some interesting information about several people from different areas of expertise who worked in Bell Labs and MIT.” Online Information Review

The Discovery of our Informational Mind

Aristotle's Laptop

Aristotle's convincing philosophy is likely to have shaped (even indirectly) many of our current beliefs, prejudices and attitudes to life. This includes the way in which our mind (that is, our capacity to have private thoughts) appears to elude a scientific description. This book is about a scientific ingredient that was not available to Aristotle: the science of information. Would the course of the philosophy of the mind have been different had Aristotle pronounced that the matter of mind was information? This “mind is information” assertion is often heard in contemporary debates, and this book explores the verities and falsehoods of this proposition.

The Discovery of Our Informational Mind

Not consciousness, but knowledge of consciousness: that is what this book communicates in a fascinating way. Consciousness is the thread that links the disappearing gorilla with the octopus suffering from a stomach ache, and the person under anaesthetic with a new born baby. How these are different, yet illustrative of consciousness, is revealed in this accessible book by one of the world's leading thinkers and neural computing engineers. Igor Aleksander addresses this enigmatic topic, by making us understand the difference between what happens to us when thinking consciously and when sort of thinking when dreaming or when not conscious at all, as when sleeping, anaesthetised or knocked out by a blow on the head. The book also tackles the larger topics of free will, choice, God, Freud (what is 'the unconscious'?), inherited traits and individuality, while exploding the myths and misinformation of many earlier mind-hijackers. He shares the journey towards building a new model of consciousness, with an invitation to understand 5 axioms or basic ideas, which we easily recognise in ourselves.

The World in My Mind, My Mind in the World

Impossible Minds: My Neurons, My Consciousness has been written to satisfy the curiosity each and every one of us has about our own consciousness. It takes the view that the neurons in our heads are the source of consciousness and attempts to explain how this happens. Although it talks of neural networks, it explains what they are and what they do in such a way that anyone may understand. While the topic is partly philosophical, the text makes no assumptions of prior knowledge of philosophy; and so contains easy excursions into the important ideas of philosophy that may be missing in the education of a computer scientist. The approach is pragmatic throughout; there are many references to material on experiments that were done in our laboratories.The first edition of the book was written to introduce curious readers to the way that the consciousness we all enjoy might depend on the networks of neurons that make up the brain. In this second edition, it is recognized that these arguments still stand, but that they have been taken much further by an increasing number of researchers. A post-script has now been written for each chapter to inform the reader of these developments and provide an up-to-date bibliography. A new epilogue has been written to summarize the state-of-the art of the search for consciousness in neural automata, for researchers in computation, students of philosophy, and anyone who is fascinated by what is one of the most engaging scientific endeavours of the day.This book also tells a story. A story of a land where people think that they are automata without much in the way of consciousness, a story of cormorants and cliffs by the sea, a story of what it might be like to be a conscious machine …

Igor Aleksander

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