Reviews (3)

Culture Clash in Cambridge: Meme's doubters unconvinced
Unlike most edited volumes based on conferences, which typically read like random collections of papers glued between two covers, Aunger's edited volume displays a remarkable coherence. Against all odds, he enticed a highly diverse group of academics to Cambridge who then constructively debated the status of memetics as a science. Susan Blackmore, after Richard Dawkins probably the most well-known proponent of memetics, and David Hull, a sympathetic critic, open the book with strong arguments for taking memetics seriously. Henry Plotkin and Rosaria Conte then offer critiques of what they perceive as the somewhat faulty psychological assumptions underlying the meme concept. Plotkin argues against making "imitation" the centerpiece of mimetic mechanisms, and Conte argues for a much more sophisticated and complex social cognitive perspective on memetics. She presents a complex model of humans as limited autonomous agents, focusing on their active role in the perpetuation of cultural knowledge.

Kevin Laland and John Odling-Smee are sympathetic to the general notion of memes, but ask for more consideration of the multiple processes involved in evolution. Their own contribution is the concept of niche construction, based on the idea that species have effects on their environments that subsequently constrain future generations. Reprising ideas from their 1985 book, Culture and the Evolutionary Process, Boyd and Richerson argue for population level thinking in evolutionary models of cultural change. I should note that the renewed interest in evolutionary thinking stirred up by Blackmore and others has resulted in the University of Chicago Press's re-issuing their book!

The last three chapters of the book are much more negative toward the whole enterprise. Dan Sperber uses creative examples and logical proofs to conclude that Dawkin's conception of memes is misguided. He argues that recent thinking in memetics goes against recent work in developmental and evolutionary psychology. Adam Kuper notes that there already are well-established techniques for the study of cultural diffusion, especially in anthropology. He concludes that the "memetics industry" has yet to deliver on its claims. Finally, another anthropologist, Maurice Bloch, argues that memeticists have merely rediscovered what anthropology has known for decades, and in fact, is making all the same mistakes. He has harsh words for scientists who jump into an area without paying more attention to what has already been done by others working in that area.

Aunger provides excellent introductory and concluding chapters, which constitute valuable contributions in themselves. Chapter 1 beautifully lays out the issues and provides a constructive guide to the issues over which the contributors struggled. Chapter 11 concludes the book with an assessment of the contributors' arguments and a frank admission of his own skepticism.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the concept of memes, cultural and social evolution, and the cultural divide between the natural and the social sciences. You will not only learn something about memes, but you will also see how serious academic debate can be pulled off in a civilized and constructive manner. My hat is off to Robert Aunger!

A Wonderful Introduction to Meme Theory.
For those unfamiliar with the notion of "memes," they are, quite simply, the theoretical smallest cultural commodity - an idea - that replicates itself through its symbiotic relationship with its human host. The idea is either entirely absurd or the solution to the mystery of culture that has been the providence of anthropologists for the past century and a half. But, the notion was birth by a scientist (Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene [1977]), and this alone is enough to distance some potentially interested parties from the humanities and social sciences. Darwinizing Culture is at once the reiteration and clarification of the memetic theory (although most of the authors only work to obscure the idea in their work, pulling it in one direction or another - for their very particular use) and a series of arguments against memetic theory as it stands, as well as an argument against those theorists, isolated in the sciences, who so often find the idea attractive, and distanced from previous theories of culture and cultural development.

The collection brings together pieces from Susan Blackmore (author of The Meme Machine [Oxford, 1999]), Henry Plotkin, David Hull, and Dan Sperber, as well as many other younger theorists, all succeeding a rather terse foreword by Daniel Dennet - one of memetic theories greatest proponents. Aunger's introduction and conclusion to the collection are both wonderful contributions, and help to establish the debate, both contemporaneously and historically, for both memes enthusiasts and those new to the field. Blackmore's piece is an afterword to her earlier study, in part working to refute critics who found fault with her prior book-length examination, and as such, while it helps to provide a continuity for the debate, sets the tone of the collection, and that is one of distress. The collection effectively critiques itself by including both sides of the debate, which is admirable, but rather than clearing the slate, as Aunger hopes the collection will, it surely asks the reader to choose a side, and those ideologies are clearly demarcated by academic alignments. But that is not to say that the collection fails to be useful - in fact, quite the contrary: there are a number of essays (and I'm inclined to include them all in this), that help the conceptual understanding of the field on one level or another, but as they are in constant dialogue with one another, this utility is constantly compromised.

But, like every anthology, there is a single essay that stands out from the rest for its sheer insight and applicability, and in this case it is Kevin Laland and John Odling-Smee's innocuously titled "The Evolution of the Meme." Laland and Odling-Smee expand on Richard Dawkins' notion of the "extended phenotype" (from The Extended Phenotype [1982]), positing that the cultural artifacts that are created by civilization influence (and possible cause) both cultural and biological evolution. It sounds deceptively simple, but the premise is that by creating artifacts that alter the environment, simply by their sheer presence, the evolution of that culture is irreparable altered, always needing to incorporate the presence and utility of that artifact. With the explosion of artifacts endemic of consumer capitalism, our cultural evolution has been dramatically influenced, and Laland and Odling-Smee provide an interesting hypothesis to explain this sort of transformation in culture (and consciousness - surely Marshall McLuhan would agree with their suppositions).

If there is a fault with the collection, it is simply that the debate over memetics is a rather closed sphere - the majority of the essays cite the author's previous contribution to the field, or one or another of the other included authors. If nothing else, the contributions by Sperber and Adam Kuper should influence this, and hopefully encourage the steady incorporation of more anthropologically minded sources.

While the collection is at times rather tiresome for a meme enthusiast, and especially so for students of culture, who must deal with various reiterations of basic tenants of anthropology, it would seem to provide a comprehensive introduction to both the idea and the debates surrounding the idea for those new to the field. And for the meme enthusiast, especially for those schooled in the sciences, the arguments of Sperber and Kuper are especially important, bringing in more anthropological basis for this understanding.

