UPenn's Institute for Research in Cognitive Science (IRCS) has a WWW home page at http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~ircs/homepage.html, with faculty lists, colloquia, etc. It includes a link to the other 24 NSF Science and Technology Centers. [Jodi Kerper (jbkerper@central.cis.upenn.edu), comp.ai, 4/4/94. David Joslin.]

Michael Lawley highly recommends Dennett's "Consciousness Explained." Chapter 14 (or thereabouts) argues against Penrose's pessimism about AI in "The Emperor's New Mind." [lawley@cit.gu.edu.au, comp.ai, 4/9/94.]

"Virtual Girl" by Amy Thomson is "a very well crafted story that offers many surprises." It's about Maggie, an android on the run who is trying to understand her own personhood. Not true Cyberpunk, but has AI, VR, and many of the same elements. [Josh Harrison (harrij4@nason107.its.rpi.edu), alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo, 3/11/94.]

"Conversations with Neil's Brain: The Neural Nature of Thought and Language," by William H. Calvin and George A. Ojemann, is about the anatomy and physiology of primate cerebral cortex: hemispheric specialization, selective attention, how neurons and synapses work, memory phenomena and its cellular basis, major mental disorders, and primate visual system organization, but the emphasis is on language and consciousness. The first chapter is free, on gopher.well.com (Science). One bookstore that will have it (by 4/30/94) is University Book Store, 1-206-634-3400, 1-206-634-0810 Fax; shipping free. Addison-Wesley, 1994, $24 hardcover. [wcalvin@u.washington.edu, sci.cognitive, 4/2/94. David Joslin.]

Lucian P. Hughes' dissertation is on ChimpWorld, a general simulation architecture applied to chimpanzee societies. "Societal simulation: An artificial intelligence approach" (Yale University, 1993). [David Pautler (pautler@ils.nwu.edu).]

"How Monkeys See the World" (UChicago Press, 1990, 377 pp., $26.70) is a fascinating book by Dorothy Cheney and Robert Seyfarth. Eric Dietrich has posted a review that will appear in Minds and Machines (Kluwer Academic Publishers). Cognitive ethology (a branch of behavioral ecology) says that "Wittgenstein was wrong when he said 'If a lion could talk, we would not understand him.' He was wrong in the way Ptolemy or Lamarck was wrong: very wrong." Cheney and Seyfarth tested vervet monkeys on what they are good at -- social interactions -- in an environment the monkeys understand. Vervets appear to be first-order intentional systems with beliefs and desires, but no beliefs and desires about their own or others' beliefs and desires. (Chimpanzees are borderline second-order systems.) "Cheney and Seyfarth make it easy to believe that a theory of intelligence and cognition worthy of standing with the other great scientific theories is within our grasp." They have provided us with a way to compare intelligence across species by adding three levels to Dennett's theory of intentional systems: (1) the animal can attribute its own beliefs to others, (2) it can believe that others' beliefs differ due to their ignorance, or (3) it recognizes other valid points of view. "Philosophers of mind and science should get a lot out of this book. ... If AI is a generalization of ethology, then AI researchers should be talking to ethologists (and vice versa)." [dietrich@bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu, comp.ai, 4/16/94. David Joslin.]

-- Ken