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Fuzzy Thinking: The New Science of Fuzzy Logic
An authoritative introduction to "fuzzy logic" brings readers up to speed on the "smart" products and computers that will change all of our lives in the future.
318 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
July 10, 2016
منطق فازی اولین بار در پی تنظیم نظریهٔ مجموعه های فازی به وسیلهٔ پروفسور لطفی زاده (پروفسورلطفی علی عسکرزاده) (۱۹۶۵ م) در صحنهٔ محاسبات نو ظاهر شد.
واژه فازی به معنای غیردقیق، ناواضح و مبهم (شناور) است.
منطق فازی از منطق ارزش‌های "صفر و یک" نرم‌افزارهای کلاسیک فراتر رفته و درگاهی جدید برای دنیای علوم نرم‌افزاری و رایانه‌ها می‌گشاید، زیرا فضای شناور و نامحدود بین اعداد صفر و یک را نیز در منطق و استدلال‌های خود به کار برده و به چالش میکشد.
منطق فازی بیش از بیست سال پس از ۱۹۶۵ از درگاه دانشگاه‌ها به بیرون راه نیافت زیرا کمتر کسی معنای آنرا درک کرده بود.
در اواسط دهه ۸۰ میلادی قرن گذشته صنعتگران ژاپنی معنا و ارزش صنعتی این علم را دریافته و منطق فازی را به کار گرفتند. اولین پروژه آنها طرح هدایت و کنترل تمام خودکار قطار زیرزمینی شهر سندای بود که توسط شرکت هیتاچی برنامه‌ریزی و ساخته شد.
امروزه ماشین لباس شویی، قطارها، ترمز ای‌بی‌اس خودرو، آسانسور، جرثقیل، تسمه نقاله، موتورهای احتراقی، نشست و برخاست خودکار هواپیما، دوربین های هوشمند و غیره از این منطق استفاده میکنند.
واژه فازی به معنای غیردقیق، ناواضح و مبهم (شناور) است.
منطق فازی از منطق ارزش‌های "صفر و یک" نرم‌افزارهای کلاسیک فراتر رفته و درگاهی جدید برای دنیای علوم نرم‌افزاری و رایانه‌ها می‌گشاید، زیرا فضای شناور و نامحدود بین اعداد صفر و یک را نیز در منطق و استدلال‌های خود به کار برده و به چالش میکشد.
منطق فازی بیش از بیست سال پس از ۱۹۶۵ از درگاه دانشگاه‌ها به بیرون راه نیافت زیرا کمتر کسی معنای آنرا درک کرده بود.
در اواسط دهه ۸۰ میلادی قرن گذشته صنعتگران ژاپنی معنا و ارزش صنعتی این علم را دریافته و منطق فازی را به کار گرفتند. اولین پروژه آنها طرح هدایت و کنترل تمام خودکار قطار زیرزمینی شهر سندای بود که توسط شرکت هیتاچی برنامه‌ریزی و ساخته شد.
امروزه ماشین لباس شویی، قطارها، ترمز ای‌بی‌اس خودرو، آسانسور، جرثقیل، تسمه نقاله، موتورهای احتراقی، نشست و برخاست خودکار هواپیما، دوربین های هوشمند و غیره از این منطق استفاده میکنند.
December 9, 2013
Its the singer, not the song... and I didn't finish this book after the basic concept had been explained and it got repetitive.
I like the concept and had come to a lot of the same conclusions myself:
* reading philosophy when I should have been studying harder for engineering
* getting bitterly disappointed with "AI" and more interested in ANN
* getting totally disillusioned with academics
But then I built a bridge, got over it and used my "fuzzy" insight for getting on with a career in engineering, system design and system modelling. This guy decided to stay in the academic trenches and bleat about how much more mature he is than the old school, while carrying on with all the nasty academic in-fighting crap he supposedly looks down upon.
