WON_der

[jya@pipeline.com (John Young)]

   6-15-96. NYP, Book review: 
 
      AFTER THOUGHT 
      The Computer Challenge to Human Intelligence 
      By James Bailey 
      Illustrated. 277 pages Basic Books/HarperCollins. $25. 
      ISBN 0-465-00781-3 
 
 
   Mr. Bailey, a former senior manager at the Thinking 
   Machines Corporation, foresees an "electronic computing 
   revolution" whose "intellectual impact will be greater than 
   anything since the Renaissance, possibly greater than 
   anything since the invention of language." In his view, the 
   greatest challenge posed by the computer revolution will be 
   for humans to trust processes of thinking they won't 
   necessarily understand, such as neural networks spotting 
   patterns without supplying proof "in any human-absorbable 
   form." 
 
   His main point is that we must become aware of the outmoded 
   abstractions on which our sequential thinking is based and 
   to jettison them in favor of parallel processes. He cites 
   Alfred North Whitehead: "A civilization which cannot burst 
   through its current abstractions is doomed to sterility 
   after a very limited burst of progress." The wonder of Mr. 
   Bailey's book is that he makes us aware of things abstract 
   that all our lives we have been trained to think of as 
   concrete. 
 
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