- Save $10 when you spend $50 and pay with Bill Me Later. The fast and convenient way to buy without using your credit card. Offer limited to items purchased from Amazon.com between July 14, 2008 and July 21, 2008. One per customer account. Enter code BMLSAVES at checkout. Here's how (restrictions apply)
Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.
|
|||||||||
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Better Together
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil  (121)
$12.24
|
The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence by Ray Kurzweil (180)
$10.88
|
The Sun, The Genome, and The Internet: Tools of Scientific Revolution (Nypl/Oup Lectures) by Freeman J. Dyson  (13)
$15.30
|
I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas R. Hofstadter  (62)
$17.79
|
Rebuilt: My Journey Back to the Hearing World by Michael Chorost (35)
$11.16
|
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Here's a mesmerizing account of the evolution of machines and thoughts about machines, woven into a story about the evolution of intelligence. Darwin Among the Machines is not so much about how today's intelligence came to be, but about how it may further develop as humanity and computer grow closer together. George Dyson tells the story largely through stories--both historical and legendary--from the lives of scientists and philosophers who paved the way for today's cybernetics revolution, starting with the 17th-century insights of Thomas Hobbes. This book challenges the assumption that nature and machine are opposing forces. Dyson believes them to be allies. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Dyson, son of scientist Freeman and brother of computer guru Esther, sees the World Wide Web as a major evolutionary development in the creation of "a globally networked, electronic, sentient being." Using historical fact as well as fiction, he explains how we have arrived at this juncture. He reveals an impressive literary and scientific background as he moves from Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Butler, and Leibniz to Turing, von Neumann, and others. However, it is not always obvious what point he is making, and he finds mythology as useful in explaining this evolution as historical fact. Dyson provides substantial detail about the development of intelligent machines as he traces the history of modern computing from the ballistics computations of the 1940s and 1950s to the SAGE project and other military applications, which had spinoffs and by-products culminating in today's network-based system. Certainly, computer technology is having a revolutionary effect on how we do many things and, in fact, what we do. But whether we are seeing Darwinian evolution among the machines remains unproved to this reviewer. Recommended for larger collections.?Hilary D. Burton, Lawrence Livermore National Lab., Livermore, Cal.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Editorial Reviews
Here's a mesmerizing account of the evolution of machines and thoughts about machines, woven into a story about the evolution of intelligence. Darwin Among the Machines is not so much about how today's intelligence came to be, but about how it may further develop as humanity and computer grow closer together. George Dyson tells the story largely through stories--both historical and legendary--from the lives of scientists and philosophers who paved the way for today's cybernetics revolution, starting with the 17th-century insights of Thomas Hobbes. This book challenges the assumption that nature and machine are opposing forces. Dyson believes them to be allies. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Dyson, son of scientist Freeman and brother of computer guru Esther, sees the World Wide Web as a major evolutionary development in the creation of "a globally networked, electronic, sentient being." Using historical fact as well as fiction, he explains how we have arrived at this juncture. He reveals an impressive literary and scientific background as he moves from Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Butler, and Leibniz to Turing, von Neumann, and others. However, it is not always obvious what point he is making, and he finds mythology as useful in explaining this evolution as historical fact. Dyson provides substantial detail about the development of intelligent machines as he traces the history of modern computing from the ballistics computations of the 1940s and 1950s to the SAGE project and other military applications, which had spinoffs and by-products culminating in today's network-based system. Certainly, computer technology is having a revolutionary effect on how we do many things and, in fact, what we do. But whether we are seeing Darwinian evolution among the machines remains unproved to this reviewer. Recommended for larger collections.?Hilary D. Burton, Lawrence Livermore National Lab., Livermore, Cal.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
|