In short he comes across as an A Grade, multiple PhD, FIGJAM wanker. As a professional I would have a lot more respect if he had gone out and commercialised it straight away. As a person with a postgraduate research degree I respect a DE or DSc a lot more than multiple PhDs (which, if you have the discipline to nut out problem, are a matter of time, financial backing and access to the academic publishing world, rather than a show of superior skill). As a Taoist I find his behaviour truly humane, bordering on etiquette (boom boom - a Taoist insult) and his lip service to the "void" philosophies irritating.
I am interested in reading more about fuzzy logic so that I can formally use it in future problem solving but will take the hard text books rather than this "impress the masses" self-promotion pop-science book.
Bah - now I feel dirty having got annoyed by this book!
I like the concept and had come to a lot of the same conclusions myself:
* reading philosophy when I should have been studying harder for engineering
* getting bitterly disappointed with "AI" and more interested in ANN
* getting totally disillusioned with academics
But then I built a bridge, got over it and used my "fuzzy" insight for getting on with a career in engineering, system design and system modelling. This guy decided to stay in the academic trenches and bleat about how much more mature he is than the old school, while carrying on with all the nasty academic in-fighting crap he supposedly looks down upon.
In short he comes across as an A Grade, multiple PhD, FIGJAM wanker. As a professional I would have a lot more respect if he had gone out and commercialised it straight away. As a person with a postgraduate research degree I respect a DE or DSc a lot more than multiple PhDs (which, if you have the discipline to nut out problem, are a matter of time, financial backing and access to the academic publishing world, rather than a show of superior skill). As a Taoist I find his behaviour truly humane, bordering on etiquette (boom boom - a Taoist insult) and his lip service to the "void" philosophies irritating.
I am interested in reading more about fuzzy logic so that I can formally use it in future problem solving but will take the hard text books rather than this "impress the masses" self-promotion pop-science book.
Bah - now I feel dirty having got annoyed by this book!
January 5, 2010
I haven't read others' opinions of this book; I have a suspicion it will have been 'debunked' by many reviews. This book explained a very valuable metaphor for thinking about imperfect information and uncertainty. Unfortunately, "fuzzy logic" was oversimplified in the collective consciousness, and then was dismissed as nothing more than probability.
Fuzzy Logic, before the term got irretrievably co-opted to mean 'putting an asterisk in a search string,' or 'assigning probability to an event,' meant that the truth of many matters is gray. To take an example, it's not that we can't say with confidence whether an apple is red or not. Many apples really are kind of red. So it is with many, many things in the real world. Fuzzy logic, properly, is a framework for expressing that mathematically precisely (as math insists), and modeling it in software.
It's really a shame this train of thought has been dismissed, because there have been real-world successes in using it (a computer application that can fly a helicopter that has lost a rotor, using approximations of expert human fliers as 'rules', even though no human could ever hope to fly a helicopter that has lost a rotor. A washing machine that recognizes how 'clean' is 'clean,' and washes until it gets there). Besides, broadening math for its own sake is always valuable.
Fuzzy Logic, before the term got irretrievably co-opted to mean 'putting an asterisk in a search string,' or 'assigning probability to an event,' meant that the truth of many matters is gray. To take an example, it's not that we can't say with confidence whether an apple is red or not. Many apples really are kind of red. So it is with many, many things in the real world. Fuzzy logic, properly, is a framework for expressing that mathematically precisely (as math insists), and modeling it in software.
It's really a shame this train of thought has been dismissed, because there have been real-world successes in using it (a computer application that can fly a helicopter that has lost a rotor, using approximations of expert human fliers as 'rules', even though no human could ever hope to fly a helicopter that has lost a rotor. A washing machine that recognizes how 'clean' is 'clean,' and washes until it gets there). Besides, broadening math for its own sake is always valuable.
November 15, 2010
Most of the book is a lengthy, lame, boring and fuzzy introduction to the concept of fuzziness. Long sections are dedicated to claiming how clever the author is - alongside with his mentor and some other people he likes - and about how all of them have suffered because their talent and theories have been misunderstood by a bunch of nitwits.
There is a superficial introduction to fuzzy theory as well. You can find better ones for free on the net.
There is a superficial introduction to fuzzy theory as well. You can find better ones for free on the net.
