INFORMATIONAL MINDS: FROM ARISTOTLE TO LAPTOPS (BOOK EXTRACT)

In a forthcoming book, "Aristotle's Laptop: The Discovery of Our Informational Mind" [Aleksander and Morton, 2012] we explore the idea that the long struggle for providing a scientific analysis of a conscious mind received a major gift in the guise of Shannon's formalization of information and the logic of digital systems. We argue, however, that progress is made not through the conventional route of algorithmic information processing and artificial intelligence, but through an understanding of how information and logic work in networks of neurons in order to support what we call the conscious mind. We approach the discourse with a close eye on the history of discoveries and what drove the inventors. This paper is the introductory chapter which sets out the path followed by our approach to explaining the "informational mind."