I always like book reviews that combine books that might not at first seem to have that much in common. In the new issue of Natural History, the neuroscientist Williams Calvin reviews Soul Made Flesh along with The Birth of the Mind, a fascinating book by Gary Marcus of NYU. If you haven't heard of Marcus's new book--which explores how genes produce minds--definitely check it out.
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Guest Post by Seth Herd.
I disagree with many of Gary Marcus's theories, but I think that his book Kluge is important, entertaining, and even accurate. The book's main thesis is that if God had designed the human mind, He would've done a better job. I'm not all that interested in arguments…
As an outsider, I'm glad to hear all the new developments coming from those who study human behavior. It would seem from my ignorant, non-expert, outside-of-the-field perspective that there is a revolution going on. Many have abandoned the platonic view of thought, the juvenile Freudian view of…
Books have been bubbling up from the comments cauldron. Jim Harrison has asked what I think of Simon Conway Morris's Life's Solution. Web Webster says Cosmos was his first favorite science book and asks for suggestions. Humboldt and Feyerband make an appearance too. It's ironic that two forms of…
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the…
This Nat. Hist. review makes me regret letting my subscription lapse.
So many books on the mind now, it's hard to know who or what to read. Any thorough study should at least consider phenomology, as Dan Lloyd does in his book, Radiant Cool.
The studies that action precedes thought explain a lot but certainly not all. Most thinking may be only rationalizing about what we just did. But what about, for example, one person lifting her arm because another asks her to do so? In this case two person's mental activity seems to have preceded action.
You always need to dig deeper, or move to a more subtle level of abstraction, it seems, in investigating consciousness. Reductionism really shows its limits here -- it may overlook crucial data if used too confidently.