The Algebraic Mind

Gary F. Marcus brings together two rival accounts of the mind. One treats it as a computer-like device that operates on symbols, while the other pictures it as a vast web of neurons firing together in parallel. A common assumption holds that a large neural network cannot also handle symbols. Marcus challenges that view by showing how neural systems might be arranged to process symbols, and he argues that such systems account for language and thought better than approaches that reject symbols altogether.

The book also considers how these symbol-processing networks could have arisen through evolution, and how they might develop before birth in the womb.

For researchers, the work reshapes how models in cognitive neuroscience are understood and proposes a new direction for the field.