A serious book on memes
From the book cover: "In the past couple of years, there has been an explosion of interest in 'memes'. However, the one thing noticeably missing has been any kind of proper debate over the validity of a concept many regard as scientifically suspect. Darwinizing Culture pits leading intellectuals (both supporters and opponents of meme theory) against each other to battle it out, and state their case. With a Foreword by Daniel Dennett, and contributions from Dan Sperber, David Hull, Robert Boyd, Susan Blackmore, Henry Plotkin, and others, the result is a thrilling and challenging debate that will perhaps mark a turning point for the field."

From the reviews: "This is a book to be read by anybody with a serious interest in the future of the subject . . .Darwinizing Culture is to my knowledge the first book to attempt a thorough critical appraisal of the potential of the subject. It is essential reading for anyone contemplating a first exploration of the area, and I hope it will be read and taken to heart by all those enthusiasts who gaily promulgate the internet discussions [of memes]. Nine content chapters by an eminent team of contributors are sandwiched between very able introductory and concluding editorial chapters, and although they run the full range from enthusiasm to condemnation, they give memetics a pretty rough ride overall. Indeed, it is a tribute to Robert Aunger that, for an editor who must have some leanings towards the charms of memetics, a selection of contributors has been chosen in such a way as to provide a rich, interdisciplinary set of critical analyses that pull no punches. Whatever headway memetics makes in future, it will not be for want of having both its strengths and weaknesses rigorously exposed and weighed at this juncture." -- Andrew Whiten, Times Higher Education Supplement for May 18, 2001

"It is hard to criticize a book that criticizes itself so fully; indeed, despite my disagreements with individual authors, Aunger's strength is to bring together a diversity of views so that most points are fully addressed . . .[The book ] is to be applauded for the refreshing, conservative approach to a field that lends itself to speculation and exaggeration." -- Simon Reader, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5:8:365-366 ... Read more

Book Description

How does the firing of neurons give rise to subjective sensations, thoughts, and emotions? How can the disparate domains of mind and body be reconciled? The quest for a scientifically based understanding of consciousness has attracted study and speculation across the ages. In this direct and non-technical discussion of consciousness, Dr. Gerald M. Edelman draws on a lifetime of scientific inquiry into the workings of the brain to formulate answers to the mind-body questions that intrigue every thinking person.Concise and understandable, the book explains pertinent findings of modern neuroscience and describes how consciousness arises in complex brains. Edelman explores the relation of consciousness to causation, to evolution, to the development of the self, and to the origins of feelings, learning, and memory. His analysis of the brain activities underlying consciousness is based upon recent remarkable advances in biochemistry, immunology, medical imaging, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology, yet the implications of his book extend farther--beyond the worlds of science and medicine into virtually every area of human inquiry. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Tough going but worth the struggle
I read and re-read Edelman & Tononi's "A Universe of Consciousness," as well as quite a few other recent books on consciousness, which I digested into my new book, "Concepts." I particularly liked Edelman's concept of 'neural Darwinism' whereby the brain's cortex uses a greatly accelerated evolutionary process in order to 'think'. In my book I used a metaphor to describe this evolutionary process.
That was before Edelman published his current book. Even so after all that, I still found his new book tough going. Somehow I have trouble with his style and terms. Nonetheless it's well worthwhile struggling with because he provides valuable information and insights.

A total head trip.
The human brain consists of a hundred billion neurons that ultimately result in consciousness and self-awareness. It doesn't require much gray matter to appreciate the complexity of this process. In his fascinating study of this experience, Dr. Gerald M. Edelman attempts to answer the challenging question: How can the firing of neurons give rise to human sensations, thoughts and emotions (p. xii)? As a Nobel laureate, the Director of the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, and author of several important studies on consciousness, Dr. Edelman certainly has the credentials. He recognizes his subject is a challenging one, and has written WIDER THAN THE SKY for "the general reader" (with no background in neurobiology, like me), who is willing to expend "a concentrated effort" to understand the subject, promising readers who stick with him on his trip through the human brain a "deeper insight into issues that are the center of human concern" (p.xi).

In his short, 148-page book (exclusive of the glossary and index), Dr. Edelman first considers global brain theory encompassing evolution, development, and function of the most complex of human organs. He basically proposes that in the transition between reptiles and birds and reptiles and mammal, a new reciprocal connectivity evolved in the thalamocortical system of the brain (p. 54), and that consciousness then emerged from increasingly complex and integrated neuronal groups. In the end, WIDER THAN THE SKY provides readers with a concise, scientific explanation of consciousness unique to humans.

G. Merritt

The best neurobiologic construct of consciousness out there
In this new book, Gerald Edelman continues his intellectual saga regarding the scientific study of consciousness. Both the Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (TNGS) and the Dynamic Core Hypothesis have been introduced in earlier books (Surprizingly, with alot more mathematical detail), but never had they been described with clarity and vividness as they were in this book. Examples, that the general reader can relate to, are given throughout the whole book.

Chapter One (The Mind of Man: Completing Darwin's Program) is an assertion by Dr. Edelman that any theory of consciousness should account for the phenomenon to have arisen in evolution by Natural Selection.

Chapter Two (Consciousness: The Remembered Present). This is a chapter in which Dr. Edelman talks about some properties of consciousness in light of William James' earlier descriptions. He ascribes privacy, differntiation and intergration to consciousness and stresses the fact that consciousness is a process not a "thing". For instance, on page 6 he says:
"... there are accounts that attribute conscoiuness specifically to nerve cells (or consciouness neurons) or to particular layers of the cortical mantle of the brain. The evidence, as we shall see, reaveals that the process of consciousness is a dynamic accomplishment of the distributed activities of population of neurons in many different areas of the brain."

