Dick, who tells the story of a man trapped on a spaceship of the somnolent, unable to sleep and slowly losing his mind; Shirley Jackson, who takes us on a nightmarish trip across town with a young secretary; and Oliver Sacks, who presents us with an aging hippie who possesses no memory of anything that has taken place since the early seventies.What Lethem has done is nothing less than define a new genre of literature-the amnesia story-and in the process he invites us to sit down, pick up the book, and begin to forget.Also including: John Franklin Bardin, Donald Barthelme, Thomas M. Disch, Karn Joy Fowler, David Grand, Anna Kavan, Haruki Murakami, Flann O'Brien, Edmund White, and many others.Includes:Dream science by Thomas PalmerThe night fave up by Julio CortazarOther people by Martin AmisNightmare by Shirley JacksonMemories of amnesia by Lawrence ShainbergWarm by Robert SheckleySoul walker by Brian FawcettCowboys don't cry by L.J. DavisThe second coming by Walker PercyFunes, his memory by Jorge Luis BorgesThe black curtain by Cornell WoolrichThe third policeman by Flann O'BrienFive fucks by Jonathan LethemForgetting Elena by Edmund WhiteSarah Canary by Karen Joy FowlerThe last hippie by Oliver SacksNotes toward a history of the seventies by Geoffrey O'BrienTicket to ride by Dennis PotterThe fall of the Roman Empire, the 1881 Indian uprising, Hitler's invasion of Poland, and the realm of raging winds by Haruki MurakamiGeoffrey Sonnabend's obliscence: theories of forgetting and the problem of matter-an encapsulation by Valentine WorthI hope I shall arrive soon by Philip K. DickThe zebra struck by Anna KavanThe squirrel cage by Thomas M. DischLouse by David GrandGame by Donald BarthelmeThe affirmation by Christopher Priest by Kleinzeit by Russell HobanDays between stations by Steve EricsonThat in Aleppo once by Vladimir NabokovCarnation, lily, lily, rose by Kelly Link

    A man who sees cartoon characters running across the room; a girl whose world turns all Alice in Wonderland; another who transforms into a ragdoll whenever she even thinks about moving.The brain is the most complex structure in the universe. Neurologists must puzzle out life-changing diagnoses from the tiniest of clues. It’s the ultimate medical detective work. In this riveting book, one of the UK’s leading neurologists will take you with her as she follows the clues of her patients’ symptoms. It’s a journey that will open your eyes to the unfathomable intricacies of our brains, and the infinite variety of human capacity and experience.

    This text introduces the basic mathematical and computational methods of theoretical neuroscience and presents applications in a variety of areas including vision, sensory-motor integration, development, learning, and memory.The book is divided into three parts. Part I discusses the relationship between sensory stimuli and neural responses, focusing on the representation of information by the spiking activity of neurons. Part II discusses the modeling of neurons and neural circuits on the basis of cellular and synaptic biophysics. Part III analyzes the role of plasticity in development and learning. An appendix covers the mathematical methods used, and exercises are available on the book's Web site.

    Real rationality, of the sort studied by psychologists, social scientists, and mathematicians. The kind of rationality where you make good decisions, even when it's hard; where you reason well, even in the face of massive uncertainty; where you recognize and make full use of your fuzzy intuitions and emotions, rather than trying to discard them. In "Rationality: From AI to Zombies," Eliezer Yudkowsky explains the science underlying human irrationality with a mix of fables, argumentative essays, and personal vignettes. These eye-opening accounts of how the mind works (and how, all too often, it doesn't!) are then put to the test through some genuinely difficult puzzles: computer scientists' debates about the future of artificial intelligence (AI), physicists' debates about the relationship between the quantum and classical worlds, philosophers' debates about the metaphysics of zombies and the nature of morality, and many more. In the process, "Rationality: From AI to Zombies" delves into the human significance of correct reasoning more deeply than you'll find in any conventional textbook on cognitive science or philosophy of mind. A decision theorist and researcher at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, Yudkowsky published earlier drafts of his writings to the websites Overcoming Bias and Less Wrong. "Rationality: From AI to Zombies" compiles six volumes of Yudkowsky's essays into a single electronic tome. Collectively, these sequences of linked essays serve as a rich and lively introduction to the science—and the art—of human rationality.