Guest: David Shenk.
Almost everyone has played chess at least once in their lives. It has influenced fields from artificial intelligence to military strategy to literature. Today on Focus, we talk to writer David Shenk about the game that has been embraced by cultures the world over for centuries and the roles it has played in history, as he further discusses in his new book, The Immortal Game: A History of Chess.
Guest: Douglas Hofstadter.
In the field of cognitive science, our own minds can only take us so far. Today on Focus, we're joined by professor and leading researcher Douglas Hofstadter, who has spent years building computer models of human thinking. Hofstadter believes that thinking is all about taking complex situations and paring them down to an essential core, making it possible for us to leap from one complex idea to another—and form surprising connections between them in the process.
Guest: Mark S. Blumberg, Ph.D.
Why do we react in certain ways under certain circumstances? Neuroscientist Mark Blumberg joins us today to discuss the origin of these impulsive behaviors and delve into the debate over whether these instincts are natural—we are born with them—or whether they develop over time and are passed on generation to generation.
Guest: Jeff Hawkins.
The brain is not a computer, but a memory system, calling upon sequences of past events to make predictions for the future. This is what forms the basis of intelligence—and it is what most computers today lack. Today on Focus, we're joined by computer architect Jeff Hawkins to talk about how studying the human brain will allow us to revolutionize computing technology.
Guest: Jeff Hawkins.
The brain is not a computer, but a memory system, calling upon sequences of past events to make predictions for the future. This is what forms the basis of intelligence—and it is what most computers today lack. Today on Focus, we're joined by computer architect Jeff Hawkins to talk about how studying the human brain will allow us to revolutionize computing technology.