Chapter Three (Elements of the Brain) is where Dr. Edelman briefly goes over the structural elements of the brain, describing neurons and their chemical and electrical based signaling systems along with diagrams. He also describes the next hierarchial system of networks and highlights three major neuroanatomical systems that are important for his Global theory of consciousness. Those are the thalamocortical system, cortical/subcortical polysynaptic loop systems (e.g. basal ganglia), and the ascending value system arising from nuclei in the brainstem. It is worth noting that this structural organization is in good agreement with Bernard Baar's Global Workspace model. Another point worth mentioning in this chapter is Edelman's view of synaptic plasticity in relation to memory. on page 21 he says, "Studies of the neural properties of the hippocampus provide important examples of some of the synaptic mechanisms underlying memory. One such mechanism, which should NOT be equated with memory itself, is the change in the strength, or efficacy, of hippocampal synapses that occur with certain patterns of neural stimuation."

Chapter Four (Neural Darwinism: A Global Brain Theory) is a superb chapter. Although, conceptually, TNGS has already been built in earlier books and publications, but it is now vividly described. Dr. Edelman highlight major differences between the working of the brain as a selectional biological systems and that of a Turing Machine. He discusses noise in biological systems, degeneracy, and reentrancy. Degeneracy in relation to Reentrant circuits is finally illustrated in a diagram.

Chapter Five (The Mechanism of Consciousness) is where Dr. Edleman talks about non-representational memory of biological systems (a difficult concept made simple). He also describes the emergence of primary consciousness On page 57 as " The ability to create a scene by such reentrant correlations between value-category memory--reflecting earlier categorizations--and similar or different perceptual categories is the basisfor the emergence of primary consciousness."

Chapter Six (Wider than the Sky: Qualia, Unity, and Complexity) discusses the aformetioned issues along with concepts like information exchange accross brain areas stressing the role of consciousess in them.

Chapter Seven (Conscoiusness and Causation: The Phenomenal Transform) discusses the place of consciousness in the physical world. Dr. Edelman introduces C and C' notions, and explains the logical impossibility of zombies (introduced by David Chalmers).

Chapter Eight (The conscious and the Nonconscious: Automaticity and Attention) discusses the role of consciousness in behavior, and the evolutionary advantage of having a conscious system over automatic (zombie) systems. Dr Edelman also discusses the role of basal ganglia in mechanisms of attention (which are strongly associated with conscious thought).

Chapter Nine (Higher-Order Consciousness and Representation) discusses the role of symbolic/semantic thought in the emergence of higher order consciousness. It also talks about the semantic problems with ascribing representation to neural states that could be observed from a third person perpective, and provides evidence that the neural correlates of consciousness (for a laboratory task at least) are distinct in different people.

Chapter Ten (Theory And Properties Of Consciousness) puts it all together. A superb chapter describing General, Information, and Subjective featres of conscious states in light of all the arguments made earlier. It is the intellectual climax of the book.

Chapter Eleven (Identity: The self, Mortality, And Value) and Chapter Twelve (MInd and Body: Some consequence) describe some scientific and philosopical consequences to the neurobiologic framework of consciousness the book makes. There are some really interesting thoughts regarding value and law.

Overall, this is a great book. The scientific american book review (which is shown on the book description page) is, in my opinion, very poor. If this book was made longer, discussed the ideas more, and showed more experimental evidence (and maybe more math in the Appendix), it would arguably be the best book on consciousness ever written.

...an account of consciousness to the general reader...
"Wider than the Sky" offers a concise scientific explanation of human consciousness to readers with no previous formal education in neurobiology. It avoids the metaphysical and mystical (what Edelman calls "spooky forces") and clearly explains any technical terms used. A glossary at the back of the book defines words from Action potential to Zombie. ("A hypothetical humanlike creature that lacks consciousness but which, it is erroneously assumed, can carry out all of the functions of a conscious human.")

The author uses the concept of neural Darwinism to suggest how consciousness evolved in mammals by massively increasing the connectivity between the cortical areas of the brain that carry out perceptual categorization and the frontal areas responsible for value-category memory systems. The definition of zombies turns out not to be purely whimsical. Consciousness requires specific neural activity - and where that activity occurs there must be consciousness.

Dr Edelman promises a "deeper insight into issues that are the center of human concern" to any reader willing to make a concerted effort to understand this challenging subject. He delivers wonderfully well on his promise. The conscious brain as described in "Wider than the Sky" is complex, dynamic, variable and unique to humankind. ... Read more

Book Description

Bilingualism in Development describes research on the intellectual development of bilingual children, showing how it is different from that of monolingual children.The focus is on preschool children, examining how they learn language, how they acquire literacy skills, and how they develop problem-solving ability in different domains.It is unique in that it assembles a wide range of research on children's development and interprets it within an analysis of how bilingualism affects that development.It isthe only book to interpret this large research from a single theoretical perspective, leading to coherent conclusions. ... Read more

Book Description

Cognitive Psychology, Fourth Edition, presents a coherent overview of cognitive psychology organized in terms of themes that cut across topic areas. Written by well-known researchers, the book is completely current in describing ongoing controversies in research; it provides summaries of key experiments that distinguish between them; and it encourages the reader to think critically about current research and theories. The focus on the importance of physical and computational constraints on cognition is preserved throughout the book. ... Read more

Book Description

Do children have a theory of mind? If they do, at what age is it acquired? What is the content of the theory, and how does it differ from that of adults? The Child's Theory of Mind integrates the diverse strands of this rapidly expanding field of study. It charts children's knowledge about a fundamental topic - the mind - and characterizes that developing knowledge as a coherent commonsense theory, strongly advancing the understanding of everyday theories as well as the commonsense theory of mind.

Wellman presents evidence that children as young as age three do possess a commonsense theory of mind - that they grasp the distinction between mental constructs and physical entities and that they have an understanding of the relationship between individuals' mental states and their overt actions. He delves in detail into questions about the nature of adults' commonsense theories of mind and about the nature of commonsense theories.

Wellman then examines the content of the three-year-old's theory of mind, the nature of children's notions of mind before age three, the changes in the theory during subsequent development from ages three to six, and the young child's conception of mind in comparison with those of older children and adults.

