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Douglas R. Hofstadter

Gary McGraw

Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models Of The Fundamental Mechanisms Of Thought Paperback – March 22, 1996

by Douglas R Hofstadter (Author)

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Readers of earlier works by Douglas Hofstadter will find this book a natural extension of his style and his ideas about creativity and analogy; in addition, psychologists, philosophers, and artificial-intelligence researchers will find in this elaborate web of ingenious ideas a deep and challenging new view of mind.

Print length

528 pages
Language

English
Publication date

March 22, 1996
Dimensions

7.5 x 1.2 x 9.75 inches
ISBN-10

9780465024759
ISBN-13

978-0465024759
Lexile measure

1400L
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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

64 global ratings

5 star		75%
4 star		12%
3 star		4%
2 star		4%
1 star		5%

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Everyman

Great introduction to Hofstadter's way of looking at thought

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 25, 2019

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I bought this book after reading Melanie Mitchell's book Complexity: A Guided Tour. I wanted to read more about her Copycat project, and Fluid Concepts has a few chapters on that.

This book is really a collection of articles about different projects attempting to model the way people think. It's not about artificial intelligence the way most people think of it nowadays (pattern matching), but more about how people relate ideas to each other. You might think it would be outdated, but I get the sense that most AI researchers have not pursued this way of thinking, instead focusing on neural networks (machine learning).

The articles are collected with (some) hindsight and editing to prevent too much repetition. That said, it's still a bit repetitive in many places. However, that's forgivable because the ideas are so revolutionary that some repetition is desirable.

Hofstadter's ideas seem right on to me. If you want to learn about those ideas, this book is more accessible than Goedel, Escher, Bach, though if you get interested in Hofstadter you should definitely read GEB.

9 people found this helpful

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J. Schmuecker

A different tag on AI

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 29, 2012

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When I first read this book years ago, I found it very intuitive and exciting to look at the problems in this new way. It definitely makes a clear distinction between "expert systems" and proper intelligence. I recently went back and started reading it again. I'm still amazed by the false sense of simplicity of the problems Hofstaedter tries to solve and how complex they actually are. I wonder if they are not complete in some sense anyhow.

It's great fun reading the book and following the train of thoughts is enjoyable and simple enough ... at least for somebody with a basic understanding in maths and maybe some AI knowledge. So if you started to read Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid but never finished it, this is a much easier and more pragmatic read than Hofstaedter's more generic book.

7 people found this helpful

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Tim Josling

Wonderful but quite dry in parts

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 18, 2004

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This book is, as others have commented, different from DH's other more entertaining books.
It is a serious attempt to discuss the real issues and difficulties with AI research. There is a lot of quite dry material and in places it is repetitive.
It provides terrific insight into the problem of imitating human thinking at a deep level, and I found it very rewarding. It was also very interesting to follow the threads of how he went about doing research, and what he thought of other AI research.
His views of various flavours of AI research were very instructive and inightful I thought.
In summary a good book, but this is not (high quality) brain candy like Godel Escher Bach etc.

21 people found this helpful

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B. Dean

Thought-provoking

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 2, 2013

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Explores the broad strokes of a decade's worth of research by one of the most eloquent and interesting cognitive scientists working. I personally would have been happier to delve deeper into the specifics of the projects--appending some of the papers in question would be a nice touch in a re-issue.

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Clifton R Liles

No problems, good experience.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 13, 2018

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No problems, good experience.

One person found this helpful

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SCOTT GOODGAME

Arrived in the said condition.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 30, 2018

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Good book. BTW: The First book sold on amazon. (trivia)

23 people found this helpful

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Neven Dragojlovic

Fascinating!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 14, 2011

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As I am full fling into developing a new parallel computer architecture, this book is providing me with loads of insights. The orientation of the book towards understanding on an abstract level is exactly what I was looking for. I love it.

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Timothy Knox

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 14, 2014

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Brilliant book. Everybody who does AI without reading this book is living in a state of sin. I only wish he'd completed Letter Spirit.

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George Powell

A grounded, practical cookbook to succeed Godel Escher Bach

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 27, 2013

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I bought this book after being blown away by Godel Escher Bach. As a software engineer with an interest in artificial intelligence, I hoped this book would solidify some of Hofstadter's ideas into a more practical, less philosophical form - ideally so I could reproduce some of his programs myself.

Most chapters correspond to a program him and his colleagues have written, but some chapters are essays exploring attitudes and approaches to AI. The chapters describing programs are interesting enough, but can be long winded and in the end the programs seem to be more an expression of his philosophy than a practical tool of intelligence - he admits this himself; stating his belief that AI research needs to focus more on the methods than the results at this stage.

Like GEB, this book has a unique ability to completely reshape your perceptions of the world. Chapter 4 - "High-level Perception, Representation, and Analogy: A Critique of Artificial-intelligence Methodology" was the crux of this book. If nothing else, then the book is worth buying for this chapter - it manages to summarise and explain the mind bending interactions between high and low level perception in the human mind with amazing clarity.

4 stars because Hofstadter's strengths lie in philosophy, wordplay and communication more than practical tool making. This book is an attempt to describe how the ideas of GEB can be turned into practical software, but instead its best sections are those focusing heavily on philosophy.

8 people found this helpful

Minimum effort

Absolute bargain!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 20, 2016

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This book was in excellent condition for the price!

Gabriel

Doug stop taking Drougs

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 28, 2015

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Honestly I have no idea what the hell Douglas R. Hofstadter is talking about in this one, but his enthusiasm for the topic makes it worthwhile!!

Very interesting theories and concepts, his explanations are on point!!!

Peter Alt

Arrived as advertised

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on August 19, 2020

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A great book in great condition

Amazon Kunde

🤓

Reviewed in Mexico 🇲🇽 on January 4, 2020

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❤️

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Follow the Authors

Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models Of The Fundamental Mechanisms Of Thought Paperback – March 22, 1996

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