This book is the third in a series based on conferences sponsored by the Metroplex Institute for Neural Dynamics, an interdisciplinary organization of neural network professionals in academia and industry. The topics selected are of broad interest to both those interested in designing machines to perform intelligent functions and those interested in studying how these functions are actually performed by living organisms and generate discussion of basic and controversial issues in the study of mind.
The topic of optimality was chosen because it has provoked considerable discussion and...

This text reviews the history of the mind-brain problem and demonstrates how the sciences of behavioural electrophysiology and nonlinear dynamics - combined with the latest computer technology - have made it possible for us to observe brains in action. It also provides an answer to the question: What happens to a stimulus after it enters the brain?. The answer: The stimulus triggers the construction of a percept and is then washed away. It argues that all that we know is what our brains construct for us by neurodynamics. Brains are not logical devices that process information. They are...

This text reviews the history of the mind-brain problem and demonstrates how the sciences of behavioural electrophysiology and nonlinear dynamics - combined with the latest computer technology - have made it possible for us to observe brains in action. It also provides an answer to the question: What happens to a stimulus after it enters the brain?. The answer: The stimulus triggers the construction of a percept and is then washed away. It argues that all that we know is what our brains construct for us by neurodynamics. Brains are not logical devices that process information. They are...

Scientific Discourse in Sociohistorical Context represents the intersection of knowledge and method, examined from the perspective of three distinct disciplines: linguistics, rhetoric-composition, and history. Herein, Dwight Atkinson describes the written language and rhetoric of the Royal Society of London, based on his analysis of its affiliated journal, The Philosophical Transactions, starting with the 17th century advent of modern empirical science through to the present day. Atkinson adopts two independent approaches to the analysis of written discourse--from the fields of...