Henry M. Wellman is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Inspires Creativity
Offers activities & processes to go through in order to brain storm & improve creativity. Many excellent ideas. My only complaint is that the text utilizes language that makes what they are trying to express difficult to understand & hard to follow.

Excellent resource for understanding visual thinking
I like this book very much because of its broad coverage and yet penetrating insights about creativity. To be more precise, it's about visual perceptual thinking - the often untapped resource mode of our brain. It is an excellent resource - not only from the visual thinking perspective but - for those who wants a deeper, fundamental understanding about whole-brain thinking. Unlike Kurt Hanks' books, and ironically, it's full of heavy text. Nevertheless, it's worth your perusal and also for having it in your personal library. The author had a second book, a strategy manual, which, unfortunately, is now out of print.

Wordy, but well thought out study on visual thinking.
Lots of insight into seeing, thinking and drawing. Very expensive, and needs pictures for the reading impaired ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Great Overview of Cognitive Science
This book was recommended to me by a cognitive scientist researcher at my university as the single best thing I could read to obtain an up-to-date overview of what's going on in cognitive science. The book lived up to this promise. I found it an excellent, scientifically and philosophically informed, treatment of this topic. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Culture as an escape from animality
We tend to think of the way we live as "reality". Yet all human culture - from the smallest object to the grandest ideological-religious system - is a form of escape. Indeed, argues Tuan, it may well be the defining feature of humans, as a species, that we have this capacity to imagine and implement transformative projects; that we can turn the world to our will (or try to), rather than remaining the victim of Nature or of our own natures. "Escape" or "the imagination" is value-neutral, argues Tuan, as he explores the methods by which we attempt to escape from animality, and how it can lead us into both the grotesque and the sublime. What's incredibly satisfying about this book is that Tuan approaches his topic not from the position of philosopher or psychologist, but from the perspective of "human geography" which, in practice, becomes a helpful blend of sociology and anthropology grounded in history and science, but with enough gaps to allow for fruitful speculation. My only complaint is that the sheer breadth of Yi-Fu Tuan's knowledge leaves you feeling slightly dissatisfied, as if this book is only scratching the surface of an immense topic - which, of course, it necessarily is. So I suppose my dissatisfaction is only with myself. Thankfully, Tuan provides detailed notes and an excellent bibliography to point the way forward.

Cure for a figurative head cold
Yi-Fu Tuan says that "a human being is an animal who is congenitally indisposed to accept reality as it is." He says ESCAPISM is the strategy we employ to rid ourselves of the humdrum of daily life which he likens to suffering a head cold. The book itself is a good head-clearing remedy. Tuan covers a wide range of topics in human cultural history and gives us a lot to think about.

He gives an "unusual" perspective on nature and culture, looking at the very meaning of reality and exploring why, traditionally, "myths", "daydreaming", and "fantasy" have such negative connotations. This is especially puzzling he says in light of escapism being not only a historical human impulse but also a universal one. He shows this with examples from Eastern and Western culture. Another puzzle is why, if it's so intrinsic to our nature, do we choose to make some explorations of it so painful? His chapter on "Hell" looks at the less-than-pleasant escapes that we have inflicted on ourselves.

Tuan is a geographer of some repute and he exhibits his masterly command of exploration of unknown spaces and places with this fascinating journey through our imagination, culture, and psyche.
He is occasionally humorous and writes in a spare, straightforward style. Reading this book is escapism itself as it will make you think, and in a final bit of perceptive wisdom Tuan has this to say: "Even in modern America, thinking is suspect. It is something done by the idly curious or by discontented people." If that's true then I endorse being idly curious and recommend escaping for a while with this book. ... Read more

Book Description

This highly acclaimed book provides a theoretically balanced introduction to the study of basic physiology and sensory responses. The authors survey a broad range of topics and present different theories and perspectives in controversial areas.
* Demonstrations allow the reader to experience many of the perceptual phenomena firsthand using common household items or illustrations in the book.
* Describes natural instances of perceptual phenomena to bring the subject matter to life. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

EXCELLENT coverage of S & P
I chose Coren & Ward because a GRE study guide recommended it. C&W was the best GRE studying I did.

The writing is clear, the organization is great, the illustrations, diagrams, and inset examples are excellent. You can't do better than this to get an overview of S&P. Good introductory or mid-level book. Starts with all the basics (how the ear works, how we see color) and winds up with complex topics like how we perceive music.

A good reference book, it's even fun for browsing, or for sharing with friends and saying "This is so cool! Check this out!" (regarding some of the perceptual illusions and demonstrations etc.) How many textbooks can you say that about? ... Read more

Book Description

"Like the work of Simon, Chomsky, Kuhn, and Foucault, Brian Cantwell Smith's On the Origin of Objects comes into philosophy from the outside and stands to shake things up. This is an essay in fundamental metaphysics, but not like any we've ever seen before. Bringing to ontology the training of a computer scientist, and the sensibilities of an artist-engineer, Smith recreates our understanding of objects essentially from scratch--and changes, I think, everything." -- John Haugeland, Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh

On the Origin of Objects is the culmination of Brian Cantwell Smith's decade-long investigation into the philosophical and metaphysical foundations of computation, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. Based on a sustained critique of the formal tradition that underlies the reigning views, he presents an argument for an embedded, participatory, "irreductionist," metaphysical alternative. Smith seeks nothing less than to revise our understanding not only of the machines we build but also of the world with which they interact.

Smith's ambitious project begins as a search for a comprehensive theory of computation, able to do empirical justice to practice and conceptual justice to the computational theory of mind. A rigorous commitment to these two criteria ultimately leads him to recommend a radical overhaul of our traditional conception of metaphysics. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Theory of Reference, Latour-style
The argumentation is uneven, but the good stretches contain
enough new ideas to make it a good read. The core of
the book is the notion that referential links have to
be *maintained*. A subsidiary theme is that your metaphysics
should satisfy two constraints: it should make sense of
computer science, and it should allow for the world being
intrinsically very, very messy. If you like Bruno Latour,
and you're interested in metaphysics and epistemology, you'll probably like this. (If you dislike Latour, you'll probably dislike this.)