December 26, 2021
I liked it AND did not like it. What I liked: it’s almost 30 years old and thus takes you back to basics. So many new, shiny books are written about things like the ‘deep learning revolution’ and complex systems theory and how it’s changing the world and where it came from and where it will take us, but sometimes it’s good to take a look at old paradigms––this book lends itself well to that. Also, I think the multivalence/bivalence lens is a good one to keep at hand.
What I didn’t like: I strongly disagree with basically everything philosophical he says, it’s very repetitive (we get it, A *and* not A), and most importantly, the tone is very arrogant.
What I didn’t like: I strongly disagree with basically everything philosophical he says, it’s very repetitive (we get it, A *and* not A), and most importantly, the tone is very arrogant.
September 20, 2017
Probably more or less ok. This book took me 20 years to get around to reading. It wasn't worth the wait but I'm still glad I read it.
January 13, 2023
A and Not-A. Something and Not-Something. 0 and 1. Kosko makes the claim that our systems of mathematics, science, logic, etc is based on the erroneous assumption of A or Not-A, 0 or 1 — the world is not binary, and it has no meaning/reality when we reduce it to that. He doesn’t seem to address that these systems have at least provided truth in utility to our lives, but I agree with him that it has too much permeated out thoughts and self to cause great internal discord, and prevent us from a fuller existence. He thinks fuzzy logic has the potential for positive effects in science, philosophy, and all aspects of our lives. Fuzzy logic: everything is gray, everything to some degree (including the edge cases where degree = 0 or degree = 1), and fuzziness increases with details/information. There’s a lot more in the book for theory, history, applications, and implications that I really appreciated. It’s actually in use in computer science so I’m excited to read more about it in that field!
(Honestly the author is annoying but since I still enjoyed the book that’s saying something for it’s content)
(Honestly the author is annoying but since I still enjoyed the book that’s saying something for it’s content)
August 3, 2025
Unfortunately Imma have to end my friendship with the person that recommended this.
Just the same point repeated over and over again. Things can be A and not A at the same time, mental. Would be kinda interesting otherwise.
Just the same point repeated over and over again. Things can be A and not A at the same time, mental. Would be kinda interesting otherwise.
August 2, 2020
Felt like revolutionary thinking when it first came out...
May 5, 2019
Sometimes, when reading philosophy, I think to myself: "Yes, that's exactly what I've been trying to say for so long, I just couldn't find the words". And once I have read such a thing, the clarity is then with me permanently. This book did exactly that.
I've heard it said that all philosophy is just the footnotes to Plato and Aristotle. I tend to agree (not counting my main man Wittgenstein) but I think everyone has spent 2500 years being misled by them. Better foundations of logic can be seen in the Eastern traditions and the teaching of the Buddha. In this book Bart Kosko goes after the law of non-contradiction and the law of the excluded middle.
Something cannot be "A" and "not A" at the same time.
Something cannot be neither "A" nor "not A"
This thinking underlies all of our logic and massively influences our culture at large. However, this boolean logic is not based on a realistic modelling of the world. In the real world, things do not neatly fall within categories (sets). Things can fall into sets partly and to various degrees. Things can be "A" and "not A" at the same time. You can model the world better by saying that 6 foot is 70% tall and 30% not tall and these numbers change gradually as you go along the various heights.
Kosko gives a great account of how we got to our boolean thinking, why fuzzy thinking is better and the very real benefits that can be seen (especially in computer science and machine intelligence) when we actually use a logic system that matches the real world.
I've heard it said that all philosophy is just the footnotes to Plato and Aristotle. I tend to agree (not counting my main man Wittgenstein) but I think everyone has spent 2500 years being misled by them. Better foundations of logic can be seen in the Eastern traditions and the teaching of the Buddha. In this book Bart Kosko goes after the law of non-contradiction and the law of the excluded middle.
Something cannot be "A" and "not A" at the same time.
Something cannot be neither "A" nor "not A"
This thinking underlies all of our logic and massively influences our culture at large. However, this boolean logic is not based on a realistic modelling of the world. In the real world, things do not neatly fall within categories (sets). Things can fall into sets partly and to various degrees. Things can be "A" and "not A" at the same time. You can model the world better by saying that 6 foot is 70% tall and 30% not tall and these numbers change gradually as you go along the various heights.
