VON NEUMANN ON THE ANALOGIES BETWEEN THE COMPUTER AND THE HUMAN BRAIN, FIRST EDITION
NEUMANN, John von. The Computer and the Brain. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958. Octavo, original gray cloth, original dust jacket.
First edition of the lectures that von Neumann planned to give as part of the prestigious Silliman Lecture Series at Yale University.
Von Neumann died in 1957 before he could deliver these talks; this book constitutes his last writings, in which he concludes that the brain uses a “peculiar statistical language unlike that employed in the operation of computers.” Von Neumann was perhaps uniquely suited to compare the workings of the brain with those of the computer: renowned for his theory of games, which had many applications in the study of economics and human behavior, he was also largely responsible for the development of the “mathematical analyzer, numerical integrator and computer” (MANIAC), completed in 1952 at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, which was “the fastest and most accurate computer of its kind at that time” (DAB). “The lectures present ‘an approach toward the understanding of the nervous system from the mathematician’s point of view’; they discuss the principles underlying ‘the systematics and the practice of computing machines’ and how these resemble or differ from the way the brain functions” (Norman). Norman, Origins of Cyberspace 972.
A few minute rubs to upper edge of dust jacket. An about-fine copy.