Editing Igor Aleksander

{{short description|Scientist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox scientist
|honorific_prefix  = [[Professor]]
|name              = Igor Aleksander
|honorific_suffix  = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FREng}}
|birth_date        = {{birth date and age|1937|01|26}}<ref name="imh">{{cite book|title=The history of Imperial College London, 1907–2007: higher education and research in science, technology and medicine|first=Hannah|last=Gay|publisher=World Scientific|year=2007|isbn= 978-1-86094-709-4}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U5196/ALEKSANDER_Prof._Igor | title = ALEKSANDER, Prof. Igor  | work= Who's Who 2012 | access-date = Nov 9, 2012 | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 2011 }}</ref>
|birth_place       = [[Zagreb]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/jun/23/scienceinterviews|title=The simple things are hardest|first=Alok|last=Jha|date=2005-06-23|work=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=2009-07-28}}</ref> [[Kingdom of Yugoslavia]]
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|alma_mater        = [[Queen Mary College, London]]
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|thesis_title = Decimal array logic
|thesis_year=1966
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'''Igor Aleksander''' (born 26 January 1937) is an [[emeritus professor]] of Neural Systems Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at [[Imperial College London]]. He worked in [[artificial intelligence]] and [[Artificial neural network|neural networks]] and designed the world's first neural pattern recognition system in the 1980s.<ref>[http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?LinkID=mp10120 Igor Aleksander 1937–), Head of Intelligent and Interactive Systems at Imperial College], retrieved 17 April 2008.</ref>

==Life and work==
Aleksander was educated in [[Italy]] and graduated from the [[University of the Witwatersrand]] in [[South Africa]], arriving in the UK in the late 1950s, intending to become a research student under [[Colin Cherry]]. Instead he found work with [[Standard Telephones and Cables]], later joining [[Queen Mary, University of London|Queen Mary College]] where he gained a PhD, subsequently becoming a lecturer there in 1961. He moved to the [[University of Kent]] in 1968 as a reader in Electronics and then to [[Brunel University]] as professor in 1974. In 1984 he became professor at [[Imperial College London]] as professor of the Management of Information Technology.<ref name="imh" /> He was Head of Electrical Engineering and Gabor Professor of Neural Systems Engineering at Imperial College from 1988 to his retirement in 2002.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/pls/portallive/docs/1/548014.PDF | title = Council: Staff Matters | publisher = Imperial College London | date = 2002-10-18 | access-date = 2009-06-20}}</ref> He was elected Fellow of the [[Royal Academy of Engineering]] (1988), and he served as Pro-rector of External Relations at Imperial College (1997). In 2005 he presented the [[Bernard Price Memorial Lecture]].

His work centred on the modelling capability of [[artificial neural network]]s. He devised neuromodels of the [[visual system]] in primates, visuo-verbal system in humans, the effect of anaesthetics on [[awareness]], and [[artificial consciousness]]. He inspired the engineering design  of one of the first stand alone neural pattern recognition systems, the WISARD (anonym for Wilkie Stonham Aleksander's Recognition Device) which was named after the co-inventors Bruce Wilkie, John Stonham and Igor Aleksander. This Brunel University prototype WISARD was commercially developed and marketed by Computer Recognition Systems, Wokingham, under the trade name of ’CRS WISARD’ in 1984. After this, the further developments of this system do not appear to have been documented. A popular link for WISARD is that of “the wisard pattern recognition machine” at the Winton Gallery, British Science Museum.

Aleksander received an honorary degree in Computer Engineering from [[University of Palermo]] in July 2011.

==See also==
* [[Artificial consciousness]]
* [[Artificial Imagination]]
* [[Cybernetics Society]]
* [[Journal of Consciousness Studies]]
* [[Philosophy of artificial intelligence]]
* [[Artificial general intelligence|Strong AI]]
* [[Superintelligence]]

==Selected publications==
;Books
* 2005, ''The World in My Mind, My Mind In The World: Key Mechanisms of Consciousness in Humans, Animals and Machines'' published by Imprint Academic, {{ISBN|1-84540-021-6}}.
* 2000, ''How to Build a Mind'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson
* 1996, ''Impossible Minds: My neurons, My Consciousness'' published by Imperial College Press {{ISBN|1-86094-036-6}}.
* 1975, I.Aleksander, F. Keith Hanna, ''Automata Theory: An Engineering Approach'' New York: Crane Russak, London: Edward Arnold. 
* 1971, ''Microcircuit learning computers'', London: [[Mills & Boon Monographs and Technical Library]]

;Articles
* 2008, [http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Machine_consciousness "Machine consciousness"], Scholarpedia 3(2):4162.
* 2003, "Axioms and Tests for the Presence of Minimal Consciousness in Agents", in: ''[[Journal of Consciousness Studies]]''
* 1997, ''Evolutionary Checkers'' in: ''Nature'', Vol. 402, Dec. 1999, pp.&nbsp;857–860.
* 1997, I. Aleksander, C. Browne, R. Evans, N. Sales, "Conscious and Neural Cognizers: A Review and Some Recent Approaches", in: ''Neural Networks'', Vol. 10, No. 7, pp.&nbsp;1303–1316.
* 1996, N. Sales, R. Evans, I. Aleksander. "Successful naive representation grounding", in: ''Artificial Intelligence Review'', vol. 10, no.1–2, pp.&nbsp;83–102.
* 1994, [[Kevin Warwick|K. Warwick]]. "Weightless brains", Review of Neurons and Symbols by Igor Aleksander and Helen Morton, The Times Higher Education Supplement, p.&nbsp;31, February (1994)

==References==
{{wikiquote}}
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/iots/all Artificial Intelligence], 1999-04-29, BBC Radio program In Our Time

{{Cybernetics}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Aleksander, Igor}}
[[Category:1937 births]]
[[Category:Academics of Imperial College London]]
[[Category:Academics of the University of Kent]]
[[Category:Academics of Brunel University London]]
[[Category:Artificial intelligence researchers]]
[[Category:Cyberneticists]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering]]
[[Category:Alumni of Queen Mary University of London]]
[[Category:Croatian engineers]]
[[Category:British computer scientists]]