Kosko gives a great account of how we got to our boolean thinking, why fuzzy thinking is better and the very real benefits that can be seen (especially in computer science and machine intelligence) when we actually use a logic system that matches the real world.
August 15, 2013
Mostly boring. If you are into electronics, you might find this book interesting. There are islands of interesting bits in a sea of mundane text.
I won't say that the book was boring. It was certainly informative. But I think the author could have done a better job of arranging the text in a more interesting manner.
Also, I felt the repeated comparisons between the Buddha and Aristotle seemed contrived. He could certainly have done with less comparisons.
I won't say that the book was boring. It was certainly informative. But I think the author could have done a better job of arranging the text in a more interesting manner.
Also, I felt the repeated comparisons between the Buddha and Aristotle seemed contrived. He could certainly have done with less comparisons.
November 12, 2014
Bart Kosko is undoubtedly a very clever man. In fact, you'd say he's some kind of polymath, throwing maths and philosophy at the page in wild, untrammelled abandon. Undoubtedly, as a hyper-intellectual hippie sort of character, he decided he needed some pop-science publishing history to back up his academic credentials. Unfortunately, he decided to make up a subject, and even after he did that, he forgot to stick to it.
May 23, 2012
کتابی فوق العاده در زمینه تفکر فازی در مقابل تفکر ارسطوییه. هم به گونه ای کتاب فلسفی و هم مهندسی به نظر میاد. متن روانی داره و در جاهای مختلف با تصویرهای رنگی موضوع رو روشنتر کرده. نویسندهش یکی از شاگردان دکتر لطفی زاده بوده و مترجم هاش هم اساتید دانشگاه امیر کبیرهستند.
April 8, 2007
the author "Bart Kosko" is a bright active mind. He is writing with lots of enthusiasm. But while reading his book i really liked to ask him to cool down.
Gets a up thumb from me.
Gets a up thumb from me.
February 14, 2008
Very good intro to fuzzy logic.
January 21, 2009
Very good for beginners .
June 26, 2009
It's very interesting book. Don't know how to explain but I learned a thing and two about it. Worth it.
January 15, 2025
To me, the book suffers a bit from the lengthy biographical details about the author's and other's lives and its tendency to exaggerate and dramatize rivalries between contrasting concepts/schools of thought. A lot of PopSci books do this and there is dramaturgical value in it as it keeps the attention of your average reader up. But here, I've found these textual tools rather off-putting and feel like the book could've been half as long without, e.g., descriptions of Kosko's zazen-practice, lone fighter status or questionable reductive juxtapositions of the philosophies of Aristotle, Buddha and the like.
With this book, Kosko nevertheless still provides a great primer in fuzzy theory and lots of self-invented tools to apply said logic to actual research questions and systems. The Kosko-Cube, Fuzzy Cognitive Maps, Adaptive Fuzzy Neural Networks, Fuzzy Systems — you name it. There is a huge toolbox of amazing concepts, models, and thought experiments in there, that have and still are being used to work with so-called fuzzy sets/concepts/units. If one researches complex systems, like e.g. medical diagnostics, language, social constellations, decision-making etc., you can find ways to formalize these into fairly simple models here, that accept the vagueness, multivalence or fuzziness of said systems. I still give this book as a book only 3*, because you can find these ideas and tools in a much more condensed version elsewhere and as mentioned above, I didn't really enjoy the additional stories or content that is unrelated to the theory and its applications.
With this book, Kosko nevertheless still provides a great primer in fuzzy theory and lots of self-invented tools to apply said logic to actual research questions and systems. The Kosko-Cube, Fuzzy Cognitive Maps, Adaptive Fuzzy Neural Networks, Fuzzy Systems — you name it. There is a huge toolbox of amazing concepts, models, and thought experiments in there, that have and still are being used to work with so-called fuzzy sets/concepts/units. If one researches complex systems, like e.g. medical diagnostics, language, social constellations, decision-making etc., you can find ways to formalize these into fairly simple models here, that accept the vagueness, multivalence or fuzziness of said systems. I still give this book as a book only 3*, because you can find these ideas and tools in a much more condensed version elsewhere and as mentioned above, I didn't really enjoy the additional stories or content that is unrelated to the theory and its applications.
