The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
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Books about neuroscience and the brain?
Mariah
May 19, 2013 01:02PM
There are a bevy of books out there that deal with attention, neuroscience, and the brain, from Oliver Sacks's "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" to more recent books like "The Brain that Changes itself."
I'm interested to know what some of your favorites are that are even loosely related to these complex and interlinked topics...
I'm interested to know what some of your favorites are that are even loosely related to these complex and interlinked topics...
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Oliver Sacks corresponded with Virginia Hamilton Adair, who I worked for. She was blind, so I read his letters to her. A wonderful man.
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I love both of the books you list. I have read many that were far less memorable and have a few more stacked up that look very good. But, the ones I have read that stand out are Thinking Fast and Slow and, even if it is slightly out dated, Carl Sagan's Dragons of Eden. That is a great read speculating on the evolution of human intelligence.
Good luck
Good luck
You might try Ronald K. Siegel. My favorite of his is Whispers, which is about paranoia.
I haven't finished it yet, and it's not about neuroscience but it is about psychology and how the mind works -- but Daniel Kahneman's Thinking: Fast and Slow is something of a miracle, I think, explaining how the human mind has enormous trouble dealing with randomness -- which is a profound issue.
When you have a mind that constantly seeks answers and quickly -- and that's the mind we all have -- it's very, very difficult not to misinterpret. Kahneman, by the way, won the Nobel Prize. He's quite brilliant.
When you have a mind that constantly seeks answers and quickly -- and that's the mind we all have -- it's very, very difficult not to misinterpret. Kahneman, by the way, won the Nobel Prize. He's quite brilliant.
Gerald M. Edelman is one of the greats. He got the medicine Nobel price in 1976 of his studies in immunology.
He had applied a Darwinistic approach which turned to be very successful. Later on, he applied the same paradigm in neural networks of the brain. It is called Neural Darwinism and it works: His Darwin-series robots actually 'think', they get confused, they learn and they modify their behaviour according to the circumstances differently from programmed computers.
His writing is very economic, there are no empty words there and you really have to concentrate on what he is saying. For the time being, I am reading the Wider Than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness. It is brilliant.
He is not a popular figure because he is a grumpy old man who has no time to waste with people who have not done their homework before coming to do an interview.
You can find his presentations on YouTube, for example here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovHv3y...
He had applied a Darwinistic approach which turned to be very successful. Later on, he applied the same paradigm in neural networks of the brain. It is called Neural Darwinism and it works: His Darwin-series robots actually 'think', they get confused, they learn and they modify their behaviour according to the circumstances differently from programmed computers.
His writing is very economic, there are no empty words there and you really have to concentrate on what he is saying. For the time being, I am reading the Wider Than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness. It is brilliant.
He is not a popular figure because he is a grumpy old man who has no time to waste with people who have not done their homework before coming to do an interview.
You can find his presentations on YouTube, for example here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovHv3y...
The books mentioned are good ones. I reviewed and pulled together many of the best books, papers and presentations in the area of cognitive neuroscience as they relate to healing and wellbeing. I integrated it with philosophy and psychology. I recommend starting with this book and pursuing the links to the areas that fascinate you.
"Be the Rainbow * Bridge Heaven and Earth: How-to Manual for Integrating Alternative and Evidence-Based Medicine"
"Be the Rainbow * Bridge Heaven and Earth: How-to Manual for Integrating Alternative and Evidence-Based Medicine"
Phantoms in the Brain (1998) by VS Ramachandran started me down the path of neurology.
Dr Judith Rappaport's "The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Washing" is a fascinating study of OCD.
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Wider Than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness (other topics)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales (other topics)
Books mentioned in this topic
Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life (other topics)Wider Than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness (other topics)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales (other topics)
