Brains, machines, and mathematics

Michael A. Arbib0387965394, 9780387965390

Traces the relationship between the development of computing machines and our knowledge of brain functioning, and introduces corresponding mathematical models designed to describe this relationship. Begins with a historical overview tracing the rise of cybernetics to the current interchange of ideas between AI and brain theory. Subsequent chapters introduce neural sets and finite automata, the crucial cybernetic concepts of feedback and realization, pattern recognition networks, “semi-neural” learning networks, capabilities of Turing machines and automata which construct as well as compute. The final chapter presents two accessible proofs of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem.