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Author: Francisco Aboitiz
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262049023
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 357
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Book Description
A panoramic view of the evolution of life on our planet, from its origins to humanity’s future. In A History of Bodies, Brains, and Minds, Francisco Aboitiz provides a brief history of life, the brain, and cognition, from the earliest living beings to our own species. The author proceeds from the basic premise that, since evolution by natural selection is the process underlying the origin of life and its evolution on earth, the brain—and thus our minds—must also be the result of biological evolution. The aim of this book is to narrate how animal bodies came to be built with their nervous systems and how our species evolved with culture, technology, language, and consciousness. The book is organized in four parts, each delving into a different aspect of evolutionary development: • Definitions lays the groundwork by discussing the principles of biological evolution and explores the definition and mechanisms of life itself. • Beginnings describes the origins of life, starting from the emergence of the first cells to the development of neurons as the building blocks for brain networks. • The Rise of Bodies and Brains examines the evolution of animals with bilateral symmetry, the emergence of chordates and vertebrates, and the expansion and diversification of the vertebrate brain. • A Singular Ape explores Homo sapiens and our species’ unique traits, such as bipedality, tool use, culture, language, communication, and consciousness. Comprehensive and deeply insightful, this book helps us understand our place in the natural world and the cosmos—as well as what the future might hold for life on earth.
Author: Francisco Aboitiz
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262049023
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 357
Get Book Here
Book Description
A panoramic view of the evolution of life on our planet, from its origins to humanity’s future. In A History of Bodies, Brains, and Minds, Francisco Aboitiz provides a brief history of life, the brain, and cognition, from the earliest living beings to our own species. The author proceeds from the basic premise that, since evolution by natural selection is the process underlying the origin of life and its evolution on earth, the brain—and thus our minds—must also be the result of biological evolution. The aim of this book is to narrate how animal bodies came to be built with their nervous systems and how our species evolved with culture, technology, language, and consciousness. The book is organized in four parts, each delving into a different aspect of evolutionary development: • Definitions lays the groundwork by discussing the principles of biological evolution and explores the definition and mechanisms of life itself. • Beginnings describes the origins of life, starting from the emergence of the first cells to the development of neurons as the building blocks for brain networks. • The Rise of Bodies and Brains examines the evolution of animals with bilateral symmetry, the emergence of chordates and vertebrates, and the expansion and diversification of the vertebrate brain. • A Singular Ape explores Homo sapiens and our species’ unique traits, such as bipedality, tool use, culture, language, communication, and consciousness. Comprehensive and deeply insightful, this book helps us understand our place in the natural world and the cosmos—as well as what the future might hold for life on earth.
Author: Bret Stetka
Publisher: Timber Press
ISBN: 1604699884
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273
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Book Description
“A History of the Human Brain is a unique, enlightening, and provocative account of the most significant question we can ask about ourselves.” —Richard Wrangham, author of The Goodness Paradox Just 125,000 years ago, humanity was on a path to extinction, until a dramatic shift occurred. We used our mental abilities to navigate new terrain and changing climates. We hunted, foraged, tracked tides, shucked oysters—anything we could do to survive. Before long, our species had pulled itself back from the brink and was on more stable ground. What saved us? The human brain—and its evolutionary journey is unlike any other. In A History of the Human Brain, Bret Stetka takes us on this far-reaching journey, explaining exactly how our most mysterious organ developed. From the brain’s improbable, watery beginnings to the marvel that sits in the head of Home sapiens today, Stetka covers an astonishing progression, even tackling future brainy frontiers such as epigenetics and CRISPR. Clearly and expertly told, this intriguing account is the story of who we are. By examining the history of the brain, we can begin to piece together what it truly means to be human.
Author: Francisco Aboitiz
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026237935X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 357
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Book Description
A panoramic view of the evolution of life on our planet, from its origins to humanity’s future. In A History of Bodies, Brains, and Minds, Francisco Aboitiz provides a brief history of life, the brain, and cognition, from the earliest living beings to our own species. The author proceeds from the basic premise that, since evolution by natural selection is the process underlying the origin of life and its evolution on earth, the brain—and thus our minds—must also be the result of biological evolution. The aim of this book is to narrate how animal bodies came to be built with their nervous systems and how our species evolved with culture, technology, language, and consciousness. The book is organized in four parts, each delving into a different aspect of evolutionary development: • Definitions lays the groundwork by discussing the principles of biological evolution and explores the definition and mechanisms of life itself. • Beginnings describes the origins of life, starting from the emergence of the first cells to the development of neurons as the building blocks for brain networks. • The Rise of Bodies and Brains examines the evolution of animals with bilateral symmetry, the emergence of chordates and vertebrates, and the expansion and diversification of the vertebrate brain. • A Singular Ape explores Homo sapiens and our species’ unique traits, such as bipedality, tool use, culture, language, communication, and consciousness. Comprehensive and deeply insightful, this book helps us understand our place in the natural world and the cosmos—as well as what the future might hold for life on earth.
