Search results for ""author david gelernter""

The holy grail of scientists and psychologists since the beginning of artificial intelligence has been to replicate thought patterns of the human mind. Challenging the notion that this can ever be achieved through state-of-the-art research, legendary AI authority David Gelernter—a "rock star" (New York Times) of the computing world—surprisingly turns to literature, hoping that the works of introspective geniuses like Shakespeare, J. M. Coetzee, and Karen Blixen can help answer the same fundamental questions that neuroscientists have been struggling with for generations. Indeed, Gelernter’s landmark "spectrum of consciousness" decodes some of the deepest, most mysterious aspects of the human mind, such as the numinous light of early childhood, why sadism and masochism underpin some of our greatest artistic achievements, and why dreams often do predict the future. With "penetrating insight and a graceful, inviting presentation" (National Review), The Tides of Mind revolutionizes our very understanding of what it means to be a human being.

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America-Lite (where we all live) is just like America, only turned into an amusement park or a video game or a supersized Pinkberry, where the past and future are blank and there is only a big NOW. How did we come to expect no virtue and so much cynicism from our culture, our leaders-and each other? In this refreshingly judgmental book, David Gelernter connects the historical dots to reveal a stealth revolution carried out by post-religious globalist intellectuals who, by and large, "can't run their own universities or scholarly fields, but are very sure they can run you." These imperial academics have deployed their students into the top echelon of professions once monopolized by staid and steady WASPs. In this simple way, they have installed themselves as the new designated drivers of American culture. Imperial academics live in a world of theory; they preach disdain for mere facts and for old-fashioned fact-based judgments like true or false. Schoolchildren are routinely taught theories about history instead of actual history-they learn, for example, that all nations are equally nice except for America, which is nearly always nasty. With academic experts to do our thinking for us, we've politely shut up and let second-raters take the wheel. In fact, we have handed the keys to the star pupil and teacher's pet of the post-religious globalist intellectuals, whose election to the presidency of the United States constituted the ultimate global group hug. How do we finally face the truth and get back into the driver's seat? America-Lite ends with a one-point plan.

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America-Lite (where we all live) is just like America, only turned into an amusement park or a video game or a supersized Pinkberry, where the past and future are blank and there is only a big NOW. How did we come to expect no virtue and so much cynicism from our culture, our leaders--and each other? In this refreshingly judgmental book, David Gelernter connects the historical dots to reveal a stealth revolution carried out by post-religious globalist intellectuals who, by and large, "can't run their own universities or scholarly fields, but are very sure they can run you." These imperial academics have deployed their students into the top echelon of professions once monopolized by staid and steady WASPs. In this simple way, they have installed themselves as the new designated drivers of American culture. Imperial academics live in a world of theory; they preach disdain for mere facts and for old-fashioned fact-based judgments like true or false. Schoolchildren are routinely taught theories about history instead of actual history--they learn, for example, that all nations are equally nice except for America, which is nearly always nasty. With academic experts to do our thinking for us, we've politely shut up and let second-raters take the wheel. In fact, we have handed the keys to the star pupil and teacher's pet of the post-religious globalist intellectuals, whose election to the presidency of the United States constituted the ultimate global group hug. How do we finally face the truth and get back into the driver's seat? America-Lite ends with a one-point plan.

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The holy grail of psychologists and scientists for nearly a century has been to understand and replicate both human thought and the human mind. In fact, it's what attracted the now-legendary computer scientist and AI authority David Gelernter to the discipline in the first place. As a student and young researcher in the 1980s, Gelernter hoped to build a program with a dial marked "focus." At maximum "focus," the program would "think" rationally, formally, reasonably. As the dial was turned down and "focus" diminished, its "mind" would start to wander, and as you dialed even lower, this artificial mind would start to free-associate, eventually ignoring the user completely as it cruised off into the mental adventures we know as sleep. While the program was a only a partial success, it laid the foundation for The Tides of Mind, a groundbreaking new exploration of the human psyche that shows us how the very purpose of the mind changes throughout the day. Indeed, as Gelernter explains, when we are at our most alert, when reasoning and creating new memories is our main mental business, the mind is a computer-like machine that keeps emotion on a short leash and attention on our surroundings. As we gradually tire, however, and descend the "mental spectrum," reasoning comes unglued. Memory ranges more freely, the mind wanders, and daydreams grow more insistent. Self-awareness fades, reflection blinks out, and at last we are completely immersed in our own minds. With far-reaching implications, Gelernter’s landmark "Spectrum of Consciousness" finally helps decode some of the most mysterious wonders of the human mind, such as the numinous light of early childhood, why dreams are so often predictive, and why sadism and masochism underpin some of our greatest artistic achievements. It’s a theory that also challenges the very notion of the mind as a machine—and not through empirical studies or "hard science" but by listening to our great poets and novelists, who have proven themselves as humanity's most trusted guides to the subjective mind and inner self. In the great introspective tradition of Wilhelm Wundt and René Descartes, David Gelernter promises to not only revolutionize our understanding of what it means to be human but also to help answer many of our most fundamental questions about the origins of creativity, thought, and consciousness.

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