A difficult but fascinating
Fascinating!, Riveting!, Exquisite!. But. This is not an easy book. This is not an easy reading. From the first page, B. Smith throws at the reader the whole apparatus of the philosophical jargon. And it does not ease up towards the end. So, if you are not a philosopher but merely a computer scientist you could be lost. The difficulty of the topic (more about it later) is magnified by the writing style: Smith's style does not have a clarity of Gallileo letters. Nor does it have the brilliance and illuminating simplicity of Russell's essays. It is more like a style of someone who is struggling with his topic and with the language. You have an impression that the author is trying to shake the shackles of the language to express some deep thoughts that are intuitively understandable but are impossible to express, that those ideas he is trying to tell us about, are beyond the normal grasp of the language, beyond its expressive powers. And he makes us fully participate in this struggle. So what is the topic of the book? Smith attempts to answer the oldest of questions man/woman dared to ask- the question of what is out there. And while the question for a long time remained mainly of interest to philosophers, with the advent of computers and computer models it entered the mainstream of the human thought. Anyone who has been struggling with the computer (or computerized) representations and computer models of any system or any process (in fact of anything), will appreciate Smith's discourse.

Smith's thesis is that there is nothing out there such as a box, a house, a river, a cloud, etc.(examples are a bit simplistic and Smith goes beyond them). What is out there is a " constant flux" and we, through our participation in the flux, by our intentional stance "make things" out of it. We segment the reality into what make sense to us because of our intentions (intention in a larger, than everyday, sense) Thus, every struggle to nail down the models of reality using Yes/No abstract logic, will fail because the One reality has multiple realizations, each of them is true and the key to them (and what is missing in our Yes/No models) is the "participation" or the intentional stance. Smith asks questions that strike at the very heart of our understanding of the world and at the very essence of what we think computers are, do, or can do, and how they do. If you are brave enough to probe the same depths of human experience this book is for you.

A tough read but worth it
This book is not for the faint of heart, and if you believe that reading is an intellectual investment rather than just a casual pastime you will certainly benefit from this book. Once you get past Smith's academic language you realize that he has a very important message - that all computational systems are based upon a fundamental philosophical foundation, or ontology as he puts it. Every computational system we design and use is based upon our perceptions(subject) of objects - and the objects and models that arise from the subject-object no-man's land. There is no true platonic ideal, but rather a fuzzy metaphysical boundarys and objects that kinda work sometimes. If you are looking for a book that makes you take a big step in your day to day thinking and how you apply it, this is the book ... Read more

Amazon.com

"There's no escaping it: without a healthy psyche, we create a bogus spirituality," writes Jacqueline Small in Psyche's Seeds. She feels passionately about recognizing the influences of human nature when it comes to spiritual growth. "Both must be honored for us to be healthy and whole." The mythical love story of Psyche and Eros offers the ongoing metaphor for blending the psychological and spiritual principles. (The story is about a human girl who marries a Greek god and teaches him how to love.) For the most part, Small sustains the mythological metaphor throughout the book without making it seem overly contrived. (Probably because we know "psyche" is the root of psychology, thus lending the metaphor more credibility.) Although the melding of psyche and spirit is not an original idea (think Carl Jung, M. Scott Peck), Small offers some inspired discussions, exercises, and opportunities for reflection. Her most accessible and advice-laden section is "How to Use Psyche's Seeds," which offers lessons such as: "Victimhood is a false concept that makes you powerless"; "Sacrifice is not giving up, but taking on"; and "As you cultivate your own natures, all around you begins to grow."--Gail Hudson ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Psyche's Story is everyone's story
There are many ways to gauge the value of a book, an important one for me is how well it bears up to being read a second or third time. This book passes that test. It has legs. The myth of Eros and Psyche is the story of our own lives. It illustrates the challenges of loving another, of waking up to our own inner gifts and strengths and claiming them for ourselves and the world. The story shows that the growth of spirit and the opening of the heart will always take place in the school of hard knocks. Throughout the book Jacqueline gives 'seed thoughts' which the reader can begin to incorporate into their day to day lives. The book is blessed by a subtle tone of non-judgement, acceptance, wisdom and humor. Small writes of her own struggles and 'failures' and shows how these events have helped her to take the necessary steps to change that a life of comfort and ease would have denied. There is power in thinking of your own life in mythical terms. Thank you Jacqueline for a wonderful retelling of this old story that has such resonance with my modern everyday life.

Psyche's message relates to us all
Jacquelyn Small outdid herself with this, her latest, book! Starting out with the love story of Psyche and Eros, she translates the myth into every human's story. I was most impressed with the principles of soul psychology that Jacquie expounded upon as universal "seeds" for living a conscious life. The tasks of Psyche have never been this capably and beautifully expressed. She has presented them as being absolutely relevant to us all. This is a book that you will want to refer back to again and again. A definite "must read"! ... Read more

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Reviews (16)

A first approximation to a science of love
The one thing one can say with confidence before reading this book is that love is universal: it affects everyone on this planet and everyone that has ever lived. Love can occur spontaneously or it can be chosen, and it can be responsible for much pleasure, as well as much pain. It is so common that its celebration has become the topic of countless novels and platitudes, as well as embedded in a myriad of cliches. But can there be a science of love, i.e. can love be examined for example using the frameworks of cognitive neuroscience or neuropharmacology? Does love lend itself to the modus operandi of reductionism that is so characteristic of scientific research?

This book can be considered to be a first approximation to a science of love. Targeted to what has been called the "popular audience" it nevertheless gives enough references that interested readers can consult for more details. It is an interesting book, and the author has done a fine job in presenting her case for a neuroscientific theory of love. It convinces the reader that such a theory is not only possible, but also does not diminish the importance and mystique of romantic love. If indeed in the future a comprehensive neuroscientific theory of romantic love were finally developed, this would not mean that such an in-depth understanding would alter our personal interest in engaging in romance. Love poems and love stories will still be written, jilted lovers will still feel pain, and people will still seek out and find the person of their dreams.

