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In a culmination of humanity's millennia-long quest for self
knowledge, the sciences of the mind are now in a position to offer
concrete, empirically validated answers to the most fundamental
questions about human nature. What does it mean to be a mind? How
is the mind related to the brain? How are minds shaped by their
embodiment and environment? What are the principles behind
cognitive functions such as perception, memory, language, thought,
and consciousness?
By analyzing the tasks facing any sentient being that is subject
to stimulation and a pressure to act, Shimon Edelman identifies
computation as the common denominator in the emerging answers to
all these questions. Any system composed of elements that exchange
signals with each other and occasionally with the rest of the world
can be said to be engaged in computation. A brain composed of
neurons is one example of a system that computes, and the
computations that the neurons collectively carry out constitute the
brain's mind.
Edelman presents a computational account of the entire spectrum of
cognitive phenomena that constitutes the mind. He begins with
sentience, and uses examples from visual perception to demonstrate
that it must, at its very core, be a type of computation.
Throughout his account, Edelman acknowledges the human mind's
biological origins. Along the way, he also demystifies traits such
as creativity, language, and individual and collective
consciousness, and hints at how naturally evolved minds can
transcend some of their limitations by moving to computational
substrates other than brains. The account that Edelman gives in
this book is accessible, yet unified and rigorous, and the big
picture he presents is supported by evidence ranging from
neurobiology to computer science. The book should be read by anyone
seeking a comprehensive and current introduction to cognitive
psychology.
Languages differ from one another in bewildering and seemingly
arbitrary ways. For example, in English, the verb precedes the
direct object ('understand the proof'), but in Japanese, the direct
object comes first. In some languages, such as Mohawk, it is not
even possible to establish a basic word order. Nonetheless,
languages do share certain regularities in how they are structured
and used. The exact nature and extent of these "language
universals" has been the focus of much research and is one of the
central explanatory goals in the language sciences.
During the past 50 years, there has been tremendous progress, a few
major conceptual revolutions, and even the emergence of entirely
new fields. The wealth of findings and theories offered by the
various language-science disciplines has made it more important
than ever to work toward an integrated understanding of the nature
of human language universals. This book is the first to examine
language universals from a cross-disciplinary perspective. It
provides new insights into long standing questions such as: What
exactly defines the human capacity for language? Are there
universal properties of human languages and, if so, what are they?
Can all language universals be explained in the same way, or do
some universals require different kinds of explanations from
others? Language Universals is unique in starting with the
assumption that the best way to approach these and related
questions is through a dialogue between a wide range of
disciplines, including linguistics, cognitive neuroscience,
philosophy, computer science and biology.
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