# The Cognitive Connection *By Howard Levine and Howard Rheingold. Prentice Hall Press, New York, copyright 1987.* > I did not read the book. It is out of print, has no ebook or audiobook that I found, and the only scan (Internet Archive) is lending-only; I did not log in or borrow it. What I could see: the Library of Congress and WorldCat-style catalog records, the publisher's one-line description, a bookseller's description, one short Goodreads reader review, and short search snippets from the scanned text that Open Library's public "search inside" returns. The contents in section 5 are pieced together from those snippets, so they are partial: they give each chapter's title and start page and some section headings, not the full list. The chapter descriptions are my reading of those titles and snippets, labeled as such. I found no interview or talk about this particular book. Related dossiers in this vault: Rheingold's [[Book Summaries/Rheingold, Howard/Tools for Thought - Howard Rheingold|Tools for Thought]] (1985, the history of computing and mind-amplifying machines that this book follows), [[Book Summaries/Rheingold, Howard/Mind Amplifier - Howard Rheingold|Mind Amplifier]], [[Book Summaries/Rheingold, Howard/Virtual Reality - Howard Rheingold|Virtual Reality]] (which cites this book, see section 7), [[Book Summaries/Rheingold, Howard/Excursions to the Far Side of the Mind - Howard Rheingold|Excursions to the Far Side of the Mind]] and [[Book Summaries/Rheingold, Howard/They Have a Word for It - Howard Rheingold|They Have a Word for It]]. The two authors' earlier book together, *Talking Tech* (1982), is queued but has no dossier yet. ## 1. Book facts | | | |---|---| | Title | *The Cognitive Connection: Thought and Language in Man and Machine* | | Authors | Howard Levine (born 1947; the Library of Congress main entry, "Levine, Howard, 1947-") and Howard Rheingold | | Publisher | Prentice Hall Press, New York. The copyright page in the scan reads "Copyright © 1987 by Howard Levine and Howard Rheingold" | | Date | 1987 on the book. The Library of Congress call number (QA76.7 .L49 1986) and LCCN 86015143 date the cataloging to 1986, and rheingold.com and Goodreads give 1986. Amazon lists January 1, 1987 | | ISBN | 0131396196 / 9780131396197 (hardcover) | | Other identifiers | LCCN 86015143; OCLC 13792515; Dewey 005.13; Open Library work OL5259982W; Internet Archive `cognitiveconnect0000levi` | | Physical | xx, 276 pages, illustrations, 24 cm; bibliography pp. 261-267; index (Library of Congress record). A bookseller listing mentions tables and graphs, a 7-page bibliography and an 11-page notes section. Goodreads says 296 pages, probably counting the front matter | | Subjects | Programming languages (Electronic computers); Linguistics | | Dedication | "For our mothers, Constance Levine and Geraldine Rheingold, who made it all possible" (from the scan's search snippet) | | List price | $19.95 (Baker & Taylor record, as I saw it in the catalog data) | | Language | English | | Audiobook / ebook | None found. I could not read Audible's or Amazon's results directly, so this is unconfirmed | | Where it came up | Marshall asked for all of Rheingold's books on 2026-11-03 | | Cover | [Open Library cover image](https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/4169139-L.jpg) | ## 2. Book resources **Free (legal).** - **Internet Archive (controlled lending).** [The Cognitive Connection scan, 1987](https://archive.org/details/cognitiveconnect0000levi), scanned in 2020. Its access is restricted to borrowing and print-disabled readers. The loan status showed "available" when I checked; I did not log in or borrow it. - **Open Library.** [Work page](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL5259982W), with the borrowable edition [OL21129970M](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL21129970M) linked to the same scan, and a second record [OL2721641M](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL2721641M). - **Libby/OverDrive and Hoopla.** Not likely, since I found no ebook or audiobook edition. [OverDrive search](https://www.overdrive.com/search?q=cognitive%20connection%20levine%20rheingold) is the place to confirm with your own library. - **Project Gutenberg.** Not applicable (a 1987 copyrighted book). - **Full text posted by the authors or publisher.** None found. **Paid.** - **Amazon.** [Hardcover, ISBN 0131396196](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0131396196). Amazon showed 4 stars from 2 ratings in search results; no Kindle edition found. Used copies (AbeBooks and the like) are the realistic route; I did not check current prices. - **Audible.** None found. **Catalogs.** [WorldCat, OCLC 13792515](https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/13792515); [Google Books search by ISBN](https://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0131396196) (the Google Books API returned no record for this ISBN when I tried); [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1204869); [LibraryThing](https://www.librarything.com/work/653693). ## 3. Author biographies **Howard Rheingold** (born July 7, 1947, Phoenix, Arizona; Reed College, 1968) is an American writer and teacher on the cultural and social effects of computers and communication media ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Rheingold)). In the early 1980s he wrote for the Institute of Noetic Sciences and did contract writing for Xerox PARC, which led to *Tools for Thought* (1985). He was an early member and host on the WELL, edited *Whole Earth Review*, was founding executive editor of HotWired (1994), founded Electric Minds (1996), and later taught at Stanford and UC Berkeley. His books include *The Virtual Community* (1993) and *Smart Mobs* (2002). Encyclopedia.com's entry lists this book as "(With Howard Levine) The Cognitive Connection... Prentice Hall, 1987" ([Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/rheingold-howard-e-1947)). His own [bibliography page](https://www.rheingold.com/howard/) lists it with 1986. **Howard Levine.