That love is not an isolated process in the human brain is brought out with great clarity in the book. Indeed, love as a neuronal process or emotion is correlated with the emotions of jealousy, anger, and hatred, among others. And since romantic love is such a strong emotion, as are these others, one might be led to believe that it might, as a neuronal process, have a long lifetime. The author sheds some light on this question, quoting research from neuroscience that indicates that romantic love lasts anywhere from twelve to eighteen months. Noting this research, she nevertheless asserts that the actual lifetime of romantic love is highly variable, depending greatly on the individuals that are involved.

The most interesting part of the book was chapter 3, which is a discussion on the experimental techniques that were used by the author to study which parts of the brain are activated when a person is strongly in love, and a discussion of the brain chemistry of love. Her discussion summarizes some of her research that she conducted in 1996, with the goal of collecting data on the role of chemicals such as dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. Dopamine in suitable levels can produce a more focused attention and highly motivated goal-directed behavior, all of these being characteristic of romantic love, the author asserts. As for norepinephrine, it can produce high energy, loss of appetite, insomnia, and extremely enhanced memory capabilities, which are again associated with romantic love. Serotonin, which has been used to treat individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder, is implicated by the author in explaining why people in love seem to think incessantly about the object of their love. The author though cautions the reader that her belief that these chemicals play a role in romantic love must be weighed against the fact that these chemicals can produce different effects depending on their dose. In addition, they perform different functions depending on the region of the brain, and each will interact with the other in different ways depending on the circumstances. The author though takes as a working hypothesis that romantic love is caused by elevated levels of dopamine or norepinephrine, and decreased levels of serotonin.

The author reports that her experiments in fMRI scans indicate that there is activity in the part of the brain called the caudate nucleus when a person is strongly in love. Subjects that were in love were presented a photo of their sweetheart and the scans indicated that the caudate is highly activated when this was done. This apparently was a surprise to the author, for she states that this region was widely known to be responsible for the directing of body movement, and only has recently been shown to be also responsible for sensations of pleasure and for motivation to gain rewards. According to the author, the data indicated that the more passionate the person was about their loved one, the more active the caudate was. As stated this statement is somewhat suspect, since one would need an independent criteria for determining the degree of passion in the subject at hand. In addition to the caudate, the scans revealed that the brain region that becomes active when people eat chocolate also becomes active when people are passionately in love. This result has been widely publicized in the press and Hollywood movies, interestingly.

Another result, described as "striking" by the author, was that the fMRI experiments revealed activity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the brain. The VTA has been revealed to be the center of the reward circuitry of the brain, and is responsible for the creation of dopamine-making cells, thus adding support to her working hypothesis. Because of the association with motivational centers of the brain, the author also claims that these experiments verified that romantic love is a fundamental human mating drive. Thus it can be hard to control, like other drives such as hunger or thirst. The author is careful to note that her experiments did not establish the role of norepinephrine and serotonin in romantic love. In addition, the role of the "thinking" part of the brain, namely the cerebral cortex, was not revealed in these experiments.

Best of Baboon Love available for Humans
Capacity to love might be considered one of the essential components of love. The review article that identifies baboons as driven to express that love in the grooming exercises they do, and the desire to groom the one to whom they are attracted is likely a natural function of the desire to touch, nurture and fondle the ones we love. Trying to refrain is difficult at best but may provide the indicator of when love does and does not exist. Presuming baboons have the need to nourish the soul as well as by the act of grooming, adding the emotional support to the intended, we might presume that humans are capable of the same, and further, that humans also tend to incorporate the brain in that endeavor, thereby enhancing the natural feelings into the expressive communication that creates bonding, similar to what is done with a child, but especially contoured and molded into the attentions that are most likely to be suitable for that age. Lacking those initially, it's likely that love may be missing, or unable to be well expressed. Through time, the modification of habits formed from repetition reduce the need to touch and fondle since the emotional feeling is programmed and stays present between couples. However, it is a wise couple that continues to reinforce those feelings with continued efforts to express that love, since through that comfort, their relationship is made all the more solid, and loving. The capacity to love, however, is directly related to having been loved, and the desire to show that love through actions meant to ritualize the relationship and reduce uncertainty. If baboons are smart enough to do that, shouldn't human be also?

An excellent book for good and sad endings!
So far, I have read about 80 to 100 books on the topic of love everything from european poetry to sternberg's love theory with a few trashy cosmopolitan articles in between (I do admit, Ihave a clear obsession to understand what love is truly about).

Fisher's book has covered many aspects of evolutionary biology that have remained osbcured from many authors in the past. In many ways this book demystifies the concept of love and gives the reader a clear foundation of the biological processes that lie hidden from shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. H. Fisher picks some elegant human and non-human primate experiments to illustrate her ideas and goes beyond the lab to explain the every day phenomenon of love and attraction.

In summary, I recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic, including those who are deeply in love or to anyone out there who has lost a wonderful person and is looking for ways to understand a bit more.

How do I love thee...? With dopamine!
One must first congratulate Dr. Fisher for attempting to try to explain the machinations of human love and why we choose who we fall in love with. Universal questions, of course, and ones that scientists, poets, composers and dramatists have pondered for centuries. And Dr. Fisher does rise to the occasion, offering numerous and fascinating examples of love in the animal kingdom and how it developed into human love, romantic love and attachment over thousands of years. But certain questions remain unanswered. Dr. Fisher never addresses as to why certain animals, especially swans, mate for life and will literally pine away for a lost partner. Death is also not an issue in Dr. Fisher's book - something that definitely needed addressing - as we are furnished with pages on stalking, depression, suicide and even murder, but nothing on how a loved one responds after the death of its mate. Also requiring additional exploration and examination are the subjects of love, courtships and attachments form by gay and lesbian couples. Since, as Dr. Fisher explains, love developed as a necessary resource for mating and rearing children, than how do you explain why one man is attracted to another or why one woman woos another female? If two men or two women fall in love, it is most certainly not for procreative purposes. Such questions and the theories behind them would make absorbing reading. Sadly, Dr. Fisher only glosses over them in a curt, dismissive manner. Also, the book needed the skills of a good editor since Dr. Fisher is frequently redundant. Sentences are repeated almost verbatum from chapter to chapter, endlessly extolling Dr. Fisher's chemical cocktail that she believes is the human brain's recipe for romantic love. At times it almost seems as if the author is convinced that her readers cannot remember such details from page to page. All in all, Dr. Fisher has written an intriguing book, one that is readable and understandable, but, in the end, she raises far more questions then she answers. Perhaps, this was her intent?

