Unifying Computing and Cognition

Unifying Computing and Cognition - J Gerard Wolff

The SP theory - which has been under development since 1987 - is a radical synthesis of ideas across human perception, cognition and development, artificial intelligence, computer science, theoretical linguistics, neuroscience, mathematics, logic, and epistemology. It is a theory of information processing in all kinds of system, both natural and artificial, a new paradigm for information processing which incorporates principles of minimum length encoding pioneered by Solomonoff, Kolmogoroff, Wallace, Rissanen, and others, but which is built from new foundations and differs at a fundamental level from any existing theory or system. The SP theory has a dual role. It is a theory of engineering, the basis for a proposed SP machine with applications in artificial intelligence and in data storage and retrieval. At the same time, it is a theory of information processing in brains and nervous systems both at an abstract level and at the more concrete level of neurons and neural processing. The theory and its applications - which are the subject of this book - will be of interest to a wide range of researchers, academics, professionals and students in computer science (especially artificial intelligence), cognitive science, human perception, cognition and development, theoretical and computational linguistics, neuroscience, mathematics, logic, and the philosophy of mind and language.