A Teacher
Warren McCulloch
He recast the firing neuron as a logic gate, proposing that the brain computes and that thought is, at root, a calculus.
The transmission
Warren Sturgis McCulloch (1898–1969) was an American neurophysiologist and cybernetician who, with the logician Walter Pitts, published ‘A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity’ in 1943.
That paper offered the first mathematical model of the neuron, showing that networks of simple threshold units could in principle compute any logical proposition. He chaired the Macy Conferences on Cybernetics (1946–1953), the interdisciplinary meetings that established cybernetics as a field.
His work is a foundational source for both artificial neural networks and the computational theory of mind.
What they gave
The neuron as logic gate: With Walter Pitts produced the first mathematical model of the neuron, showing networks of threshold units could compute any logical proposition.
- Founding neural-network theory: Their 1943 ‘Logical Calculus’ became foundational to artificial neural networks and computational neuroscience.
- Thought as calculus: Advanced the claim that the brain computes and that cognition is, at root, a logical operation.
- Chair of the Macy Conferences: Led the interdisciplinary meetings (1946–1953) that established cybernetics as a field.
In their words
What is a number, that a man may know it, and a man, that he may know a number?
The line they stand in
Taught by / Influenced by: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; Bertrand Russell; and his collaborator Walter Pitts.
- Taught / Influenced: Norbert Wiener; John von Neumann; Michael Levin; and Joscha Bach.
Revelations they taught
Essential Works
- A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity1943
- Embodiments of Mind1965