From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.

    Now in The Undiscovered Mind he focuses on the single most important scientific enterprise of all -- the effort to understand the human mind. Horgan takes us inside laboratories, hospitals, and universities to meet neuro-scientists, Freudian analysts, electroshock therapists, behavioral geneticists, evolutionary psychologists, artificial intelligence engineers, and philosophers of consciousness. He looks into the persistent explanatory gap between mind and body that Socrates pondered and shows that it has not been bridged. He investigates what he calls the "Humpty Dumpty dilemma," the fact that neuroscientists can break the brain and mind into pieces but cannot put the pieces back together again. He presents evidence that the placebo effect is the primary ingredient of psychotherapy, Prozac, and other treatments for mental disorders. As Horgan shows, the mystery of human consciousness, of why and how we think, remains so impregnable that to expect the attempts of scientific method and technology to penetrate it anytime soon is absurd.

    With microscopes and brain scans, with psychological experiments and breakthroughs in genetics, neuroscientists are developing new theories about every aspect of our minds from the nature of consciousness to the causes of disorders like autism and schizophrenia. In Brain Cuttings, award-winning science writer Carl Zimmer takes readers on fascinating explorations of the frontiers of research, shedding light on our innermost existence the speed of thought, our perception of time, the complex flashes of electricity that give rise to fear and love, and more.

    The Archaeology of Mind presents an affective neuroscience approach which takes into consideration basic mental processes, brain functions, and emotional behaviors that all mammals share to locate the neural mechanisms of emotional expression. It reveals for the first time the deep neural sources of our values and basic emotional feelings.This book elaborates on the seven emotional systems that explain how we live and behave. These systems originate in deep areas of the brain that are remarkably similar across all mammalian species. When they are disrupted, we find the origins of emotional disorders:- SEEKING: how the brain generates a euphoric and expectant response- FEAR: how the brain responds to the threat of physical danger and death- RAGE: sources of irritation and fury in the brain- LUST: how sexual desire and attachments are elaborated in the brain- CARE: sources of maternal nurturance- GRIEF: sources of non-sexual attachments- PLAY: how the brain generates joyous, rough-and-tumble interactions- SELF: a hypothesis explaining how affects might be elaborated in the brainThe book offers an evidence-based evolutionary taxonomy of emotions and affects and, as such, a brand-new clinical paradigm for treating psychiatric disorders in clinical practice.

    Highly recommended, it is likely to prove one of the most thought-provoking books of the year."--Tyler Cowen, Marginal RevolutionHow did human minds become so different from those of other animals? What accounts for our capacity to understand the way the physical world works, to think ourselves into the minds of others, to gossip, read, tell stories about the past, and imagine the future? These questions are not new: they have been debated by philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, evolutionists, and neurobiologists over the course of centuries. One explanation widely accepted today is that humans have special cognitive instincts. Unlike other living animal species, we are born with complicated mechanisms for reasoning about causation, reading the minds of others, copying behaviors, and using language.Cecilia Heyes agrees that adult humans have impressive pieces of cognitive equipment. In her framing, however, these cognitive gadgets are not instincts programmed in the genes but are constructed in the course of childhood through social interaction. Cognitive gadgets are products of cultural evolution, rather than genetic evolution. At birth, the minds of human babies are only subtly different from the minds of newborn chimpanzees. We are friendlier, our attention is drawn to different things, and we have a capacity to learn and remember that outstrips the abilities of newborn chimpanzees. Yet when these subtle differences are exposed to culture-soaked human environments, they have enormous effects. They enable us to upload distinctively human ways of thinking from the social world around us.As Cognitive Gadgets makes clear, from birth our malleable human minds can learn through culture not only what to think but how to think it.

    Right? Wrong, says Alex Rosenberg in How History Gets Things Wrong. Feeling especially well-informed after reading a book of popular history on the best-seller list? Don't. Narrative history is always, always wrong. It's not just incomplete or inaccurate but deeply wrong, as wrong as Ptolemaic astronomy. We no longer believe that the earth is the center of the universe. Why do we still believe in historical narrative? Our attachment to history as a vehicle for understanding has a long Darwinian pedigree and a genetic basis. Our love of stories is hard-wired. Neuroscience reveals that human evolution shaped a tool useful for survival into a defective theory of human nature.Stories historians tell, Rosenberg continues, are not only wrong but harmful. Israel and Palestine, for example, have dueling narratives of dispossession that prevent one side from compromising with the other. Henry Kissinger applied lessons drawn from the Congress of Vienna to American foreign policy with disastrous results. Human evolution improved primate mind reading—the ability to anticipate the behavior of others, whether predators, prey, or cooperators—to get us to the top of the African food chain. Now, however, this hard-wired capacity makes us think we can understand history—what the Kaiser was thinking in 1914, why Hitler declared war on the United States—by uncovering the narratives of what happened and why. In fact, Rosenberg argues, we will only understand history if we don't make it into a story.

