This book uncovers mathematical structures underlying natural intelligence and applies category theory as a modeling language for understanding human cognition, giving readers new insights into the nature of human thought. In this context, the book explores various topics and questions, such as the human representation of the number system, why our counting ability is different from that which is evident among non-human organisms, and why the idea of zero is so difficult to grasp. The book is organized into three parts: the first introduces the general reason for studying general structures underlying the human mind; the second part introduces category theory as a modeling language and use it for exposing the deep and fascinating structures underlying human cognition; and the third applies the general principles and ideas of the first two parts to reaching a better understanding of challenging aspects of the human mind such as our understanding of the number system, the metaphorical nature of our thinking and the logic of our unconscious dynamics.

Reviving the Living: Meaning Making in Living Systems presents a novel perspective that relates to current biological knowledge and issues. Written by polymath Dr. Yair Neuman, the book challenges the dogmas that frame our understanding of living systems and presents a radical alternative approach to understanding the world around us, one that avoids the pitfalls of non-scientific perspectives such as Vitalism and Creationism. In this thought provoking and iconoclastic manuscript, Neuman follows the footsteps of Gregory Bateson, Mikhail Bakhtin, Michael Polanyi and others, to suggest that living systems are meaning making systems. The book delves into the unique processes of meaning making that characterize organisms as a unique category of nature, and offers new and fascinating insights into a variety of enigmatic biological phenomena from immune memory to hidden life (cryptobiosis). It consists of four parts divided into 18 chapters and covers topics ranging from reductionism and its pitfalls to genetics; why organisms are irreducible; immunology; meaning making in language and biology; meaning-bridging the gap between physics and semantics; context and memory; and the poetry of living. Core concepts and themes are illustrated using examples based in current science. This text would be of high interest to biologists, philosophers, cognitive scientists, psychologists, and semioticians, as well as to any reflective individual who is willing to examine the realm of the living from a novel and fascinating perspective.

How is it that the world is conceived as exclusively populated by objects (for example books, cars, numbers and people) while cognition is first and foremost a dynamic process? Inquiring into the reified universe Dr. Neuman explores questions of mind, reality, knowledge and signification in a provocative, stimulating and humorous way. Drawing on various domains such as systems research, semiotics, philosophy, and complexity sciences, Dr. Neuman is touching basic questions of our Being-in-the-World as cognate creatures, and presents a novel theory of the mind as a boundary phenomenon. Following the footsteps of Gregory Bateson and Valentine Volosinov, the book propagates a process-oriented theory of the mind, in a way that has never been presented before. In this context, new and creative solutions are presented for a variety of old philosophical problems such as: What is the Mind? Why do we use different signs for the same object across different cultures? and how is it possible to think on our thinking without getting into problems such as an infinite regression.

This concise volume offers an accessible introduction to state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) language models, providing a platform for their use in textual interpretation across the humanities and social sciences. The book outlines the affordances of new technologies for textual analysis, which has historically employed established approaches within the humanities. Neuman, Danesi, and Vilenchik argue that these different forms of analysis are indeed complementary, demonstrating the ways in which AI-based perspectives echo similar theoretical and methodological currents in traditional approaches while also offering new directions for research. The volume showcases examples from a wide range of texts, including novels, television shows, and films to illustrate the ways in which the latest AI technologies can be used for "dialoguing" with textual characters and examining textual meaning coherence. Illuminating the potential of AI language models to both enhance and extend research on the interpretation of texts, this book will appeal to scholars interested in cognitive approaches to the humanities in such fields as literary studies, discourse analysis, media studies, film studies, psychology, and artificial intelligence.

By the end of this book, the reader will understand: the difficulties of finding a needle in a haystack; creative solutions to address the problem; unique ways of engineering features and solving the problem of the lack of data (e.g. synthetic data). Additionally, the reader will be able to: avoid mistakes resulting from a lack of understanding; search for appropriate methods of feature engineering; locate the relevant technological solutions within the general context of decision-making.

The emergence of intelligent technologies, sophisticated natural language processing methodologies and huge textual repositories, invites a new approach for the challenge of automatically identifying personality dimensions through the analysis of textual data. This short book aims to (1) introduce the challenge of computational personality analysis, (2) present a unique approach to personality analysis and (3) illustrate this approach through case studies and worked-out examples. This book is of special relevance to psychologists, especially those interested in the new insights offered by new computational and data-intensive tools, and to computational social scientists interested in human personality and language processing.

What if you found yourself working for an intelligence agency and suddenly your understanding of other human beings had become a matter of life or death? Yair Neuman draws us into a unique thought experiment, using portraits from some of Shakespeare's most stirring works to illustrate how our psychological understanding of human nature can be significantly enriched through literature. Provocative and engaging, Shakespeare for the Intelligence Agent: Toward Understanding Real Personalities invites you to a challenging, enjoyable, and in many cases humorous reading of human personality through Shakespeare's plays.

