Extending mechanics to minds : the mechanical foundations of psychology and economics / Jon Doyle.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Doyle, Jon, 1954- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mechanics, Applied--Mathematics.

Mechanics, Applied.

Artificial intelligence.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxi, 453 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book deploys the mathematical axioms of modern rational mechanics to understand minds as mechanical systems that exhibit actual, not metaphorical, forces, inertia, and motion. Using precise mental models developed in artificial intelligence the author analyzes motivation, attention, reasoning, learning, and communication in mechanical terms. These analyses provide psychology and economics with new characterizations of bounded rationality; provide mechanics with new types of materials exhibiting the constitutive kinematic and dynamic properties characteristic of different kinds of minds; and provide philosophy with a rigorous theory of hybrid systems combining discrete and continuous mechanical quantities. The resulting mechanical reintegration of the physical sciences that characterize human bodies and the mental sciences that characterize human minds opens traditional philosophical and modern computational questions to new paths of technical analysis.

Contents:

Reconciling natural and mental philosophy

Reconstructing rational mechanics

Mechanical minds

The metaphysics of mechanics

Conclusion of the matter.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 429-442) and index.

ISBN:

1-107-16842-2

1-280-48047-5

9786610480470

0-511-22054-5

0-511-22138-X

0-511-21945-8

0-511-31634-8

0-511-54695-5

0-511-22013-8

OCLC:

171139324