    Based in the latest research in neuroscience, this audiobook offers dozens of little things you can do every day to rewire your brain and create an upward spiral towards a happier, healthier life.Depression doesn't happen all at once. It starts gradually and builds momentum over time. If you go through a difficult experience, you may stop taking care of yourself. You may stop exercising and eating healthy, which will end up making you feel even worse as time goes on. You are caught in a downward spiral, but you may feel too tired, too overwhelmed, and too scared to try and pull yourself back up. The good news is that just one small step can be a step in the right direction.In The Upward Spiral, neuroscientist Alex Korb demystifies the neurological processes in the brain that cause depression and offers effective ways to get better "one little step at a time". In the book, you'll discover that there isn't "one big solution" that will solve your depression. Instead, there are dozens of small, practical things you can do to alleviate your symptoms and start healing. Some are as simple as relaxing certain muscles to reduce feelings of anxiety, while others involve making small efforts toward more positive social interactions. Small steps in the right direction can have profound effects giving you the power to literally "reshape" your brain.Like most people, you probably didn't wake up one day and find yourself completely depressed. Instead, it probably happened over time, as a series of reactions to difficult situations and negative thinking. But if you are ready to reverse the trajectory of your depression and find lasting happiness, this book will show you how.

    These black-and-white and vibrantly colored images, many resembling abstract art, are employed daily by scientists around the world, but most have never before been seen by the general public. Each chapter addresses a different set of techniques for studying the brain as revealed through the images, and each is introduced by a leading scientist in that field of study. Author Carl Schoonover’s captions provide detailed explanations of each image as well as the major insights gained by scientists over the course of the past 20 years. Accessible to a wide audience, this book reveals the elegant methods applied to study the mind, giving readers a peek at its innermost workings, helping us to understand them, and offering clues about what may lie ahead. Praise for Portraits of the Mind: "An odyssey through the brain, illuminated by a rainbow" --New York Times "Stunning images" --Scientific American "The collection of images in the new book Portraits of the Mind is truly impressive . . . The mix of history, science and art is terrific." -Wired.com "History, science, and art come together to provide a unique perspective on what's going on upstairs." --New Yorker.com "No knowledge of the source or subject matter of these images is necessary; the book is justified by their beauty alone." --Science "A remarkable new book"- -Discover.com "John Keats's insistence that truth is beauty is exemplified by Carl Schoonover's wonderful book Portraits of the Mind. Since one cannot understand the present without examining the past, this book offers a delightful and instructive way of accomplishing just that. I enthusiastically recommend this beautiful book both to students of brain science and to lovers of art." -Eric R. Kandel, MD, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2000; University Professor at Columbia; Fred Kavli Professor and Director, Kavli Institute for Brain Science; Senior Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and author of In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind "Portraits of the Mind achieves a rare combination of beauty and knowledge. Its images of the brain are mesmerizing, from medieval engravings to modern visualizations as gorgeously abstract as anything by Rothko or de Kooning. And in explaining the nature of these images, this book also delivers an enlightening, up-to-date history of neuroscience." -Carl Zimmer, author of Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain-and How It Changed the World and The Mind's Eye Goes Blind: Fifteen Journeys Through the Brain "Portraits of the Mind is a remarkable book that combines beautifully reproduced illustrations of the nervous system as it has been visualized over the centuries, as well as lively and authoritative commentaries by some of today's leading neuroscientists. It will be enjoyed by professionals and general readers alike." --Dale Purves, MD, Professor of Neurobiology, Psychology and Neuroscience; and Philosophy at Duke University

    Written in short, carefully numbered paragraphs of extreme brilliance, it captured the imagination of a generation of philosophers. For Wittgenstein, logic was something we use to conquer a reality which is in itself both elusive and unobtainable. He famously summarized the book in the following words: 'What can be said at all can be said clearly; and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.' David Pears and Brian McGuinness received the highest praise for their meticulous translation. The work is prefaced by Bertrand Russell's original introduction to the first English edition.