May 29, 2018
So ist das mit dem fussy thinking. Alles ist fuzzy. Vielleicht ein Gedanke, der zu offensichtlich ist, um als genial erkannt zu werden. Und doch ist er es wahrscheinlich. Es ist ein Unterschied, sehe ich ein, ob man einer Aussage eine Wahrscheinlichkeit zuspricht oder fuzziness. Ein Auto parkt irgendwo auf dem Parkplatz aber nicht im Slot. Dann steht er natürlich nicht mit einer gewissen Wahrscheinlichkeit auf dem einen, mit einer gewissen auf einem anderen.
Max Black gilt als Ahner des Fuzzy Gedanken (obwohl er bei ihm noch Vagueness heißt.) Witzigerweise wurde er in Baku geboren, genau wie der echter Vater Lofti Zadeh.
Warum gibt es etwas und nicht vielmehr nichts? Weil sonst die Mathematik explodieren würde. (Da die Welt definiert ist durch fuzziness und ohne was eine Division durch 0 erfolgen müßte.)
Sehr schöner Contrat sozial auf den letzen Seiten!
Max Black gilt als Ahner des Fuzzy Gedanken (obwohl er bei ihm noch Vagueness heißt.) Witzigerweise wurde er in Baku geboren, genau wie der echter Vater Lofti Zadeh.
Warum gibt es etwas und nicht vielmehr nichts? Weil sonst die Mathematik explodieren würde. (Da die Welt definiert ist durch fuzziness und ohne was eine Division durch 0 erfolgen müßte.)
Sehr schöner Contrat sozial auf den letzen Seiten!
May 1, 2021
I read this book several (ten?) years ago and benefited greatly from it at the time. Although I worked in IT and was interested in the subject from a technical perspective, the exposition helped me in a broader way to adjust my way of perceiving and thinking about the world, improving my discernment and enabling a gradual sea change in worldview that led to other things that don't belong in this review; so it could be said that Fuzzy Thinking's effect on me was profound. This is truly a case of YMMV, as there is no guarantee, for a number of reasons, that the book will have a similar effect on other readers.
If you don't know why Aristotleian logic doesn't apply to most real-world subjects and situations, this is a book you will likely do very well to read.
If you don't know why Aristotleian logic doesn't apply to most real-world subjects and situations, this is a book you will likely do very well to read.
April 2, 2023
To use the language of machine learning, Kosko writes with a high "temperature." Though he is precarious in his use of analogy and metaphor, with word play and grandiose claims peppering the work, I like the book. Reading it feels like going to Dr. Bart's office hours. He is bright, but he is highly opinionated and frequently wrong. If you are interested in machine learning but not as a technical expert, I highly recommend you read this book, though I advise you to read it very critically–explosively blustering at each outlandish claim– as a problem set to hone your reasoning skills and an unfiltered source of what the culture is like in the places where this technology was and is being developed.
May 17, 2017
Libro meraviglio tanto quanto l'argomento, ben scritto, completo e interessantissimo.
Il leggerlo ha cambiato la mia vita: adesso non riesco più a identificarmi con questa o quella religione, o partito politico, ma mi definisco "Fuzzy" in tutto: Kosko mi ha aiutato a comprendere come le categorie sono illusioni della mente, perché la realtà vive all'interno dei confini, e non sui confini.
Un argomento che andrebbe insegnato a scuola, fin da piccini, per migliorare la società: perché persino in un litigio non c'è mai chi ha ragione o torto, ma solo "chi ha più ragione, e chi meno".
Il leggerlo ha cambiato la mia vita: adesso non riesco più a identificarmi con questa o quella religione, o partito politico, ma mi definisco "Fuzzy" in tutto: Kosko mi ha aiutato a comprendere come le categorie sono illusioni della mente, perché la realtà vive all'interno dei confini, e non sui confini.
