Tom Thompson
FIRST PERSON: MARVIN MINSKY, THE SOCIETY OF MIND, The Voyager Co., 578 Broadway, Suite 406, New York, NY 10012, (212) 431-5199, $49.95
The Voyager Co., a pioneer in moving printed media to electronic media, serves up a new CD-ROM title, First Person: Marvin Minsky, The Society of Mind. The disc contains the complete text of Minsky's The Society of Mind. This work attempts to explain just how the mind works. In it, Minsky proposes how nonthinking matter gets to the point where it can reason, comprehend the world, and ultimately consider itself. His theory is that thought involves small agents or processes that manage small tasks. These agents, operating as a collective society, combine synergistically to form consciousness.
The CD-ROM improves on the book in several ways. The origin
al illustrations were updated and redrawn in color, and the text has hypertext links to an extensive glossary and bibliography. The material is leavened with animations and QuickTime movies--whose subjects range from Minsky explaining theories on thought to a tour of his living room--that make an interesting subject matter entertaining.
The one problem that I had with the interface was locating Voyager's standard Tool palette, which allows you to easily navigate through the pages and return from the glossary. (It's in the Books menu. This menu is normally not visible. However, if you're familiar with the Voyager products, this isn't a problem.)
Given the room a CD-ROM offers and Voyager's grasp of the technology, I'm just a little disappointed that Minsky didn't take the extra step of expanding the subject matter. Once you get past the embellishments, there's not much beyond the original material on the disc. If you're intrigued by Minsky's theories, the CD-ROM presents them in new and interest
ing ways. If you disagree with his ideas, there's nothing new to convince you otherwise.
Misky Goes Multimedia