Love conquers this book
Is nothing sacred? Now science is trying to stick its cold clinical explanatory fingers into our most cherished of human emotions: romantic love. It's surprising that such a book was written, for like matters of morality, ethics, religion, and personal opinions, the topic of love is supposed to be outside of science's grasp, unable to be contained in a test tube.

Yet the author tries. Using evolution as the lens through which to analyze love, some pretty crazy ideas are put forth, not the least of which is that all animals are claimed to have romantic love. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time picturing a pair of seals or hyenas or newts having acandlelight dinner, commenting on how beautiful the full moon is, and looking forward to growing old together in holy matrimony.

Cold, often silly ideas are out forth on why we choose partners. Maybe his/her ears and nose are symmetrical! Her waist-to-hip ratio isn't bad either! I think I'll propose right now! I feel a dopamine and seratonine rush! Bah. All the chemical tests and brain scans in the world can't explain away True Love. Fisher is looking for love in all the wrong places. Love conquers all, including this book's attempts to explain it away. ... Read more

Book Description

Building upon the strengths of prior editions, this text helps students to understand reasoning in the context of real-world experience and examples. Emphasizing clear explanations and the application of techniques, the text provides sufficient basic logic without losing students in theory and a wealth of longer real-life passages such as newspaper editorials and essays. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Pretty good introduction
This book was the required text for a freshman college level class that I took on logic and reasoning. I found it to be a pretty good introduction, but I also thought the book was a bit thin in certain areas. This book is best as an introduction for people who have little or no familiarity with deductive and inductive logic, logical fallacies, truth trees etc. For those looking for more depth, I would recommend the book "Introduction to Logic" by Copi and Cohen. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Almost everyone agrees that we possess consciousness, but as this book demonstrates, that's where the agreement ends. What can we say about the mind without fear of contradiction? Not much, and that's how the study of consciousness stands out from other scientific and philosophical endeavors--the field's great minds argue cogently with little common ground, and nothing is safe from questioning.

For the adventurous and thoughtful reader, this is a paradise on the frontiers of knowledge. The Nature of Consciousness presumes a basic familiarity with science and philosophy, as well as a willingness to think and read carefully. With articles by such bright lights as Daniel Dennett, John Searle, Patricia Smith Churchland, and even the great William James, it provides both a comprehensive overview of the field and in-depth analyses of such issues as the mind-body problem and how we can study a phenomenon that may not be observed directly. It is best read as an update on Western scientific and philosophical replies to one of the great questions: Who are we? Given the universal appeal of such a question, the reader will undoubtedly find much within to challenge, puzzle, frustrate, and delight. --Rob Lightner ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Most comprehesive book out there on the topic.
This book is easy to review, and a no-brainer for people interested on consicousness studies. It is quite simply the most complete anthology on the philosophy of consciousness out there. Papers from William James, to Dennett, Searle, Block, Naegel, and over 50 others. Qualia, explanatory gaps, zombies, inverted qualia, some scientific papers, one of the best intoductions to the field out there.....700+ pages of consciousness, consciousness, consciousness....this is essential reading, and having for anyopne interested in philosophy of mind, and scientists of mind too...the fastest way to familiarize with the vast literature on the subject. The table of contents is reason enough to buy this book, and I will not bore you with more.

Of course, this is a must for those studying cogsci
It's a thick book and has lots of stuffs in it. Nearly all of most important philosophical works on consciousness in recent years are brought together in this single volume. Naturally, this is a textbook for graduate-level courses in cognitive science or philosophy of mind. And makes a quite nice source book for those who want to further their studies in artifical intelligence. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Searching for Marilee Sprenger
I highly recommend Ms. Sprenger's book. I want to invite her to speak at an education conference but am having difficultly locating her. If any one has information about how I can reach her, I would appreciate it. Even a clue, like what state or city does she reside in, would be very helpful. Of course an e-amil address is preferable.

Practical information on how the brain learns
I am the director of secondary school student teachers at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri. I teach courses in Educational Psychology, Teaching and Classroom Management, and Middle School Philosophy. I have found this book to be very helpful in giving practical information about how the brain learns and retains information. ... Read more

Book Description

Sharp critical thinking and reasoning skills will not just enhance performance on tests, but in every aspect of life. Reasoning Skills Success: In 20 Minutes a day will help the reader learn and master the basics, such as problem solving strategies, logic skills, thinking vs. knowing, inductive reasoning, and analyzing facts. This book shows the reader specific techniques for thinking clearly and logically in an easy 20-step program. Each step takes just twenty minutes a day. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Great!
You would think that reasoning skills are just common sense, but they are not! This book had lots of information about deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, and logical fallacies, and the practice really helped me apply what I learned. If you need practice for an exam, or just want to learn more, this is a great book!

It have every reason to buy!
I costed only 5days for master the basic skill.
In 2001-Summer I used this text for college english study,
I am japanese,And not a fluently English Speaker.
But this book help me to understand [How to read,How to write].
I see,this book is the best one,as you can get,certain.
It is true,that Over 100p is larger for read as magazines.
But if you get the skill,You can use that in your life
as you live!
I recommneded this book.because that reason.
It is only...You have to pay 12$, to be equal 10000$super skills.