Un argomento che andrebbe insegnato a scuola, fin da piccini, per migliorare la società: perché persino in un litigio non c'è mai chi ha ragione o torto, ma solo "chi ha più ragione, e chi meno".
August 29, 2017
Sure, he gets a bit woo-ey near the end, but the content is too important to let that get in the way of reading this book and understanding what Fuzzy Logic has to offer (not just technology, but also), say, the justice system.
September 2, 2018
Mind-expanding reading!
May 31, 2019
آلة التفكير العصرية..
تدمير ارسطو...
الخوض الفاشل في الجانب الروحي...
تدمير ارسطو...
الخوض الفاشل في الجانب الروحي...
November 24, 2022
Very repetitive and monotonous. If written better it could have been much shorter and simpler.
June 11, 2024
The world is not black or white. And it does not need to be. If you get the philosophical concept behind the technical aspects it can teach you a lot.
July 12, 2021
A book bought as present to me ~ 16 years ago and now I finally get around to reading it properly (abortive attempts withstanding).
Bart Kosko writes in an engaging way and I personally like the recapitulation of the principles and concepts of 'fuzzy' thinking - especially when I'm trying to remember these for later recall. Kosko outlines the main themes of the fuzzy principle in chapter 2, these are:
1. Bivalence vs. Multivalence: Simplicty vs. accuracy
2. Precision up, Fuzz up
3. Fuzzy reasoning raises machine IQ (if it's a principle then maybe the qualifier 'machine' should be removed - because it should also raise our IQ)
4. Don't confuse science with scientists
As maybe apparent, these themes are as much comment on the science, policy and politics of fuzzy science as 'principles' per se. I'm looking forward to chapter 3 ('The whole in the part') as this details the distinction between multivalence and probability(...?). We shall see....
Nearing the end of this now and I have to say it is much more than just a book about 'fuzzy (multivalent) systems'. Kosko comments on the philosophy and politics behind the science and his battles (at this time, c1990) to get the science accepted by the mainstream. It's also one of those books that will go onto the re-read list as it's very well written and Kosko is undoubtedly a polymath!
Bart Kosko writes in an engaging way and I personally like the recapitulation of the principles and concepts of 'fuzzy' thinking - especially when I'm trying to remember these for later recall. Kosko outlines the main themes of the fuzzy principle in chapter 2, these are:
1. Bivalence vs. Multivalence: Simplicty vs. accuracy
2. Precision up, Fuzz up
3. Fuzzy reasoning raises machine IQ (if it's a principle then maybe the qualifier 'machine' should be removed - because it should also raise our IQ)
4. Don't confuse science with scientists
As maybe apparent, these themes are as much comment on the science, policy and politics of fuzzy science as 'principles' per se. I'm looking forward to chapter 3 ('The whole in the part') as this details the distinction between multivalence and probability(...?). We shall see....
Nearing the end of this now and I have to say it is much more than just a book about 'fuzzy (multivalent) systems'. Kosko comments on the philosophy and politics behind the science and his battles (at this time, c1990) to get the science accepted by the mainstream. It's also one of those books that will go onto the re-read list as it's very well written and Kosko is undoubtedly a polymath!
August 5, 2011
Interesting book, but as noted in one other review here review, not particularly well written. I found myself skimming the later chapters just to read the quotes Kosko included. Short summaries (dumping the math) could be "It depends" or "there is no black and white" or to use his own statement "everything is a matter of degree". I had this on my shelf and picked it up while reading Michael Shermer's "How We Believe" to follow up on a reference Shermer made. While not a fuzzy activist, I recognized while reading that long ago I adopted mostly fuzzy thinking, meaning all things are relative.
March 12, 2008
Kosko provides an introduction to fuzzy set theory and its application in neurocomputing and machine intelligence. Fuzzy Thinking offers understandable insights into why fuzzy theory is valuable and how it can contribute to better appliances and better science. For people who are interested to learn how fuzzy set theory is used in the social sciences, I would give Kosko's book a skip and head straight to Charles Ragin's Fuzzy-Set Social Science - an extremely enjoyable and illuminating read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews