The computer and the brain (Helen Ely Silliman Memorial Lectures, Yale University) [Unknown Binding]

John Von Neumann (Author)

Book Description

Series: Helen Ely Silliman Memorial Lectures, Yale University | Publication Date: 1967

This book, composed of material prepared for the Silliman Lectures by john von Neumann before his death, represents the views of one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century on the analogies between computing machines adn the living human brain. He concludes that the brain operates in part digitally, in part analogically, but uses a peculiar statistical language unlike that employed in the operation of man-made computers.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Whether they think that artificial intelligence is impossible or inevitable, most people have highly polarized views on it. John von Neumann, genius, mathematician, and inventor of the nearly ubiquitous computer architecture that bears his name, blazed trails for both camps in The Computer and the Brain. This short book, which was written originally for Yale's Silliman lectures, but published posthumously, summarizes his views on machine and biological intelligence with unprecedented clarity and precision. His understanding of neuroscience was that of a brilliant and strongly motivated amateur at the end of the 1950s--good enough to take on the problem, but by no means matching his comprehension of the machines to which he had devoted much of his professional life. Still, his take on intracranial computation is stunningly prescient--he looks beyond the then-fashionable digital metaphors to suggest a semi-analog strategy that uses parallel processing to make up for its deficiency in speed. Prominent neuroscientific thinkers Paul M. Churchland and Patricia S. Churchland provide a brief, enlightening foreword to this second edition, placing the author's thinking in context and grounding the reader in the scientific milieu that gave rise to The Computer and the Brain. Although his computer architecture slowly is growing obsolete, von Neumann has given us a more lasting legacy in his thinking about thinking. --Rob Lightner --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

At the time of his death in February 1957, John von Neumann, renowned for his theory of games and his work at the Electronic Computer Project at the Institute for Advanced Study, was serving as a member of the Atomic Energy Commission. Paul M. and Patricia S. Churchland are professors of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Unknown Binding: 82 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (1967)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0007DOMFE
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great book for exploring the human brain as computer model, March 30, 1999

By 

Harvey B. Vedder "Loperman" (NYC, where else?) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Computer and the Brain (The Silliman Memorial Lectures Series) (Paperback)

A book for a limited audience. You have got to be interested in some really seminal, currently unresolved issues of how the great invention of the ALU (arithmetic logic unit) still employed in every computer built to the present day, was a compromise effort by this genius. His thought was to model the human brain, and the ALU succeeded in modeling just a small part, but he was totally frustrated and unsatisfied by the result--for good reason. He points out that the very language of the human brain has not yet been discovered--the orders of magnitude by which its process and results exceed the merely digital high speed comparator we call a computer (my apologies to Bill Gates!) clearly demonstrate the existence of a logic and a mathematics, the simplest rules of which as yet defy all our efforts to understand its workings, while we experience its results every time we think. Depth of logical levels, and depth of arithmetic levels necessary to achieve the requisite results we obtain from our Crays and our PCs are scorned by the human brain in a radical simplicity as yet undiscovered (not in that it does it, but in how it does it: therefore he postulates the existence of a radically, essentially different math and logic inherent in its workings). He lays out the discoveries of Turing, McCullough and Weiner in a brilliant tour de force of known (1955)neurological and cybernetic discoveries, and how they charted his course in creating the ALU. He compares analog and digital and mixed models of computing but (in my opinion) oversimplifies the digital aspect of thinking and memory, deeming them to be the route used by the human brain in performing its unruffled magic. He closes by posing two questions that express the wonderment faced by a high level intelligence when accosted by the facts he was unable to wrap mental arms around: 1)"what essential inferences about the arithmetical and logical structure of the computing machine that the nervous system represents can be drawn from these ...conflicting observations? and 2)what are the logics and mathematics in the central nervous system [that must be]structurally *essentially* different from those languages to which our common experience refers? His fellow researcher, Warren McCullough similarly closed out his life and research by repeating a question that plagued him all his life: What is a number, that a man can know it, and a man that he can know a number?

This is a great book that pushed the limits of his time; his swan song, to be delivered as the Yale Silliman lecture, but never was, due to Von Neumann's tragic untimely death in his early fifties.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The un-digital brain., September 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Computer and the Brain (The Silliman Memorial Lectures Series) (Paperback)

Perhaps the most famous and often quoted line in this remarkable book appears on page 39, where von Neumann declares that "The most immediate observation regarding the nervous system is that its functioning is prima facie digital."