** I found almost nothing. Library catalogs give only "Levine, Howard, 1947-", and the book's "Other books by" page names the two authors' earlier *Talking Tech: A Conversational Guide to Science and Technology* (William Morrow, 1982). I found no biography, website or interview I could tie to this Howard Levine with confidence, and there are many people of that name, so I have not guessed. ## 4. Author interviews and talks None about this book that I found. For Rheingold's thinking in the same period, these are the closest: - [Fresh Air, October 21, 1993, "The New Networked Frontier"](https://freshairarchive.org/segments/new-networked-frontier): Terry Gross talks with Rheingold about virtual communities, six years after this book. - [First Monday / Mindjack interview, 1999](https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/download/704/614/3642): a long print interview covering his path from *Tools for Thought* through online community. For Levine, I found none. ## 5. Summary **Thesis (from the publisher's description and the introduction's title).** The publisher's one-line description: the book "discusses the differences between natural language and programming languages, looks at mathematical logic, and describes the future of computer programming." The introduction, "The Paradox of the All-Purpose Machine", asks (per a search snippet) how a machine that only follows rigid instructions can appear to do almost anything. The book's answer, as the chapter titles lay it out, runs from human language through formal logic to the stack of languages inside a computer, ending with where programming languages might go next. An epigraph near the introduction is from J. C. R. Licklider's 1960 paper "Man-Computer Symbiosis", which suggests the book's angle: languages as the meeting point of human and machine thought. **Outline (titles and start pages from the scanned contents page; section headings where the snippets showed them).** - **Introduction: The Paradox of the All-Purpose Machine** (p. xv). The index sends readers back to this paradox on pp. 77, 111 and 134, so it is the book's running thread. - **Chapter 1: Natural Language and Natural Thought** (p. 1). Sections seen: "Language as a Thought Tool" (p. 1) and "From Linguistics to Cybernetics" (p. 27). My reading: how human language works as a tool for thinking, and how linguistics fed into cybernetics and early computing. - **Chapter 2: Formal Language and Formal Thought** (p. 33). Sections seen: "The Quest for a Calculus of Thought" (p. 33), "Boolean Algebra and ..." (title cut off in the snippet), and a section ending "...Paradox, and the Theory of Computability" (p. 57). The text works through syllogistic logic, Boole, and paradoxes (the index lists the liar's paradox on p. 22 and Russell's paradox), and describes the Turing machine's instructions as five parts: state, the symbol read, what to write, which way to move and the next state. - **Chapter 3: Computer Language and Hierarchies** (p. 71). Sections seen: one ending "...Registers, and Adders: Transforming Hardware into Software" (p. 87) and "From the Fundamental Particles of Microcode to the Cosmos of the Operating System" (p. 97). The text discusses Maurice Wilkes and microcode, and the layers from hardware up to the operating system. - **Chapter 4: Computer Thought: From Languages to Programs** (p. 111). Sections seen: "Algorithms: Power..." (title cut off) and one ending "...Methodologies" (p. 136). The text covers data structures and algorithms, lists the requirements an algorithm must meet, and uses a traffic-direction example. - **Chapter 5: The Family of Programming Languages** (p. 145). Sections seen: "From Programming Code to..." (title cut off) through "A Language for Creating Languages: FORTH" (p. 198). The text tells the history of programming languages from the first military coders and early doubts about "automatic programming". The Goodreads reviewer says the "modern" languages covered include FORTRAN, BASIC and Pascal. - **Chapter 6: The Future of Programming Languages** (p. 209). The first section is titled "The Cognitive Connection". Other books cite pp. 127-135 and pp. 232-233 for ideas about future interfaces and virtual reality (section 7). - **Back matter.** Notes; bibliography (pp. 261-267); index. **Key ideas (inferred from the titles, description and snippets; not from a reading).** - A computer is an all-purpose machine because it runs on languages, and understanding computers means understanding a stack of languages from microcode up to programming languages. - Natural language and formal language differ, and formal logic (Boole, Russell, Turing) is the bridge from one to the other. - Programming languages form a family tree, and their future lies in bringing machines closer to how people think and speak, in the spirit of Licklider's "man-computer symbiosis". - The one reader review I found (Goodreads, 2013) calls it a brief, dense introduction to the basics that "does a nice job", and notes that its "modern" languages now date it. **Reception.