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摘要
摘要
If you're good at finding the one right answer to life's multiple-choice questions, you're "smart." But "intelligence" is what you need when contemplating the leftovers in the refrigerator, trying to figure out what might go with them; or if you're trying to speak a sentence that you've never spoken before. As Jean Piaget said, intelligence is what you use when you don't know what to do, when all the standard answers are inadequate. This book tries to fathom how our inner life evolves from one topic to another, as we create and reject alternatives. Ever since Darwin, we've known that elegant things can emerge (indeed, self-organize) from "simpler" beginnings. And, says theoretical neurophysiologist William H. Calvin, the bootstrapping of new ideas works much like the immune response or the evolution of a new animal species--except that the brain can turn the Darwinian crank a lot faster, on the time scale of thought and action. Drawing on anthropology, evolutionary biology, linguistics, and the neurosciences, Calvin also considers how a more intelligent brain developed using slow biological improvements over the last few million years. Long ago, evolving jack-of-all trades versatility was encouraged by abrupt climate changes. Now, evolving intelligence uses a nonbiological track: augmenting human intelligence and building intelligent machines.
评论 (2)
Kirkus评论
Neurophysiologist Calvin (The Ascent of Mind: Ice Age Climate and the Evolution of Intelligence, 1990, etc.) continues to explore the human mind in a lively, erudite fashion, this time drawing on evolutionary biology, ethology, linguistics, and neuroscience. He begins by distinguishing consciousness, or awareness, from intelligence (``the high-end scenery of neurophysiology'' encompassing foresight, speed, and creativity) and then considers the likely evolution of human intelligence. He argues that syntax, the structuring of relative relationships in a mental model of things, is what human levels of intelligence are mostly about, and to understand why humans are so intelligent, we need to understand how our primate ancestors evolved syntax from the more limited communicative abilities of apes. Calvin argues that not only did a Darwinian process shape a better brain over two million years, but that the same process operating within the brain might explain how the brain gives shape to thoughts and makes decisions. An image emerges of cerebral codes that copy themselves, compete with other cerebral codes, and develop new variations. Calvin tries to help the nonscientist along with clever illustrations and analogies, such as his Rube Goldbergstyle mechanical ``Vacuum-Lifter Package-Carrying System'' to explain how sentences are understood, but close attention is required at all times. In his concluding chapter he considers some of the implications of artificial intelligence, i.e., a computer that simulates brain processes and is capable of abstraction, imagery, talking, planning, and decision making. What values would we want these silicon beings to have, and how would humans fare in competition with them? Challenging and rewarding. As always, Calvin's thinking about thinking gives plenty of food for thought.
《书目》(Booklist)书评
Another solid contribution to the Science Masters series encapsulates for nonspecialists current knowledge about the human brain. Author of a half dozen books on the subject, Calvin distills his expertise with trusty Darwinian principles as his guide. Before making his argument that competitive processes in the cerebral cortex account for the content of people's thoughts, he builds a foundation by describing what intelligence is, how it might have evolved amid the ice ages of the past few million years, and the physiology of the brain's neurons and chemicals. Calvin narrows the scope of his subject by confining intelligence to the finding of novel solutions to problems, a stern test that excludes all animals but humans and, rudimentarily, primates. In the how of intelligence Calvin hits his stride, bringing readers along easily as he explains the anatomy of nerve cells, their bundling in groups, and firing of electric pulses. Still partially a mystery, intelligence's nature (and manifestation in language) gets a consummately clear summary in Calvin's hands. (Reviewed Sept. 1, 1996)0465072771Gilbert Taylor
目录
Acknowledgments | p. vi |
1 What to Do Next | p. 1 |
2 Evolving a Good Guess | p. 9 |
3 The Janitor's Dream | p. 27 |
4 Evolving Intelligent Animals | p. 47 |
5 Syntax as a Foundation of Intelligence | p. 63 |
6 Evolution on-the-Fly | p. 91 |
7 Shaping Up an Intelligent Act from Humble Origins | p. 113 |
8 Prospects for a Superhuman Intelligence | p. 145 |
Recommended Reading | p. 165 |
Notes | p. 167 |
Index | p. 179 |