by Gee-Wah Ng (DSO National Laboratories, Singapore & Boston University, USA)

Table of Contents (46k)
Preface (43k)
Chapter 1: The Brain: The Center of Attraction (1,215k)

Brain and mind continue to be a topic of enormous scientific interest. With the recent advances in measuring instruments such as two-photon laser scanning microscopy and fMRI, the neuronal connectivity and circuitry of how the brain's various regions are hierarchically interconnected and organized are better understood now than ever before. By reverse engineering the brain, computer scientists hope to build cognitively intelligent systems that will revolutionize the artificial intelligence paradigm.

Brain-Mind Machinery provides a walkthrough to the world of brain-inspired computing and mind-related questions. Bringing together diverse viewpoints and expertise from multidisciplinary communities, the book explores the human quest to build a thinking machine with human-like capabilities. Readers will acquire a first-hand understanding of the brain and mind mechanisms and machineries, as well as how much we have progressed in and how far we are from building a truly general intelligent system like the human brain.

• Brain — Center of Attraction
• Neurons and Synapses — Key to Intelligence
• Cortex Architecture — Building Block of Intelligence
• Many Faces of Memory — Investigating the Human Multiple Memory Systems
• Learn Like a Human — How Does Learning Take Place in Our Brain?
• How Emotions Give Rise to Cognition
• Laminar Computing — How, What and Why?
• Probabilistic Computing — The Bayesian Mind
• Thinking Machine — Higher Theories of Brain and Commonsense Knowledge Generation
• Modeling the Entire Brain Architecture — Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architecture
• Are We There? What Can Computers Do Today and Tomorrow?
• Brain — A Forest Not Totally Explored. What Are the Issues?
• Understanding the Brain to Build Intelligent Systems — Design Principles
• Conclusions — Theory of the Mind, His and Mine