The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind

The ''Emotion Machine'' by Marvin Minsky is an introduction to how our minds work. An endeavor to understand mind (thinking, intellect) in terms of its design (how it is built, how it works). Sure, the inner workings of the mind sometimes appear to be impervious to any kind of scientific approach. Routine stuff like making mental models of the world, design plans,pursue goals and feel desires aren't all that routine, when you think about it. And the way it all plays together - from simple, instinctive kinds of thought to more complex forms, such as consciousness or self awareness - is obviously very complex. It would be very easy to get stuck in too much detail or to be too superficial. But somehow Minsky finds the right balance. So overall, the Emotion Machine is a brilliant introduction to how our minds work. Often he will give us an idea about what must be going in computational terms, and then shield us from the usual deluge of ''neuro-technical'' terms. Because (in his own words) ''research on the (actual nitty gitty of the) brain is advancing so quickly that any conclusion one might make today could be outdated in just a few weeks.'' In one reviewers words: ''The Emotion Machine rewards careful reading. You'll learn a lot about how your mind works, even if you won't be all that much wiser about what is actually going on within your brain.'' :-) Nevertheless, the book is obviously based on the latest advances in computer science, psychology, neuroscience, engineering etc. And certainly, his book is not a bad place to start if one wants to be a little wiser on what goes on inside our heads. A wonderful book. -Simon

Early efforts to model human-like thinking with machines using rules were interesting but failed in a number of ways to capture even simple ways that humans think. Marvin Minsky, AI pioneer at MIT, insists that we understand the mistakes and can begin to appreciate how the mind actually works in functional terms from the lessons we have learned. Learninig from our past mistakes, what a novel idea. To put this into perspective, the question of whether a machine model can adequately describe a brain has long been considered in terms of either strong AI or weak AI. Most people find weak AI plausible: computers can solve certain kinds of problems better than humans. We mostly balk at strong AI however: machines can literally think like humans and solve the same kinds of problems just as well. In The Emotion Machine, Marvin Minsky presents a very machine-like architecture that he claims actually represents the way real minds probably work in fundamental respects. That sounds pretty much like strong AI. So a lot of people will reject the concept of this book out of hand. I think that would be a mistake. Minsky has done a very good job identifying plausible specifics of why AI programs have failed to deliver on, where they have actually managed to deliver, and speculates on how we can fill in the gaps. No, he doesn't spend time arguing against Searle's Chinese Room or other conundrums of AI, he just presents his case and gives examples in a clear, simple, accessible way. And I am persuaded that he probably gets a lot right. Probably more than he gets wrong. And that's a lot better than a lot of critics will give him credit for because it goes against both the mainstream disdain for strong AI and the mainstream love of flashy neuroscience images. Minsky skips right on past the issue of connectionist networks vs. semantic networks and simply posits that we had to evolve semantic representations at some point. How is left as an exercise for neuroscientists. There is a lot of "details to be filled in later" sort of thinking here, so don't look to this book as a detailed physical model of the brain. This is a high level functional model of the mind and I like it. So I claim that this is an important book that seems to promise a 21st century reboot of scientific naturalism as our guiding philosophy for the future. Minsky takes on nothing less than an overall architectural model for the mind in natural terms. It is brilliant. Too brilliant to be appreciated in its time because Minsky makes complex ideas so accessible that the biggest challenge for this book is that people will not appreciate its power. It reads like a simple AI model of a mind, but it is much deeper than that because of the amount of deep thought that has gone into it and the consideration of the weaknesses as well as strengths of previous AI programs. We are currently in the grip of a widespread fascination with poorly understood pop neuroscience, and most readers will be deeply disap

Minsky gives us an accounting for how the mind might work that is consistent with the neurological/anatomical make up of the central nervous system. He "de-mystifies" thinking about thinking, and points us in a promising direction for the study of mind.The Psychology of Positive Thinking

I am currently reading various neuroscience, emotion, psychology, and even anthropology books. This one has, as of yet, and without a reasonable doubt been excellent, and I highly recommend to anyone even considering the thought of what we as humans hold. It's quite easy to read, so even a child would understand it, but the information herein is absolutely beautiful to know. It is definitely a favorite, and I must say that Prof. Dr. Minsky is one of the brightest minds this generation may have available right now.

One of the great pioneers and researchers in Artificial Intelligence world Marvin Minsky takes on this work the deconstructing of our emotional Mind, Consciousness, Self in the hope of providing a kind of algorithm for artificially creating the Artificial Feeling Intelligent Being Machine of the future. Or that's in any case how I interpret what he is doing. He looks at various mind- functions such as goal-making, resourcefulness, the way pain becomes suffering, and engages in explorations of the subjects aimed at providing understanding. He in doing this uses students' queries and replies, and also quotations from the best minds he can find who address the problems. The result is amusing if difficult chapters, interesting forays into providing better insight into how the old machine inside us, or upstairs from us ( just joking) happens to swoon when it hears 'Moonlight Sonata' or cry when it is told that it has dirtied the floor with crumbs after the better- half has just spent two hours washing it. I take what Minsky has done as a kind of scientific post- modernism, a reconstruction and breaking down into various narratives what obviously mysteriously operates as some kind of whole. To give a bit of flavor of what he is doing I take a piece from his website in which he summarizes chapter one of the book. "Summary: This chapter addressed some questions about how people acquire the goals they pursue. Some of these are instincts that come with our genetic inheritance, but others are subgoals that we construct to achieve other goals that we already have. I also conjectured that some of our highest-level goals are produced by special machinery that lead each person to try to adopt the values of other persons who become what I call that person's "Imprimers." Imprimers are parents, friends, or acquaintances to whom a person becomes 'attached,' because they respond actively to one's needs--and they then can induce special feelings in us, such as guiltiness, shame, and pride. At first, those Imprimers must be actually present, but older children form `mental models' of them, and can use these to evaluate goals when those imprimers no longer are on the scene. Eventually, these models later develop into what we call by names like conscience, values, ideals, and ethics." If you like the sample you should go for the whole book. It may not give the Answer but it will certainly provide a great deal of insight and information into how the old 'thinking reed' wakes and shakes as it lives and dies.