The Mechanical Mind (PDF)

How can the human mind represent the world outside it? What is thought, and can it be studied scientifically? Does it help to think of the mind as a kind of machine?

Tim Crane sets out to answer questions like these in a lively and straightforward way, presuming no prior knowledge of philosphy or related disciplines. Since its first publication in 1995, The Mechanical Mind has introduced thousands of people to some of the most important ideas in contemporary philosophy of mind. Tim Crane introduces some fundamental topics that cut across philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence and cognitive science: what the mind-body problem is, what a computer is and how it works, what a thought is and how computers and minds represent them. He examines different models of the mind from dualist to eliminativist and questions whether there can be thought without language and whether the mind is subject to the same causal laws as natural phenomena. The result is a fascinating exploration of the theories and arguments surrounding the notions of thought and representation.

This edition has been fully revised and updated, and includes a new chapter on consciousness and a new section on modularity. There are also guides for further reading, and a new glossary of terms such as mentalese, connectionism and the homunculus fallacy.

The Mechanical Mind is accessible to the general reader as well as students, and anyone interested in the mechanisms of our minds.