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Title: Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology by Valentino Braitenberg ISBN: 0-262-52112-1 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 07 February, 1986 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.43 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: I wish i never read this book
Comment: to anyone who knows any physics, computer science, or just plain logic, this book is a step-by-step guide in the building of frankenstein's monster. I made a neural-network -- computer brain that learns -- in college (though mine didn't work very well) so i'm familiar with the concpets in this book and know that it is practical to make such things as computer programs, if not actually building them as machines. Although to create such a thing you need a lot of math, and this book has no math, this book is very convining and explains how to create a machine that thinks, learns, and generally behaves just like a living animal or even human, even has unpredictable free will and dreams. If you don't want to see every living thing on Earth as just-a-machine, or if you want to maintain some faith in the human soul, don't read this book. Because this book is very, very convincing.
Rating: 5
Summary: Building is Easy; Deconstruction is Hard
Comment: Braitenburg could not be more obvious in the subtext of this book. His message is that synthesis is always easier than analysis. Creating something that, on the surface, acts complex is easier than analyzing what, on the surface, looks like a complex system. If we see X, what do we assume are the mechanisms behind what will happen next? The clarity with which the author illustrates the assumptive traps in which we can (potentially) fall is not only wonderfully insightful, but cautionary. Add this reading to the writings of Braitenberg's contemperary James Gleik ("Chaos") and one can get the AHA! experience that speaks to the richness of simple rules creating bafflingly sophisticated behaviors. "Vehicles" is an amazing book, and in my opinion, one of those that rate up there with those books that not only focus our experience, but are true to it, and take us beyond it. I smack my forehead with my palm, and thank him that he makes it so easy.
Rating: 5
Summary: Charming and intellectually stimulating
Comment: I read "Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology" when it first came out in the 1980's, and I thought it was one of most charming and intellectually stimulating books I have ever read. I had long since lost my original copy, having pushed it on many friends, so I recently bought another. Rereading it some 15+ years later, the book is as good and charming as ever.
I know of no other book that combines such intellectual stimulation with a tone of warmth, wit, and charm. I think Braitenberg has produced a book that deserves to be a classic for the centuries, and not just for our time.
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Title: Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI by Rodney A. Brooks ISBN: 0262522632 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 16 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: An Introduction to AI Robotics (Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents) by Robin R. Murphy ISBN: 0262133830 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 13 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $65.00 |
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Title: Behavior-Based Robotics (Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents) by Ronald C. Arkin ISBN: 0262011654 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 22 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $70.00 |
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Title: Robot Builder's Bonanza by Gordon McComb ISBN: 0071362967 Publisher: McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics Pub. Date: 21 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds (Complex Adaptive Systems) by Mitchel Resnick ISBN: 0262680939 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 10 January, 1997 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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