Author: Jonathan Westphal
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262529564
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
An introduction to the mind–body problem, covering all the proposed solutions and offering a powerful new one. Philosophers from Descartes to Kripke have struggled with the glittering prize of modern and contemporary philosophy: the mind-body problem. The brain is physical. If the mind is physical, we cannot see how. If we cannot see how the mind is physical, we cannot see how it can interact with the body. And if the mind is not physical, it cannot interact with the body. Or so it seems. In this book the philosopher Jonathan Westphal examines the mind-body problem in detail, laying out the reasoning behind the solutions that have been offered in the past and presenting his own proposal. The sharp focus on the mind-body problem, a problem that is not about the self, or consciousness, or the soul, or anything other than the mind and the body, helps clarify both problem and solutions. Westphal outlines the history of the mind-body problem, beginning with Descartes. He describes mind-body dualism, which claims that the mind and the body are two different and separate things, nonphysical and physical, and he also examines physicalist theories of mind; antimaterialism, which proposes limits to physicalism and introduces the idea of qualia; and scientific theories of consciousness. Finally, Westphal examines the largely forgotten neutral monist theories of mind and body, held by Ernst Mach, William James, and Bertrand Russell, which attempt neither to extract mind from matter nor to dissolve matter into mind. Westphal proposes his own version of neutral monism. This version is unique among neutral monist theories in offering an account of mind-body interaction.
Author: Bessel A. Van der Kolk
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN: 0143127748
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 466
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Book Description
Originally published by Viking Penguin, 2014.
Author: Alan Jasanoff
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 154164431X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 342
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Book Description
A pioneering neuroscientist argues that we are more than our brains To many, the brain is the seat of personal identity and autonomy. But the way we talk about the brain is often rooted more in mystical conceptions of the soul than in scientific fact. This blinds us to the physical realities of mental function. We ignore bodily influences on our psychology, from chemicals in the blood to bacteria in the gut, and overlook the ways that the environment affects our behavior, via factors varying from subconscious sights and sounds to the weather. As a result, we alternately overestimate our capacity for free will or equate brains to inorganic machines like computers. But a brain is neither a soul nor an electrical network: it is a bodily organ, and it cannot be separated from its surroundings. Our selves aren't just inside our heads -- they're spread throughout our bodies and beyond. Only once we come to terms with this can we grasp the true nature of our humanity.
Author: Walter J. Freeman
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231120081
Category : Consciousness
Languages : en
Pages : 190
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Book Description
I think, therefore I am. The legendary pronouncement of philosopher René Descartes lingers as accepted wisdom in the Western world nearly four centuries after its author's death. But does thought really come first? Who actually runs the show: we, our thoughts, or the neurons firing within our brains? Walter J. Freeman explores how we control our behavior and make sense of the world around us. Avoiding determinism both in sociobiology, which proposes that persons' genes control their brains' functioning, and in neuroscience, which posits that their brains' disposition is molded by chemistry and environmental forces, Freeman charts a new course--one that gives individuals due credit and responsibility for their actions. Drawing upon his five decades of research in neuroscience, Freeman utilizes the latest advances in his field as well as perspectives from disciplines as diverse as mathematics, psychology, and philosophy to explicate how different human brains act in their chosen diverse ways. He clarifies the implications of brain imaging, by which neural activity can be observed during the course of normal movements, and shows how nonlinear dynamics reveals order within the fecund chaos of brain function.
Author: Tamas L. Horvath
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0128180943
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 445
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Book Description
Body, Brain, Behavior: Three Views and a Conversation describes brain research on the frontiers, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between the brain and its development and evolution, peripheral organs, and other brains in communication. The book expands current views of neuroscience by illustrating the integration of these disciplines. By using a novel method of conversations between 3 scientists of different disciplines, cellular, endocrine, developmental, and social processes are seamlessly woven into topics that relate to contemporary living in health and disease. This book is a critical read for anyone who wants to become familiar with the inner workings of the nervous system and its intimate connections to the universe of contemporary life issues. Introduces the reader to basic principles of brain research and integrative physiology Dissects the dispute between Cajal and Golgi regarding the state-of-the art in the neurosciences and immunobiology Provides a short history of brain research and metabolism Discusses contemporary approaches in the neurosciences, along with the importance of technological versus conceptual advances Examines the dynamics of social connections between two brains, integrating mechanisms of Body/Brain/Behavior-to-Body/Brain/Behavior between subjects
Author: Louise Barrett
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691165564
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 282
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Book Description
When a chimpanzee stockpiles rocks as weapons or when a frog sends out mating calls, we might easily assume these animals know their own motivations--that they use the same psychological mechanisms that we do. But as Beyond the Brain indicates, this is a dangerous assumption because animals have different evolutionary trajectories, ecological niches, and physical attributes. How do these differences influence animal thinking and behavior? Removing our human-centered spectacles, Louise Barrett investigates the mind and brain and offers an alternative approach for understanding animal and human cognition. Drawing on examples from animal behavior, comparative psychology, robotics, artificial life, developmental psychology, and cognitive science, Barrett provides remarkable new insights into how animals and humans depend on their bodies and environment--not just their brains--to behave intelligently. Barrett begins with an overview of human cognitive adaptations and how these color our views of other species, brains, and minds. Considering when it is worth having a big brain--or indeed having a brain at all--she investigates exactly what brains are good at. Showing that the brain's evolutionary function guides action in the world, she looks at how physical structure contributes to cognitive processes, and she demonstrates how these processes employ materials and resources in specific environments. Arguing that thinking and behavior constitute a property of the whole organism, not just the brain, Beyond the Brain illustrates how the body, brain, and cognition are tied to the wider world.
Author: Sian Beilock
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 145162669X
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
"Takes you inside the amazing science of how the body affects the mind, and shows how to use that wisdom to live smarter and maximize what your body teaches your mind"--
