Jerome Feldman

If you read "On Intelligence" [...] and it left you hanging, wanting more, this book is perfect for you. But, be prepared to spend a lot more time thinking.

As the book's title promises, Dr. Feldman walks the reader through an explanation of how language and thought have their roots in chemical reactions at the molecular level, a neuron firing. Through twenty-seven masterfully staged chapters, one is exposed to all of the mind-boggling complexity that leads to communication and understanding. I'm sure that each chapter is deserving of a book of its own but the author has managed to give you just the right exposure in a dozen or so pages.

I read the book over a period of a few weeks as I could seldom dedicate more time in a sitting than what it took me to process one chapter. But, this always left me looking forward to getting back to where I left off. It turned out to be a good approach for me; the book is full of backward references for review, and forward references to keep things in context.

Dr. Feldman takes a low-key approach (little sensationalism, mostly matter-of-fact descriptions) to concepts presented. I enjoyed the journey the book took me on; the highlight for me (background in computer science) was the computer models, the simulations. Computer programs can only do what they are told. So, constructing and running computer models is sure to point out any existing weakness in the author's understanding. But, when they exhibit the proposed behavior, how satisfying!

From the preface:

"This book proposes to begin integrating current insights from many disciplines into a coherent neural theory of language... Understanding language and thought requires combining findings from biology, computer science, linguistics, and psychology... If you want to understand how our brains create thought and language, there is a fair chance that this book can help."

There are nine sections to the book:

I. Embodied Information Processing
II. How the Brain Computes
III. How the Mind Computes
IV. Learning Concrete Words
V. Learning Words for Actions
VI. Abstract and Metaphorical Words
VII. Understanding Stories
VIII. Combining Form and Meaning
IX. Embodied Language

Dr. Feldman has spent twenty-five years working in the area and you can tell from the story he has put together. A very interesting one.… (plus d'informations)