Thanks! Member of OSP student. Kurose ... Read more

Book Description

(Psychology Press) Reviews basic issues and mechanisms; attention and memory; includes a chapter on the cognitive neuropsychology of the aging brain; and discusses the implications of age-related changes in cognitive function for everyday life. For undergraduate and beginning graduate students. Softcover. ... Read more

Book Description

As John Casti wrote, "Finally, a book that really does explain consciousness." This groundbreaking work by Denmark's leading science writer draws on psychology, evolutionary biology, information theory, and other disciplines to argue its revolutionary point: that consciousness represents only an infinitesimal fraction of our ability to process information. Although we are unaware of it, our brains sift through and discard billions of pieces of data in order to allow us to understand the world around us. In fact, most of what we call thought is actually the unconscious discarding of information. What our consciousness rejects constitutes the most valuable part of ourselves, the "Me" that the "I" draws on for most of our actions--fluent speech, riding a bicycle, anything involving expertise. No wonder that, in this age of information, so many of us feel empty and dissatisfied. As engaging as it is insightful, this important book encourages us to rely more on what our instincts and our senses tell us so that we can better appreciate the richness of human life. ... Read more

Reviews (23)

One of the best explanations of conscious awareness so far
I'm a big fan of the recent books attempting to explain consciousness: Dennett, the Churchlands, Owen Flannagan, Damasio, Edleman, Crick, Calvin, and so on. "The User Illusion" is unique among this crowd in two ways. First, it builds from a broader base of support, in information theory and thermodynamics. Second, it does not focus on the brain, but on the experience of consciousness. This seems at first to be a weakness, but it turns out to be a strength because what the author attempts to explain is how the experience of consciousness relates to the reality around us.

In this book, a number of different lines of evidence converge on the profoundly scientific but uncomfortably counter-intuitive conclusion that conscious awareness is an extremely narrow bandwidth simulation used to help create a useful illusion of an "I" who sees all , knows all, and can explain all.

Yet the mental processes actually driving our behavior are (and need to be) far more vast and process a rich tapestry of information around us that conscious awareness cannot comprehend without highly structuring it first. So the old notion of an "unconscious mind" is not wrong because we have no "unconscious," but because our entire mind is unconscious, with a tiny but critical feature of being able to observe and explain itself, as if an outside observer.

This fits so well with the social psychological self-perception research, and recent research into the perception of pain and other sensations, that it has a striking ring of truth about it.

This does lead to some difficult conceptual problems. A chapter is devoted to the odd result discovered by Benjamin Libet (also featured prominently in Dennett's Consciousness Explained, but not explained nearly so clearly there). Libet observed that the brain seems to prepare for a planned action a half second before we realize we have chosen to perform the action. This dramatically makes the author's point that human experience proceeds from sensing to interpreting teh sensation within a simulation of reality, to experiencing. If we accept that the brain has to create its own simulation in order for us to experience something, there's no reason why the simulation can't bias our perception of when we chose to act. So we act out of a larger, richer self, but experience ourselves as acting from a narrowly defined self-aware self with no real privileged insight into the mental processes behind it.

This may well be the best discussion of conscious awareness yet presented in a generally readable form. But it does have some glaring weaknesses. The author takes great pains to build this model of conscious awareness from the ground up, but then applies it in a brief and haphazard manner to all sorts of things that deserve much more thought, such as religion, hypnosis, dreams, and so on. Even with the few weaknesses, the case made for the author's view of conscious awareness is both compelling and useful for further discussions, because it is built on a solid scientific and mathematical foundation, and the author manages to remain within areas that are already well studied. It isn't clear whether the author's model makes many testable predictions beyond those made by the underlying theories of perception, but it does provide a larger explanatory framework that is at once sophisticated and comprehensible.

Lacks rigour
Nrretranders is not a scientist or researcher, but rather a science journalist. That isn't necessarliy a bad thing in itself, but his book clearly suffers for his lack of scientific training, and the rigour it would have introduced. User Illusion reads like a series of breezy, vastly oversimplified pop-sci articles. His concepts - ranging from info theory to thermodynamics, are strung together with the loosest of connections. For example, he compares the information intake of our senses with that processed by our consciousness in terms of bits. But, he clearly has no formal definition of a bit in mind, using it to refer to anything from an actual binary bit, all the way up to an entire piece of music. This makes it impossible to take his comparison seriously. Consciousness itself is never even formally defined. His treatment near the end of the earth's energy intake, and even dirty diapers, in terms of information theory is laughable. The only useful take-away here is the reminder that there is a lot more going on inside our heads than we are consciously aware of. A useful reminder, but that should not be news to anyone. User Illusion also makes a good index of current (in 1991) 'sexy' science topics such as complexity.

How scientific is this book ?
This book contains some fascinating theories that I didn't know yet, or had never looked at it that way. For instance the part about thermodynamics and the connection with information theory and probability theory I found very interesting,although it has little to do with consciousness.

I have one serious problem with the book : Norretranders is not intellectually honest. He attempts too much to force his theory upon his readers, all the while oversimplifying, using suggestive language (the word 'information' is used in different contexts, with different meanings and it doesn't become clear from reading the text), and avoiding problematic questions.
The result is that the book is very tiresome to read, and its conclusions cannot be trusted.
It raised some interesting points though, that's the reason why I 've continued reading.

Informative, not about consciousness, and dated.
This book is a bit dated, and not really illuminating for someone interested in consciousness studies or behavioral/brain sciences. The only science that the author discusses that really is about consciousess, is Libet's work. Now, this does not mean that the book itself is not informative. I'm just saying that it really does not explain consciousness, and I doubt it was really meant to. If there is one thing one can get out of the book, concerning consciousness, it is that it has limited capacity, and most processing is unconscious. But this is not really an eye-opening revelation. The book is a great piece of popular science, that is sure enough.
The author gets everything mixed in a blend of cahos, complexity, computability, formal systems, a bit of neuroscience and cognitive science, physics, information theory, and social science speculation. The result is not that interesting, but the journey itself is great. The explanation of information theory is really simple and, well, informative. The chapters on physics and chaos are not really very good, and serve only as steps towards one of the main ideas of the book, namely, that subjectivity is important in an understanding of the physical world. Libets work, dealing