** J. P. van Gigch reviewed it in *Systems Research* 7(2), June 1990 ([DOI 10.1002/sres.3850070208](https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.3850070208)), apparently alongside other AI and cognitive-science books; I saw the citation only, not the text. ## 6. Fact-check I could check only the claims that show in the snippets. None of these come from reading the argument in full. | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |---|---|---| | A Turing machine's instructions can be written as five parts (state, symbol read, symbol written, move, next state) | Supported | The standard 5-tuple formulation: [Wikipedia, Turing machine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine#Formal_definition) | | Maurice Wilkes devised microcode (microprogramming) | Supported | Wilkes proposed microprogramming in 1951: [Wikipedia, Microcode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode#History) | | Boolean algebra arose from a "calculus of thought" (Boole's laws of thought) | Supported | Boole's 1854 *An Investigation of the Laws of Thought*: [Wikipedia, George Boole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Boole) | | FORTH is "a language for creating languages" | Supported, as a description | FORTH lets programmers define new words that extend the language itself: [Wikipedia, Forth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_(programming_language)) | | Licklider's "Man-Computer Symbiosis" (1960) as the guiding idea | Supported that the paper exists and says this | [Licklider, 1960 (MIT copy)](https://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/people/psz/Licklider.html) | | A 1959 committee's role in a programming language (the book is cited on pp. 153 and 156 about it) | Unverified | Seen only as a citation in another book's snippet; this is probably the CODASYL committee behind COBOL ([Wikipedia, CODASYL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CODASYL)), but I did not see the book's wording | | Predictions about the future of programming (Chapter 6) | Unverified | Not read | | Publication year | Disputed between sources | The book says copyright 1987; LC cataloging, rheingold.com and Goodreads say 1986. It was probably cataloged before release and published in early 1987 | ## 7. Citations and references **What the book draws on.** I could not see the bibliography. From the snippets, it uses Licklider's "Man-Computer Symbiosis" (1960), Boole's work on the laws of thought, Russell's paradox, Turing machines and Wilkes on microcode. These are inferences from the text, not entries I saw in its bibliography. **Who cites it (seen in other books' search snippets, details unverified):** Rheingold's own *Virtual Reality* (1991), citing pp. 127-135; Roy Kalawsky's *The Science of Virtual Reality and Virtual Environments* (1993), citing pp. 232-233; Pamela McCorduck's *Aaron's Code* (1991); David Hertz's *The Expert Executive* (1988), which quotes a 1960 statement by way of this book; and a book on musical and programming languages citing pp. 153 and 156. CiNii lists four citing works ([CiNii record BA03656363](https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA03656363)). **Links this note used:** - Catalogs: [Open Library work](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL5259982W); [Open Library edition OL21129970M](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL21129970M); [Open Library edition OL2721641M](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL2721641M); [Internet Archive scan](https://archive.org/details/cognitiveconnect0000levi); [Open Library search inside](https://openlibrary.org/search/inside?q=%22Cognitive+Connection%22+Levine+Rheingold); [WorldCat](https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/13792515); [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1204869); [LibraryThing](https://www.librarything.com/work/653693); [CiNii](https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA03656363); [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0131396196). - Review: van Gigch, *Systems Research* 7(2), 1990, [DOI 10.1002/sres.3850070208](https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.3850070208). - Authors: [Wikipedia, Howard Rheingold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Rheingold); [rheingold.com](https://www.rheingold.com/howard/); [Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/rheingold-howard-e-1947). - Interviews: [Fresh Air, 1993](https://freshairarchive.org/segments/new-networked-frontier); [First Monday / Mindjack, 1999](https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/download/704/614/3642). - Fact-check sources: [Turing machine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine#Formal_definition); [Microcode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode#History); [George Boole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Boole); [Forth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_(programming_language)); [Licklider, Man-Computer Symbiosis](https://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/people/psz/Licklider.html); [CODASYL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CODASYL). - Related dossiers: [[Book Summaries/Rheingold, Howard/Tools for Thought - Howard Rheingold|Tools for Thought]]; [[Book Summaries/Rheingold, Howard/Mind Amplifier - Howard Rheingold|Mind Amplifier]]; [[Book Summaries/Rheingold, Howard/Virtual Reality - Howard Rheingold|Virtual Reality]]; [[Book Summaries/Rheingold, Howard/Excursions to the Far Side of the Mind - Howard Rheingold|Excursions to the Far Side of the Mind]]; [[Book Summaries/Rheingold, Howard/They Have a Word for It - Howard Rheingold|They Have a Word for It]].