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lucio_melito's review against another edition
3.0
Abandoned halfway through. Plenty of insight but the book's structure (one concept per page) made it really difficult to follow the discussion. I will probably return to it in the future.
mensenkinderen's review against another edition
3.0
This book has clearly influenced a (technological) generation past its publication. "The Society of Mind" almost seems like a manifesto due to it's restriction of one essay section per page. Minsky avoids using complex examples and uses very simple analogies to explain his theory of how the mind could work. The insistence on using only the most basic examples makes it hard to keep on reading sometimes though, but after shedding the incidental feeling of: "Oh there is the Builder again" the book is a rewarding read.
ben_sch's review against another edition
1.0
Assuming minds work like a (normal) computer program. They don't. Outdated linguistics/psychology... just not a realistic model of how brains or people work.
owenbiesel's review against another edition
3.0
This book contained many insightful ideas but I found it very slow going. Worth a read if you're already interested in how a conscious mind could be built out of smaller, nonconscious parts, and if you don't mind bearing with the author on long speculations using ill-defined vocabulary (I still can't tell you what a "K-line" actually is).
williamstome's review against another edition
2.0
I didn't finish the book, but I'm finished reading it.
This book occupied a weird space. Too high level to be considered research reading, but too low level to read for pleasure. I think what irked me most was the fact that the book felt like one long exercise in box-and-arrow evidenceless theorybuilding.
This book occupied a weird space. Too high level to be considered research reading, but too low level to read for pleasure. I think what irked me most was the fact that the book felt like one long exercise in box-and-arrow evidenceless theorybuilding.
fredtyre's review against another edition
Read this my Senior year of college for my Senior Project as I was (and still am) fascinated with Artificial Intelligence.
neven's review against another edition
4.0
A book like no other. 270 one-page essays carefully outlining Minsky's theory of the mind. These range in topic and complexity from casual anecdotes and folk reasoning to dense, neologism-laden academic work. Minsky's style is crisp and enjoyable, so he helps you swim through the difficult stuff. It all feels like a text whose aphoristic tone and broad scope will reward each return to it, saying more than it seems to say at first.
evolvemind's review against another edition
3.0
A well written general theoretical foundation for cognition as an outcome of multiple interacting agents. This is an important volume, particularly for laymen. It has been a while. I should re-read it. The AI field and particular researchers have since experienced the range of outlooks, from enthusiastic surety to "this will never work" and, as current sci-tech press indicates, back to renewed hope (at least with respect to systems that learn by interacting with their environments).
mlindner's review against another edition
3.0
Some good ideas. Some (now) clearly wrong ideas. Some bad writing when it (frequently) shifts from one level of description to another yet purports to be still discussing the same thing; as in; you can't get there from here (at least not by this route, dude!).
neven's review
4.0
A book like no other. 270 one-page essays carefully outlining Minsky's theory of the mind. These range in topic and complexity from casual anecdotes and folk reasoning to dense, neologism-laden academic work. Minsky's style is crisp and enjoyable, so he helps you swim through the difficult stuff. It all feels like a text whose aphoristic tone and broad scope will reward each return to it, saying more than it seems to say at first.
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