The Library

Conscious intelligence may be viewed as a computer system composed of many smaller parallel processing programs. Marvin Minsky, Ph.D., is one of the acknowledged founders of the mathematical theory of computation, artificial intelligence, and robotics. He argues that understanding the individual as a very sophisticated machine actually affirms human dignity.

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, presented 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.