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Rating: Summary: Be Amazed Review: Richard Gregory arguably knows more about the human brain than any man alive. This second edition of the Oxford Companion to the Mind has over 200 contributors, over a thousand entries and a million words and in it is much that is new since the first edition (1987.) Out goes Freud (well, not quite; he is still there, but much more strictly edited; ditto Jung et al.) and in comes a huge amount of new and riveting brain research. This is still a philosophical and historical as well as a scientific work of immense learning that will divert and entertain as well as explain: it will expand your mind and change the physical interconnections of your brain. There are short pithy entries, sometimes delightfully quirky, often witty; there are longer, more complex contributions on a myriad of wide-ranging subjects, sometimes technical but always understandable, accessible even for the non-scientist reader. It ranges from mirror cells, face recognition, and drama to how we see art; from Aristotle to puzzles; from the hippocampus to shellshock. It covers language, memory, imagination and intelligence: are all clearly explained. There are three mini-symposia on consciousness, brain imaging and artificial intelligence. This is not just a dazzling reference book but also a diverting bed-side book for artist and scientist alike.
Rating: Summary: some entries good some bad Review: The whole discussion of psychiatric concepts like depression, autism, or schizofrenia is limited to listing of symptoms and research results on whether they are purely physiologically determined etc..if this is the state of psychiatric understanding of human mind and its illnesses today, then its probably true that were living in very oppressive societies.. otherwise entries on psychological issues like intelligence or visual perception give good introductions to the state of current research.. can be of some help as a general referance work but dont expect any serious illuminations..
Rating: Summary: Very thorough and still timely Review: This one-volume reference book deals, after all, with a subject that is constantly subject to change. Who knows how many new neurological discoveries may make some statement or another within these pages moot tomorrow, or may have done so already in the decade and more since its publication?Despite such concerns, this book holds up well. I'd like to praise in particular a brief but pointed discussion of the work of the French philosopher Maine de Biran (1766-1824), written by F.C.T. Moore. De Biran explained that my intention to raise my arm is never an "object" to be grasped by an "inner sense" -- it is, rather, a fact or a relation, the connection of the active self with the arm. This was an important break with earlier thought, and a step toward Jamesian pragmatism on the one hand, continental phenomenology on the other.
Rating: Summary: http://www.infidels.org/infidels/products/books/ Review: _The Oxford Companion to the Mind_ is an excellent reference source of information on various mental phenomena. It was relevant to my essays because several entries dealt with the current state of the parapsychological evidence and how that related to the question of survival of bodily death
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