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Making up the Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World
 
 

Making up the Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World [Kindle Edition]

Chris Frith
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

Print List Price: £19.99
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Product Description

Review

“This book presents a clear description of the current neuroscientific view of the relationship between the brain and the mind.” ( Brain Science Podcast , May 2009) "Neuroscience and psychology often struggle to answer the really interesting questions about the mind, but in this fascinating book, Chris Frith shows that science can finally start explaining how and why we experience the world as we do. Anyone interested in human nature – not just the nuts and bolts of neural circuits – will find his storytelling compelling. Frith delves into topics such as delusions, illusions, imagination and imitation, bringing clarity and insight to the simplest abservations and most complex experiments alike." (New Scientist) "Making up the Mind is an interesting book to everybody who wants to learn more about how the brain gives rise to our mental experiences...As Frith himself depicts in a sort of framing story, you will easily find yourself talking about these ideas at your next dinner party, as well as use it for serious considerations on the brain or as a toolbox for next term′s essay. A stimulating new book by a distinguished scientist who knows what he is talking about." ( Metapsychology Online Reviews) "Frith has produced an enthralling discussion on the subtle links between mind and brain, sometimes with humorous liaisons between himself, as narrator, and others who might be labelled as sceptics, unbelievers." (Psychologist) “Stands apart from many that have been written lately … For those who have time to read only one book … this should be it. Essential.” (Choice Reviews)

Review

Oliver Sacks"Making up the Mind is a fascinating guided tour through the elusive interface between mind and brain written by a pioneer in the field. The authors obvious passion for the subject shines through every page." –V. S. Ramachandran "I soon made up my mind that this is an excellent, most readable and stimulating book. The author is a distinguished neuroscientist working especially on brain imaging." –RL Gregory, Experimental Psychology "Chris Frith, one of the pioneers in applying brain imaging to study mental processes, has written a brilliant introduction to the biology of mental processes for the general reader. This superb book describes how we recreate in our brains a representation of the external world. Clearly and beautifully written, this book is for all who want to learn about how the brain gives rise to the mental phenomenon of our lives. A must read!" –Eric R. Kandel, M.D. "Important and surprising. The brain will never seem the same again." –Lewis Wolpert, University College London "Frith’s luminously intelligent book...raises interesting questions about how it is possible to make serious scientific progress, on the borders of metaphysics, while still thinking inside a framework that is an ontological and epistemological muddle." –Raymond Tallis, Brain

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 1605 KB
  • Print Length: 248 pages
  • Publisher: Blackwell Publishers; 1 edition (8 May 2007)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B000S1M2FM
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • X-Ray: Not Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #104,384 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
42 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This incredibly well-written book is a clear, concise introduction to the state-of-the art in neuroscience. The journey into the mystery of the brain requires no prior knowledge. Step by step, in a warm, humorous tone, we learn how much what we take to be an effortless daily experience is based upon the sophisticated, hidden ability of the brain to construct models of reality. Even our senses of agency and self-control - those issues that perplexed philosophers for millennia - are shown to be dependent on the brain's ability to link experiences and make inferences about the world. The evidence is a beautiful series of crystallized examples from the behaviour of patients with brain damage, and from behavioural and brain imaging experiments.

This book is unique because while highly appropriate and illuminating for complete novices in neuroscience, it is also detailed and deep enough to captivate readers with expertise in the field. Both types of readers will be enriched by the coherent picture this book draws of cognitive neuroscience, and what implications brain research has for our understanding of interpersonal interactions and the development of human culture.
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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant book on human mind and brain 20 Sep 2007
Format:Paperback
This is a brilliant book on the human mind and brain, by a wise and influential researcher, who unusually is also a very charismatic and entertaining writer. It manages to be simultaneously serious/funny ;
questioning/didactic; philosophical/scientific; and to be forward-looking
yet while also giving a succinct historical overview of highlights from the past 30 years of research in neuropsychology and neuroscience, through to the latest breakthroughs in brain imaging. Essential reading for novices and experts alike.
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25 of 27 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Who's in charge in there? 18 Jun 2008
By Stephen A. Haines HALL OF FAME
Format:Paperback
It's hard to resolve where the best place to encounter Chris Frith might be - a classroom, a pub, or a party. In this book, the last is set as a means of providing exchanges between a working cognitive neuroscientist and people from the humanities and other sciences - English and physics, in this case. Frith goes to some effort to show how many misconceptions about how the mind works still exist in our society. He wants to set those right, and does so splendidly in this book on the workings of the brain. With a style one might almost describe as jocular, Frith reveals how the brain deals with the world outside and within us.