Human psychology is deeply rooted in the culture in which people live. Introduction to Computational Cultural Psychology introduces a revolutionary approach for studying cultural psychology. Drawing on novel computational tools and in-depth case studies, Professor Yair Neuman offers thought-provoking answers to questions such as: how are thought and language deeply related? How can computers help us to understand different cultures? How can computers assist military intelligence in identifying vengeful intentions? And how is our concept of 'love' rooted in our basic embodied experience? Written by a leading interdisciplinary researcher this book is a 'tour-de-force' which will be of interest to a variety of researchers, students and practitioners in psychology as well as an interdisciplinary audience with an interest in the intricate web weaved between the human psyche and its cultural context.

How is it that the world is conceived as exclusively populated by objects (e.g. books, cars, numbers, and people) while cognition is first and foremost a dynamic process? Inquiring into the reified universe' Dr. Neuman explores questions of mind, reality, knowledge and signification in a provocative, stimulating and humorous way. Drawing on various domains such as systems research, semiotics, philosophy, and complexity sciences, Dr. Neuman is touching basic questions of our Being-in-the-World as cognate creatures, and presents a novel theory of the mind as a boundary phenomenon. Following the footsteps of Gregory Bateson and Valentine Volosinov, the book propagates a process-oriented theory of the mind, in a way that has never been presented before. In this context, new and creative solutions are presented for a variety of old philosophical problems such as: What is the Mind? Why do we use different signs for the same object across different cultures? and how is it possible to think on our thinking without getting into problems such as an infinite regression.

Most of us are intuitively familiar with small social systems, such as families and soccer teams. Surprisingly, though, most of us are unaware of how complex these systems are or of the fact that they have a unique character distinguishing them from both populations and individuals. The current manuscript, which emerged from high-level scientific publications on the subject, aims to bridge this gap in our understanding of small social systems. The book aims to explain, illustrate, and model the unique and fascinating nature of small (social) systems by relying on deep scientific foundations and by using examples from sport, movies, music, and the martial arts. To support its friendly exposition of challenging scientific ideas, the book also discusses entertaining questions such as (1) why inviting your mother-in-law to dinner might be a challenging event, for reasons you have never considered; (2) why soccer teams should be messy in order to win; (3) why Nazis are deeply wrong in their understanding of the importance of entropy; and (4) why "panda fighters" failed in the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). "How Small Systems Work is a welcome book, which sheds light on a branch of mathematics overlooked by scholars: how networks store information. Focusing on small systems, the book asks fundamental questions, providing the tools (and the examples) for answering them -with fun. Neuman analyses, with plenty of humor, the dynamics of a family of cats, the pleasure of listening to jazz, and the science behind football championships, while uncovering hidden gems in the history of cinema" Dr. Mario Alemi, author of "The Amazing Journey of Reason: from DNA to Artificial Intelligence"

The emergence of intelligent technologies, sophisticated natural language processing methodologies and huge textual repositories, invites a new approach for the challenge of automatically identifying personality dimensions through the analysis of textual data. This short book aims to (1) introduce the challenge of computational personality analysis, (2) present a unique approach to personality analysis and (3) illustrate this approach through case studies and worked-out examples. This book is of special relevance to psychologists, especially those interested in the new insights offered by new computational and data-intensive tools, and to computational social scientists interested in human personality and language processing.

What if you found yourself working for an intelligence agency and suddenly your understanding of other human beings had become a matter of life or death? Yair Neuman draws us into a unique thought experiment, using portraits from some of Shakespeare's most stirring works to illustrate how our psychological understanding of human nature can be significantly enriched through literature. Provocative and engaging, Shakespeare for the Intelligence Agent: Toward Understanding Real Personalities invites you to a challenging, enjoyable, and in many cases humorous reading of human personality through Shakespeare's plays.

Human psychology is deeply rooted in the culture in which people live. Introduction to Computational Cultural Psychology introduces a revolutionary approach for studying cultural psychology. Drawing on novel computational tools and in-depth case studies, Professor Yair Neuman offers thought-provoking answers to questions such as: how are thought and language deeply related? How can computers help us to understand different cultures? How can computers assist military intelligence in identifying vengeful intentions? And how is our concept of 'love' rooted in our basic embodied experience? Written by a leading interdisciplinary researcher this book is a 'tour-de-force' which will be of interest to a variety of researchers, students and practitioners in psychology as well as an interdisciplinary audience with an interest in the intricate web weaved between the human psyche and its cultural context.