    Ong offers fascinating insights into oral genres across the globe and through time, and examines the rise of abstract philosophical and scientific thinking. He considers the impact of orality-literacy studies not only on literary criticism and theory but on our very understanding of what it is to be a human being, conscious of self and other.This is a book no reader, writer or speaker should be without.

    Ratey provides insight into the basic structure and chemistry of the brain, and demonstrates how its systems shape our perceptions, emotions, and behavior. By giving us a greater understanding of how the brain responds to the guidance of its user, he provides us with knowledge that can enable us to improve our lives.In A User’s Guide to the Brain, Ratey clearly and succinctly surveys what scientists now know about the brain and how we use it. He looks at the brain as a malleable organ capable of improvement and change, like any muscle, and examines the way specific motor functions might be applied to overcome neural disorders ranging from everyday shyness to autism. Drawing on examples from his practice and from everyday life, Ratey illustrates that the most important lesson we can learn about our brains is how to use them to their maximum potential.

    It contains everything the student needs to know about the psychology of language, including how we acquire, understand, produce, and store language. The third edition contains new chapters on how children learn to read, and how language is used in everyday settings. It also describes recent research on the impact of new techniques of brain imaging.The text is comprehensive and written in a lively and accessible style. It covers all the main topics in this complex field, focusing on reading, writing, speaking, and listening in both adult and child language. There is an emphasis on language processing as well as language production and coverage of the social basis of language. The text covers recent connectionist models of language, describing complex ideas in a clear and approachable manner. Following a strong developmental theme, the text describes how children acquire language (sometimes more than one), and also how they learn to read. The Psychology of Language also demonstrates how language is related to the brain and to other aspects of cognition.The Psychology of Language assumes no prior knowledge other than a grounding in the basic concepts of cognitive psychology. This third edition of this bestselling textbook will be essential reading for any student of cognition, psycholinguistics or the psychology of language. It will also be useful for those on speech and language therapy courses.

    Topics: elimination of metaphysics, function of philosophy, nature of philosophical analysis, the a priori, truth & probability, critique of ethics & theology, self & the common world etc.IntroductionThe elimination of metaphysicsThe function of philosophy The nature of philosophical analysisThe a priori Truth & probabilityCritique of ethics & theologyThe self & the common worldSolutions of outstanding philosophical disputesIndex

    Worldwide some 380 million people speak English as a first language and some 600 million as a second language. A staggering one billion people are believed to be learning it. English is the premier international language in communications, science, business, aviation, entertainment, and diplomacy and also on the Internet. It has been one of the official languages of the United Nations since its founding in 1945. It is considered by many good judges to be well on the way to becoming the world's first universal language. Author Philip Gooden tells the story of the English language in all its richness and variety. From the intriguing origins and changing definitions of common words such as 'OK', 'beserk', 'curfew', 'cabal' and 'pow-wow', to the massive transformations wrought in the vocabulary and structure of the language by Anglo-Saxon and Norman conquest, through to the literary triumphs of Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales and the works of Shakespeare. The Story of English is a fascinating tale of linguistic, social and cultural transformation, and one that is accessibly and authoritatively told by an author in perfect command of his material.

    In captivity, octopuses have been known to identify individual human keepers, raid neighboring tanks for food, turn off lightbulbs by spouting jets of water, plug drains, and make daring escapes. How is it that a creature with such gifts evolved through an evolutionary lineage so radically distant from our own? What does it mean that evolution built minds not once but at least twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter?In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how subjective experience crept into being—how nature became aware of itself. As Godfrey-Smith stresses, it is a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared. Tracking the mind’s fitful development, Godfrey-Smith shows how unruly clumps of seaborne cells began living together and became capable of sensing, acting, and signaling. As these primitive organisms became more entangled with others, they grew more complicated. The first nervous systems evolved, probably in ancient relatives of jellyfish; later on, the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous mollusks, abandoned their shells and rose above the ocean floor, searching for prey and acquiring the greater intelligence needed to do so. Taking an independent route, mammals and birds later began their own evolutionary journeys.But what kind of intelligence do cephalopods possess? Drawing on the latest scientific research and his own scuba-diving adventures, Godfrey-Smith probes the many mysteries that surround the lineage. How did the octopus, a solitary creature with little social life, become so smart? What is it like to have eight tentacles that are so packed with neurons that they virtually “think for themselves”? What happens when some octopuses abandon their hermit-like ways and congregate, as they do in a unique location off the coast of Australia?By tracing the question of inner life back to its roots and comparing human beings with our most remarkable animal relatives, Godfrey-Smith casts crucial new light on the octopus mind—and on our own.