David Gelernter

Yale computer expert David Gelernter sees a huge leap in technology approaching, as our small-scale computer programs are about to be joined by a vast public software works that will revolutionize computing and transform society itself. Plans are on the drawing board for a massive network that will constantly receive data from all areas of public life, and allow us to interact and manipulate with the larger world through our computer screens. Imagine exploringthe performance of local school systems through your computer screen, or starting and running a campaign for local office via your terminal. In this intriguing book, Gelernter shows how Mirror Worlds will come into existence, offering a dazzling glimpse of the coming revolution.

How it Will Happen and what it Will Mean

Mirror Worlds, Or, The Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox--

An "exploration of the human psyche that shows us how the very purpose of the mind changes throughout the day. Indeed, as Gelernter explains, when we are at our most alert, when reasoning and creating new memories is our main mental business, the mind is a computer-like machine that keeps emotion on a short leash and attention on our surroundings. As we gradually tire, however, and descend the 'mental spectrum,' reasoning comes unglued. Memory ranges more freely, the mind wanders, and daydreams grow more insistent. Self-awareness fades, reflection blinks out, and at last we are completely immersed in our own minds"--Dust jacket fla

Uncovering the Spectrum of Consciousness

The Tides of Mind

Technology doesn't flow smoothly; it's the big surprises that matter, and Yale computer expert David Gelernter sees one such giant leap right on the horizon. Today's small scale software programs are about to be joined by vast public software works that will revolutionize computing and transform society as a whole. One such vast program is the "Mirror World." Imagine looking at your computer screen and seeing reality--an image of your city, for instance, complete with moving traffic patterns, or a picture that sketches the state of an entire far-flung corporation at this second. These representations are called Mirror Worlds, and according to Gelernter they will soon be available to everyone. Mirror Worlds are high-tech voodoo dolls: by interacting with the images, you interact with reality. Indeed, Mirror Worlds will revolutionize the use of computers, transforming them from (mere) handy tools to crystal balls which will allow us to see the world more vividly and see into it more deeply. Reality will be replaced gradually, piece-by-piece, by a software imitation; we will live inside the imitation; and the surprising thing is--this will be a great humanistic advance. We gain control over our world, plus a huge new measure of insight and vision. In this fascinating book--part speculation, part explanation--Gelernter takes us on a tour of the computer technology of the near future. Mirror Worlds, he contends, will allow us to explore the world in unprecedented depth and detail without ever changing out of our pajamas. A hospital administrator might wander through an entire medical complex via a desktop computer. Any citizen might explore the performance of the local schools, chat electronically with teachers and other Mirror World visitors, plant software agents to report back on interesting topics; decide to run for the local school board, hire a campaign manager, and conduct the better part of the campaign itself--all by interacting with the Mirror World. Gelernter doesn't just speculate about how this amazing new software will be used--he shows us how it will be made, explaining carefully and in detail how to build a Mirror World using technology already available. We learn about "disembodied machines," "trellises," "ensembles," and other computer components which sound obscure, but which Gelernter explains using familiar metaphors and terms. (He tells us that a Mirror World is a microcosm just like a Japanese garden or a Gothic cathedral, and that a computer program is translated by the computer in the same way a symphony is translated by a violinist into music.) Mirror Worlds offers a lucid and humanistic account of the coming software revolution, told by a computer scientist at the cutting edge of his field.

or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox...How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean

Mirror Worlds

Lost World of Fair

1939

A leading mind in the world of artificial intelligence answers the provocative question: “Can we introduce emotion into the computer?” Can we introduce emotion into the computer? David Gelernter, one of the leading lights in artificial intelligence today, begins The Muse in the Machine with this provocative question. In providing an answer, he not only points to a future revolution in computers, but radically changes our views of the human mind itself. Bringing together insights from computer science, cognitive psychology, philosophy of mind, and literary theory, David Gelernter presents what is sure to be a much debated view of how humans have thought, how we think today, and how computers will learn to think in the future.

Computerizing the Poetry of Human Thought

The Muse in the Machine

David Padua

Utpal Banerjee

Alex Nicolau

This book contains papers selected for presentation at the Sixth Annual Workshop on Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing. The workshop washosted by the Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology. All the major research efforts in parallel languages and compilers are represented in this workshop series. The 36 papers in the volume aregrouped under nine headings: dynamic data structures, parallel languages, High Performance Fortran, loop transformation, logic and dataflow language implementations, fine grain parallelism, scalar analysis, parallelizing compilers, and analysis of parallel programs. The book represents a valuable snapshot of the state of research in the field in 1993.

6th International Workshop, Portland, Oregon, USA, August 12 - 14, 1993. Proceedings

Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing

America-Lite (where we all live) is just like America, only turned into an amusement park or a video game or a supersized Pinkberry, where the past and future are blank and there is only a big NOW. How did we come to expect no virtue and so much cynicism from our culture, our leaders—and each other? In this refreshingly judgmental book, David Gelernter connects the historical dots to reveal a stealth revolution carried out by post-religious globalist intellectuals who, by and large, “can’t run their own universities or scholarly fields, but are very sure they can run you.” These imperial academics have deployed their students into the top echelon of professions once monopolized by staid and steady WASPs. In this simple way, they have installed themselves as the new designated drivers of American culture. Imperial academics live in a world of theory; they preach disdain for mere facts and for old-fashioned fact-based judgments like true or false. Schoolchildren are routinely taught theories about history instead of actual history—they learn, for example, that all nations are equally nice except for America, which is nearly always nasty. With academic experts to do our thinking for us, we’ve politely shut up and let second-raters take the wheel. In fact, we have handed the keys to the star pupil and teacher’s pet of the post-religious globalist intellectuals, whose election to the presidency of the United States constituted the ultimate global group hug. How do we finally face the truth and get back into the driver’s seat? America-Lite ends with a one-point plan.

How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture (and Ushered In the Obamacrats)

America-Lite

G. Goos

J. Hartmanis

Jan Van Leeuwen

David Sehr

This book presents the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing, LCPC'96, held in San Jose, California, in August 1996. The book contains 35 carefully revised full papers together with nine poster presentations. The papers are organized in topical sections on automatic data distribution and locality enhancement, program analysis, compiler algorithms for fine-grain parallelism, instruction scheduling and register allocation, parallelizing compilers, communication optimization, compiling HPF, and run-time control of parallelism.

LCPC'97

Associate Professor of Computer Science David Gelernter

Argues that simplicity and power in the design of computer hardware and software lead to a technological beauty that parallels the thought processes of the computer user

David Gelernter

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