The Fourth Discontinuity: The Co-Evolution Of Humans And Machines - Couverture souple

Mazlish, Bruce

 
9780300065121: The Fourth Discontinuity: The Co-Evolution Of Humans And Machines
Couverture souple
ISBN 10 : 0300065124 ISBN 13 : 9780300065121
Editeur : Yale University Press, 1995

Synopsis

From Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to current films like The Terminator about menacing androids, writers have expressed concern about computers and biogenetic creations taking over or altering human life. In this engrossing and lively book, Bruce Mazlish discusses the complex relationship between humans and machines, pondering the implications of humans becoming more mechanical (our bodies increasingly hooked up to artificial parts), and of computer robots being programmed to think. Mazlish argues that just as Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud overturned our illusions of separation from and domination over the cosmos, the animal world, and the unconscious, it is now necessary to relinquish a fourth fallacy or discontinuity--that humans are discontinuous and distinct from the machines they make. Drawing on history and legend, science and science fiction, Mazlish examines how events and individuals have shaped the ways that humans relate to machines. He describes early Greek and Chinese automatons (forerunners of the robot); he discusses the seventeenth-century debate over what was called the "animal machine"; he shows how the Industrial Revolution created a truly mechanical civilization; he looks at what thinkers such as Descartes, Linnaeus, Darwin, Freud, Pavlov, Charles Babbage, T.H. Huxley, and Samuel Butler contributed to our understanding of human nature as contrasted with animal or machine; and he surveys the modern revolutions in biogenetics and computer and brain sciences that have brought humans and machines closer together than ever before. Mazlish argues provocatively that human nature is best understood in the context of the machines and tools we have created and that humans and our creations-computer robots-will eventually evolve into two new species coexisting in a symbiotic relationship.

Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Présentation de l'éditeur

From Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to current films like The Terminator about menacing androids, writers have expressed concern about computers and biogenetic creations taking over or altering human life. In this engrossing and lively book, Bruce Mazlish discusses the complex relationship between humans and machines, pondering the implications of humans becoming more mechanical (our bodies increasingly hooked up to artificial parts), and of computer robots being programmed to think. Mazlish argues that just as Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud overturned our illusions of separation from and domination over the cosmos, the animal world, and the unconscious, it is now necessary to relinquish a fourth fallacy or discontinuity--that humans are discontinuous and distinct from the machines they make. Drawing on history and legend, science and science fiction, Mazlish examines how events and individuals have shaped the ways that humans relate to machines. He describes early Greek and Chinese automatons (forerunners of the robot); he discusses the seventeenth-century debate over what was called the "animal machine"; he shows how the Industrial Revolution created a truly mechanical civilization; he looks at what thinkers such as Descartes, Linnaeus, Darwin, Freud, Pavlov, Charles Babbage, T.H. Huxley, and Samuel Butler contributed to our understanding of human nature as contrasted with animal or machine; and he surveys the modern revolutions in biogenetics and computer and brain sciences that have brought humans and machines closer together than ever before. Mazlish argues provocatively that human nature is best understood in the context of the machines and tools we have created and that humans and our creations-computer robots-will eventually evolve into two new species coexisting in a symbiotic relationship.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
Yale University Press
Date d'édition
1995
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
0300065124
ISBN 13 
9780300065121
Reliure
Broché
Nombre de pages
282
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
GPSR Kontakt
gpsr@libri.de

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Hamburg
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Allemagne

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9780300054118: The Fourth Discontinuity: The Co-Evolution of Humans and Machines

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  0300054114 ISBN 13 :  9780300054118
Editeur : Yale University Press, 1993
Couverture rigide