The "prima facie" modifier is commonly taken to mean von Neumann saw the brain as "obviously digital," or "patently digital," and that it therefore must resemble a digital computer. But as you read the rest of the book, you quickly discover that this is not what John von Neumann intended. Von Neumann uses words cautiously and precisely, and to him, "Prima facie" means exactly what it says: "on its face."

In 1956, the brain appeared digital. But von Neumann thought this impression might be superficial. He thought that deeper biological investigation might well demonstrate that the nervous system is not, in fact, digital, or not completely digital. He believed it might work in some more sophisticated way, and suggests that perhaps some intermediate signaling mechanism, a hybrid between analog and digital, might be at work in the brain. For this and other reasons he actively resisted labeling the brain as a digital computer.

In the mid 90s, evidence began to appear that von Neumann was probably right to reserve his judgment. These curious new results show that a single nerve impulse is somehow able to convey information to the brain. This signal seems distinctly un-digital. A number of theories have popped up, some attempting to explain this whopping new mystery, others attempting to explain it away. But its impact on neurophysiology, and on conventional computer models of the brain, is pretty shocking. Not to say, devastating. (See Spikes, by Rieke et al, for a readable account of this story.) When the smoke clears, it would not be surprising if people go all the way back to John von Neumann, looking for traction, fresh starting points, and for von Neumann's wonderfully broad sense of what is possible in neurobiology - a sense we have evidently lost to progress in the years since he wrote this splendid essay.

Von Neumann did not include in this book his interesting views on the nervous system of the eye. He was an early adopter of visual memory systems in digital computers, and he was evidently intrigued by the way the retinal cells of the eye are arranged to look backward, that is, toward the screen of the back wall of the eye. Possibly he thought the retinal cells saw back there a thin film diffraction pattern. You can find his interest in the nervous system of the eye remarked in his brother Nicholas Vonneumann's book, John von Neumann as seen by his Brother, and this reminiscence is also paraphrased in Poundstone's Prisoner's Dilemma. Finally, some of the worldly story of von Neumann, his digital computers, and their role in the creation of the hydrogen bomb can be found in MaCrae's biography.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dated, but always worth reading von Neumann, July 8, 2003

By 

James Arvo (Pasadena, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Computer and the Brain: Second Edition (Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman Memorial Lectures) (Paperback)

Von Neumann was one of the most celebrated and prolific mathematicians of the 20'th century; his contributions were legion, and always bore unmistakable creativity and elegance. "The Computer and the Brain" is a record of a lecture series that von Neumann delivered at Yale University in 1957. In these lectures, von Neumann set out to explore connections between computing hardware and their biological counterparts; brains. Von Neumann compared neurons with physical computing elements in terms of size, speed, heat dissipation, capacity, etc., in an attempt to discover what, if anything, could be said to unite them or to set them apart. He drew from what had been learned in designing computer instructions and memories in an attempt to glean some insight into what the brain might be doing. Ever the consummate mathematician, von Neumann was guarded in his statements, never over-reaching or confusing speculation with fact.

The ideas contained in these lectures will come as no great surprise to most scientists today; indeed, I would expect most to simply nod in agreement at most of von Neumann's observations. For example, von Neumann notes that neurons are essentially digital in that they have an all-or-nothing activation energy. However, it is interesting to see how seriously he pursues the idea that the brain may rely upon a mixture of analog and digital encodings; he took absolutely nothing for granted, and may well have been vastly ahead of his time.

Although von Neumann's many references to vacuum tubes and differential analyzers may seem archaic today, his central points remain essentially intact. I'm certain that von Neumann would have felt somewhat vindicated by the explosive advances in semiconductor devices (in both digital and analog incarnations), as well as in machine learning and neurobiology. One can perhaps view von Neumann's lectures as the first glimmerings of what would eventually become fruitful exchanges between computer science and various biological disciplines.

If you are looking for a discussion that will give you some insight into artificial intelligence, neural networks, or brain physiology, then I'm afraid you will likely be disappointed with this book. While many of von Neumann's observations may have been controversial at the time, they have for the most part moved quietly into the collective consciousness of scientists. However, if you have interest in either the historical development of these ideas, or in seeing how one of the preeminent minds of the 20'th century approached this vexing new problem, then it will be worth your time.

What I most enjoyed about this book is von Neumann's methodical and exceedingly cautious approach, coupled with his occasional willingness to speculate. As the vast majority of von Neumann's writings are accessible only to a very small audience, such as his enormously influential treatises on quantum mechanics, geometry, and game theory, and his pioneering work in areas such as functional analysis and operator theory, this little book is perhaps unique in that it lets you in on the ground floor.