https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/3527/Plato-and-the-NerdThe-Creative-Partnership-of Skip to Main Content Umbrella Alt Text Umbrella Alt Text Close * Books + Books Home + Browse Books * Journals + Journals Home + Browse Journals * CogNet * About MIT Press Direct * Customer Support * Librarians Search Dropdown Menu header search search input [ ] Search input auto suggest [ ] filter your search [All Books ] Search Advanced Search User Tools Dropdown Register Sign In Books Gateway Toggle MenuMenu * Browse Books * About * Librarians * Customer Support Skip Nav Destination Plato and the Nerd: The Creative Partnership of Humans and Technology Plato and the Nerd: The Creative Partnership of Humans and Technology By Edward Ashford Lee Edward Ashford Lee Edward Ashford Lee is Distinguished Professor (Emeritus) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, where he runs iCyPhy, a research center focused on industrial cyber-physical systems. He is the author of Plato and the Nerd (MIT Press) and other books. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar The MIT Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.001.0001 ISBN electronic: 9780262341202 Publication date: 2017 How humans and technology evolve together in a creative partnership. In this book, Edward Ashford Lee makes a bold claim: that the creators of digital technology have an unsurpassed medium for creativity. Technology has advanced to the point where progress seems limited not by physical constraints but the human imagination. Writing for both literate technologists and numerate humanists, Lee makes a case for engineering--creating technology--as a deeply intellectual and fundamentally creative process. Explaining why digital technology has been so transformative and so liberating, Lee argues that the real power of technology stems from its partnership with humans. Lee explores the ways that engineers use models and abstraction to build inventive artificial worlds and to give us things that we never dreamed of--for example, the ability to carry in our pockets everything humans have ever published. But he also attempts to counter the runaway enthusiasm of some technology boosters who claim everything in the physical world is a computation--that even such complex phenomena as human cognition are software operating on digital data. Lee argues that the evidence for this is weak, and the likelihood that nature has limited itself to processes that conform to today's notion of digital computation is remote. Lee goes on to argue that artificial intelligence's goal of reproducing human cognitive functions in computers vastly underestimates the potential of computers. In his view, technology is coevolving with humans. It augments our cognitive and physical capabilities while we nurture, develop, and propagate the technology itself. Complementarity is more likely than competition. * Open the Book PDF for in another window * Share Icon Share + Facebook + Twitter + LinkedIn + Email * Tools Icon Tools + Permissions + Cite Icon Cite * Reader Plato and the Nerd: The Creative Partnership of Humans and Technology By: Edward Ashford Lee https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.001.0001 ISBN (electronic): 9780262341202 Publisher: The MIT Press Published: 2017 Download citation file: * Ris (Zotero) * Reference Manager * EasyBib * Bookends * Mendeley * Papers * EndNote * RefWorks * BibTex Table of Contents * [ Front Matter ] Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0018 Open the PDF Link PDF for [ Front Matter ] in another window * Preface Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0001 Open the PDF Link PDF for Preface in another window * I: Yang + 1: Shadows on the Wall Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0003 Open the PDF Link PDF for 1: Shadows on the Wall in another window + 2: Inventing Laws of Nature Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0004 Open the PDF Link PDF for 2: Inventing Laws of Nature in another window + 3: Models of Models of Models of Models of Things Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0005 Open the PDF Link PDF for 3: Models of Models of Models of Models of Things in another window + 4: Hardware Is Ephemeral Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0006 Open the PDF Link PDF for 4: Hardware Is Ephemeral in another window + 5: Software Endures Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0007 Open the PDF Link PDF for 5: Software Endures in another window + 6: Evolution and Revolution Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0008 Open the PDF Link PDF for 6: Evolution and Revolution in another window * II: Yin + 7: Information Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0010 Open the PDF Link PDF for 7: Information in another window + 8: The Limits of Software Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0011 Open the PDF Link PDF for 8: The Limits of Software in another window + 9: Symbiosis Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0012 Open the PDF Link PDF for 9: Symbiosis in another window + 10: Determinism Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0013 Open the PDF Link PDF for 10: Determinism in another window + 11: Probability and Possibility Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0014 Open the PDF Link PDF for 11: Probability and Possibility in another window + 12: Final Thoughts Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0015 Open the PDF Link PDF for 12: Final Thoughts in another window * Bibliography Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0016 Open the PDF Link PDF for Bibliography in another window * Index Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11180.003.0017 Open the PDF Link PDF for Index in another window Availability Key * Open Access * Free * Available * No Access Copyright (c) 2017 MIT Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License . 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