my mind on books

Tonight’s NOVA program on “Musical Minds” was based on Oliver Sacks’s Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. The program will be available to view online starting tomorrow (July 1, 2009) through the website.

The shadow life of reading begins even while we have the book in hand—begins as soon as we move from the first sentence to the second and start up a memory context. The creation and perpetuation of this context requires that we make a cognitive space, or “open a file,” as it were. Here is the power, the seductiveness of the act: When we read, we create and then occupy a hitherto nonexistent interior locale. Regardless of what happens on the page, the simple fact that we have cleared room for these peculiar figments we now preside over gives us a feeling of freedom and control. No less exalting is the sensation of inner and outer worlds coinciding, going on simultaneously, or very nearly so. … The book is there, waiting, like one of those rare dreams that I half-awaken from and then reenter. Knowing that I have the option of return, this figurative space within the literal space I occupy, changes my relation to that literal space. I am still contained in the world, but I don’t feel trapped in it. Reading creates an imaginary context which then becomes a place of rescue.

Sven Birkerts, The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age, p. 98

New from MIT Press: Psychology: Pythagoras to Present (Bradford Books) by John C. Malone, Professor of Psychology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Product description from the publisher:

Certain ideas have preoccupied thinkers since ancient times: the nature of mind, the sources of knowledge and belief, the nature of the self, ethics and the best way to lead our lives, the question of free will. In this book, John Malone examines these ideas in the writings of thinkers from antiquity to the present day and argues for their importance not just as precursors of modern views but as ideas that are frequently better than current ones. We can get good advice, he writes, from the writings of the best thinkers of the past. Pythagoras, Thales, Plato, Protagoras, Aristotle, Diogenes, and Epictetus all offer tried and tested ideas on how we should lead our lives and on the treatment of psychopathology—as do Berkeley, Hume, John Stuart Mill, Johann Friedrich Herbart, Wilhelm Wundt, William James, Sigmund Freud, and B. F. Skinner.

Malone begins with the naturalistic and mystical strains of early Greek thought, moves on to Platonism and the world of Forms (and considers parallels between the thought of Plato and Freud), and discusses “Ancient Self-Help Therapies” (including Epicureanism). He investigates the psychological insights of Enlightenment thinkers including Francis Bacon and Galileo, Locke’s and Kant’s theories of experience, and Darwin’s evolutionary thinking. He charts the rise of modern psychology and the beginning of “biological psychology.” He examines the work of Wundt, Titchener, Freud, Peirce, and James, among others, and describes the ideas of behaviorism, Gestalt psychology, and cognitive science.

Malone’s history offers both breadth and depth, an engaging style and rigorous scholarship, demonstrating vividly the relevance of the great historical psychological thinkers.

A preview is available at the publisher’s website.

The Vision Revolution: How the Latest Research Overturns Everything We Thought We Knew About Human Vision by Mark Changizi (BenBella Books, 2009)

Product description from the publisher:

Primates evolved binocular vision (both eyes facing forward) so that they can see in three dimensions, critical as they jumped from branch to branch. Higher primates developed color vision to better hunt out ripe fruit. Optical illusions succeed because they exploit the limitations of our visual processing. Wrong!

All of these beliefs are false, as groundbreaking research by evolutionary scientist and neurobiologist Mark Changizi now reveals. Changizi’s research centers on the “why” of human vision. Why do we have binocular vision? Why do we see in color the way we do? Why do optical illusions work? And why are we able to absorb information by reading?a very new invention from an evolutionary perspective?more readily than by hearing, which we’ve evolved to do over hundreds of thousands of years?

The Vision Revolution answers these questions, and proves, with the detailed results of Changizi’s fieldwork, that the answers are very different than traditionally believed. A radically new perspective of human vision is now emerging. The Vision Revolution is upon us.

See also: book excerpt from the Wall Street Journal

Author’s website

“The Vision Revolution” at Scientific Blogging

Caught in Play: How Entertainment Works on You by Peter Stromberg, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Tulsa (Stanford University Press, 2009).

Product description from the publisher:

Most of us have become so immersed in a book or game or movie that the activity temporarily assumed a profound significance and the outside world began to fade. Although we are likely to enjoy these experiences in the realm of entertainment, we rarely think about what effect they might be having on us. Precisely because it is so pervasive, entertainment is difficult to understand and even to talk about.

To understand the social role of entertainment, Caught in Play looks closely at how we engage entertainment and at the ideas and practices it creates and sustains. Though entertainment is for fun, it does not follow that it is trivial in its effect on our lives. As this work reveals, entertainment generates commitments to values we are not always willing to acknowledge: values of pleasure, self-indulgence, and consumption.

