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Kinds of Minds: Towards an Understanding of Consciousness
Daniel C. Dennett · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorOther Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Peter Godfrey-Smith · 272 pages
"Peter Godfrey-Smith is a leading philosopher of science. He is also a scuba diver whose underwater videos of warring octopuses have attracted wide notice. In this book, he brings his parallel careers together to tell a bold new story of how nature became aware of itself. Mammals and birds are widely seen as the smartest creatures on earth. But one other branch of the tree of life has also sproute
The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Sam Harris · 307 pages
What is the best “moral” decision that you can make in any given situation? Many aspects of your physical being work in unison to be able to use your cognitive processes to even come to a conscious decision. There have been many instances, especially recently, where scientific research is being conducted wherein people think about not just morality and what it means to them but also what is occu
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom
Jonathan Haidt · 297 pages
Applies the latest findings in psychology and brain research to the wisdom of the ancients to define what makes people happy and how you can find more happiness in your life. Confirms and builds on the happiness formula defined by other psychologists: H=S+C+V or Happiness = your biological Setpoint + the Conditions of your life + the Voluntary activities you do
The Mystery of Consciousness
John Rogers Searle · 224 pages
Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind/Brain
Patricia S. Churchland · 554 pages
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
Iain McGilchrist · 608 pages
"Why is the brain divided? The difference between right and left hemispheres has been puzzled over for centuries. In this book, Iain McGilchrist draws on a vast body of recent brain research, illustrated with case histories, to reveal that the difference is profound - not just this or that function, but two whole, coherent, but incompatible ways of experiencing the world. The left hemisphere is de
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
Steven Pinker · 528 pages
In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits-a doctrine held by many intellectuals during the past century-denies our common humanity and our individual
The Society of Mind
Marvin Minsky · 339 pages
An authority on artificial intelligence introduces a theory that explores the workings of the human mind and the mysteries of thought.
Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction
Susan Blackmore · 554 pages
Who's in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain
Michael S. Gazzaniga · 260 pages
"The "father of cognitive neuroscience" makes a powerful and provocative argument against today's common wisdom that our lives are wholly determined by physical processes we cannot control"--
I Am a Strange Loop
Douglas R. Hofstadter · 424 pages
Hofstadter's long-awaited return to the themes of Gödel, Escher, Bach--an original and controversial view of the nature of consciousness and identity. What do we mean when we say "I"? Can a self, a soul, a consciousness, an "I" arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here? This book argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is a special kind of abstract
How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like
Paul Bloom · 280 pages
In this fascinating and witty account, Yale psychologist Paul Bloom draws on insights from child development, philosophy, neuroscience, and behavioral economics to examine the science behind our curious desires, attractions, and tastes, covering everything from the animal instincts for sex and food to the uniquely human taste for art, music, and stories.
The Emperor's New Mind Concerning Computers, Minds and the Laws of Physics
Roger Penrose, Martin Gardner · 480 pages
A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness
Michael Pollan · 320 pages
On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not
Robert A. Burton
Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
Carl Sagan · 398 pages
Explorers various aspects of several fields of science and examines the role of the intellect in scientific achievement.
Think: Why You Should Question Everything
Guy P. Harrison · 270 pages
"This accessible and introductory guide to critical thinking will help you think like a scientist, learn to question everything, and understand how your own brain can trip you up. This fresh and exciting approach to science, skepticism, and critical thinking will enlighten and inspire readers of all ages. With a mix of wit and wisdom, it challenges everyone to think like a scientist, embrace the s
This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking
John Brockman · 415 pages
This Will Make You Smarter presents brilliant but accessible ideas to expand every mind. What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, posed to the world's most influential thinkers. Their visionary answers flow from the frontiers of psychology, philosophy, economics, physics, sociology, and more. Surprising and enli
The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty
Simon Baron-Cohen · 256 pages
Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain
Antonio R. Damasio · 336 pages
Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist
Christof Koch · 181 pages
"What links conscious experience of pain, joy, color, and smell to bioelectrical activity in the brain? How can anything physical give rise to nonphysical, subjective, conscious states? Christof Koch has devoted much of his career to bridging the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the physics of the brain and phenomenal experience. This engaging book--part scientific overview, part memoir, part fu
Stumbling on Happiness
Daniel Todd Gilbert · 310 pages
A smart and funny book by a prominent Harvard psychologist, which uses groundbreaking research and (often hilarious) anecdotes to show us why we're so lousy at predicting what will make us happy -- and what we can do about it.Most of us spend our lives steering ourselves toward the best of all possible futures, only to find that tomorrow rarely turns out as we had expected. Why? As Harvard psychol
Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
David Eagleman · 290 pages
"This book will shine light on some of the hard-to-reach places in the brain, showing the ways in which we are not the ones driving the boat. Why does the conscious mind know so little? What do visual illusions unmask about the machinery running under the hood? How much of our lives are determined by choices and behaviors that are hard-wired, unconscious, and beyond our control? Do we have any man
Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved
Frans de Waal · 232 pages
Une longue tradition philosophique et scientifique situe l'origine de la moralité humaine non dans l'évolution mais dans la culture : nous serions moraux par choix et non pas nature. Bien plus, la moralité serait une fine écorce recouvrant une nature par ailleurs mauvaise. «C'est l'animal en nous», entendons-nous souvent quand notre comportement a laissé à désirer.Sa réflexion va bien au-delà de l