Frith had the good fortune to enter the field as the new, non-intrusive methods of brain imaging were emerging. Big, cumbersome and expensive, these tools, the PET, fMRI and CAT scanning devices soon came into more widespread use. These machines could map the living brain, while patients could be queried or given tests to assist in determining which brain areas were active at a given time. Frith describes these tools as moving brain studies from a "soft" science to a "hard" science in which detailed measurements could be made. Previously, it was either guess-work, or brains could be analysed only after a patient's death.

What has emerged from these studies is a very serious challenge to what we call "reality" and our perception of it. The brain does many things without our realising it. Apart from the obvious ones like keeping the heart and lungs pumping, there is the issue of what we "see". We like to think that when we "look" at something or somebody, we are seeing a continuous image. That's simply not the case. Beyond the fact that the eye undergoes a rapid shifting motion called "saccading", it's also converting photons into electrical signals.
... Read more ›
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars The Kindle version 4 Feb 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought the kindle version of this book. The content is easy to read both physically and intellectually, and presents a useful insight into the subject that could be readily followed up by using the extensive references provided.
However, the illustrations and photo plates cannot be appreciated in Kindle format. Also the text contains numerous spelling errors that look like "finger trouble" and I wonder if this is due to kindle-isation or to sloppy editing of the original.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This popular science book, written by one of the most prominent cognitive neuroscientists in the world, explores the current evidence of how our brains generate our mental image of ourselves and the world. He first outlines how our brains give us an image of ourselves and the world that can deviate frighteningly from reality. Sometimes this is simply because our heavily embedded ideas of our perceptions and beliefs are wrong, but sometimes problems arise due to brain damage. In the second second section, he centres on the brain as a prediction machine, which gives us the power to understand ourselves, our bodies and each other. The book is written extremely clearly, largely without the use of jargon, and although a tad dry in places, includes sufficiently exciting content to keep the reader engaged. Some attempts to make the book more popular worked well, such as occasional idiosyncratic and funny footer notes. I wished these would have taken a more prominent role, and he would have felt more at ease to make far more of these kinds of comments. However, Frith's imaginary conversations with a cynical and anti-scientific English professor feel more like an afterthought, and he could easily have made far more of the idea, had he wished. As a cognitive neuroscience researcher myself, I didn't really learn anything new, as Frith is largely reluctant to speculate on any ideas that haven't already been very firmly established, but I was nevertheless able to appreciate the coherence and intelligence of his explanations, which at times did allow me to view a well-trodden topic afresh. For a layperson, however, I can't think of a better introduction to the interface between the mind and brain than this book.
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Popular Highlights

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&quote;
The imagination is utterly uncreative. It has no predictions to make and no errors to resolve. We don’t create in our heads. We create by externalizing our thoughts with sketches and doodles and rough drafts so that we can benefit from the unexpectedness of reality. It is this continual unexpectedness that makes interacting with the real world such a joy. &quote;
Highlighted by 19 Kindle users
&quote;
Through associative learning the brain constructs a map of the world. This is essentially a map of value. The map locates the objects of high value where I am likely to be rewarded and the objects of low value where I am not likely to be rewarded. The map also indicates the actions of high value that are likely to be successful and the actions of low value that are likely to fail. &quote;
Highlighted by 17 Kindle users
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But this long-term change in the brain had no effect on his conscious mind. He could not remember anything that happened yesterday. Such people show that our brain can know things about the world that our mind does not know. &quote;
Highlighted by 16 Kindle users

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