The book has a website.

In The Polysyllabic Spree, p 124-125, Nick Hornby is commenting on ‘So Many Books’ by Gabriel Zaid: “Zaid’s finest moment, however, comes in his second paragraph, when he says that ‘the truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or their desire for more.’”

Hornby continues: “That’s me! And you, probably! That’s us! “Thousands of unread books”! “Truly cultured”!…. I suddenly had a little epiphany: all the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal. …. With each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not.”

And now, with LibraryThing and similar services, I can create a library that isn’t limited to the books I own, but can include books I’ve borrowed from the library, or no longer own, or those I just might want to read some day.

The Polysyllabic Spree is the first book in a series collecting Hornby’s “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” columns for The Believer, followed by Housekeeping vs. the Dirt and Shakespeare Wrote for Money.

See also: “books about books” at LibraryThing

Me (Art of Living Series) by Mel Thompson (Acumen, 2009)

Product description from the publisher:

‘Who am I?’ In a world where randomness and chance make life transient and unpredictable, religion, psychology and philosophy have all tried, in their different ways, to answer this question and to give meaning and coherence to the human person. How we should construct a meaningful ‘me’ – and to make sense of one’s life – is the question at the heart of Mel Thompson’s illuminating book. Although Thompson begins by exploring the workings of the brain, he shows that if we are to consider the nature of the self, it is not enough to argue about such things as how mind relates to matter, or whether neuroscience can fully explain consciousness. Such an approach fails to do justice to the self that we experience and the selves that we encounter around us. We need to engage with the more personal, existential questions: how do I make sense of my life? And am I responsible for the person I have become? Thompson investigates the gap between what we are and what others perceive us to be to ascertain whether we are genuinely knowable entities. He explores the central dilemma of how one can have a fixed idea of ‘me’ to shape and direct one’s life when, in a world of constant change, events will rob us of that fixed idea at any moment. Perhaps we would be better to let go of the need for ‘me’, asks Thompson, but would a self-less life be possible, or desirable? Drawing on the writings of literature, philosophy, religion and science, as well as personal reflection and anecdote, Thompson has written an engaging and thought-provoking work that recaptures the notion of ‘me’ from the neuroscientists and situates it at the heart of finding a place in the world.

See also: review in The Guardian

Author’s website

The Imprinted Brain: How Genes Set the Balance of the Mind Between Autism and Psychosis by Christopher Badcock (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2009)

Product description from the publisher:

“The Imprinted Brain” sets out a radical new theory of the mind and mental illness based on the recent discovery of genomic imprinting. Imprinted genes are those from one parent that, in that parent’s interest, are expressed in an offspring rather than the diametrically opposed genes from the other parent. For example, a higher birth weight may represent the dominance of the father’s genes in leading to a healthy child, whereas a lower birth weight is beneficial to the mother’s immediate wellbeing, and the imprint of the mother’s genes will result in a smaller baby. According to this view, a win for the father’s genes may result in autism, whereas one for the mother’s may result in psychosis. A state of equilibrium – normality – is the most likely outcome, with a no-win situation of balanced expression. Imprinted genes typically produce symptoms that are opposites of each other, and the author uses psychiatric case material to show how many of the symptoms of psychosis can be shown to be the mental mirror-images of those of autism. Combining psychiatry with insights from modern genetics and cognitive science, Christopher Badcock explains the fascinating imprinted brain theory to the reader in a thorough but accessible way. This new theory casts some intriguing new light on other topics as diverse as the nature of genius, the appeal of detective fiction, and the successes – and failures – of psychoanalysis. This thought-provoking book is a must-read for anyone with an interest in autism, psychiatry, cognitive science or psychology in general.

See also: “Imprinted Brain Theory” at Edge

Two of my favorite realms of reading meet in Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence ed. by Susan Schneider (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). A “look inside” at the table of contents shows a lineup of authors that includes Daniel Dennett, David Chalmers, Andy Clark, Derek Parfit, David Lewis, and Ray Kurzweil.

Product description from the publisher:

A timely volume that uses science fiction as a springboard to meaningful philosophical discussions, especially at points of contact between science fiction and new scientific developments.

* Raises questions and examines timely themes concerning the nature of the mind, time travel, artificial intelligence, neural enhancement, free will, the nature of persons, transhumanism, virtual reality, and neuroethics
* Draws on a broad range of books, films and television series, including The Matrix, Star Trek, Blade Runner, Frankenstein, Brave New World, The Time Machine, and Back to the Future
* Considers the classic philosophical puzzles that appeal to the general reader, while also exploring new topics of interest to the more seasoned academic