Picking up the “mind alphabet” series again… I’d gotten stuck on “H” months ago but having seen “humor” cropping up as a theme in some recent items, it seems like a good excuse to resume.
[Continuing an occasional 'mind alphabet' series. I recently came across several things dealing with virtual worlds, not exactly games, but related...]
Mitch Kapor spoke at Berkeley’s I School about Second Life (podcast). Kapor believes that virtual worlds such as Second Life will become the next big “disruptive innovation” on a par with the personal computer and the Internet (topics of his two earlier talks in the series). Currently virtual worlds are in the early adopter stage, according to Kapor, comparable to the early “DOS era” of PCs.
Virtual worlds have exploded out of online game culture and now capture the attention of millions of ordinary people: husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, workers, retirees. Devoting dozens of hours each week to massively multiplayer virtual reality environments (like World of Warcraft and Second Life), these millions are the start of an exodus into the refuge of fantasy, where they experience life under a new social, political, and economic order built around fun. Given the choice between a fantasy world and the real world, how many of us would choose reality? Exodus to the Virtual World explains the growing migration into virtual reality, and how it will change the way we live–both in fantasy worlds and in the real one.
Some books related to games, further exploring the philosophical, psychological or cultural implications:
Ever get the feeling that life’s a game with changing rules and no clear sides, one you are compelled to play yet cannot win? Welcome to gamespace. Gamespace is where and how we live today. It is everywhere and nowhere: the main chance, the best shot, the big leagues, the only game in town. In a world thus configured, McKenzie Wark contends, digital computer games are the emergent cultural form of the times. Where others argue obsessively over violence in games, Wark approaches them as a utopian version of the world in which we actually live. Playing against the machine on a game console, we enjoy the only truly level playing field–where we get ahead on our strengths or not at all.
Gamer Theory uncovers the significance of games in the gap between the near-perfection of actual games and the highly imperfect gamespace of everyday life in the rat race of free-market society. The book depicts a world becoming an inescapable series of less and less perfect games. This world gives rise to a new persona. In place of the subject or citizen stands the gamer. As all previous such personae had their breviaries and manuals, Gamer Theory seeks to offer guidance for thinking within this new character. Neither a strategy guide nor a cheat sheet for improving one’s score or skills, the book is instead a primer in thinking about a world made over as a gamespace, recast as an imperfect copy of the game.
Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Berlin Johnson: “In this provocative, intelligent, and convincing endorsement of today’s mass entertainment, national bestselling author Steven Johnson argues that the pop culture we soak in every day-from “The Lord of the Rings” to “Grand Theft Auto” to “The Simpsons”-has been growing more and more sophisticated and, far from rotting our brains, is actually posing new cognitive challenges that are making our minds measurably sharper.”
In the mid twentieth century the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously asserted that games are indefinable; there are no common threads that link them all. “Nonsense,” says the sensible Bernard Suits: “playing a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.” The short book Suits wrote demonstrating precisely that is as playful as it is insightful, as stimulating as it is delightful. Suits not only argues that games can be meaningfully defined; he also suggests that playing games is a central part of the ideal of human existence, so games belong at the heart of any vision of Utopia.
I’ll have to give up on the Amazon slideshow widget at least for now. I thought I had it figured out earlier today; it worked in Internet Explorer but I found out that it didn’t work in Firefox at all. So here is a selection of books on emotion that would have been in the slideshow… (and I apologize for any problems that occurred with the feed):
Decision-making turns out to be a popular topic, spanning self-help, business management, cognitive psychology, and various applied fields.
Below I have selected some titles published within the last few years (2005-2007), starred a couple that looked most interesting for the general reader (or to me at least), followed by links to some other book lists. [10/8/07 - added a section for reader recommendations ]
“There are two kinds of people…..” (and many ways to divide people into two kinds!)
“Categorization is the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood. Categorization implies that objects are grouped into categories, usually for some specific purpose.” (from Wikipedia)
The work of Eleanor Roschwas instrumental in overturning the classical view of categories based on “necessary and sufficient conditions” in favor of a psychological approach to the structure of categories based on prototypes.
Rosch discusses her work on categorization in this transcribed interview: “Categories have what I called a graded structure of better and worse examples, and many categories have unclear boundaries”
Abstract: The concept of attention is defined by multiple inconsistent metaphors that scientists use to identify relevant phenomena, frame hypotheses, construct experiments, and interpret data. (1) The Filter metaphor shapes debates about partial vs. complete filtering, early vs. late selection, and information filtering vs. enhancement. (2) The Spotlight metaphor raises the issue of space- vs. object-based selection, and it guides research on the size, shape, and movement of the attentional focus. (3) The Spotlight-in-the-Brain metaphor is frequently used to interpret imaging studies of attention. (4) The debate between supramodal and pre-motor theories of attention replays the dichotomy between the Spotlight and the Vision metaphors of attention. Our analysis reveals the central role of metaphor in scientific theory and research on attention, exposes hidden assumptions behind various research strategies, and shows the need for flexibility in the use of current metaphors.
also by the same authors:
“Cause and Effect Theories of Attention: The Role of Conceptual Metaphors” Citation: Review of General Psychology. Vol. 6, No.2, June 2002 (139-152)
Abstract: In everyday discourse, as well as in science, concepts of attention are defined by metaphors. In scientific theories these metaphors determine what attention is and what count as adequate explanations of the phenomena. We analyze these metaphors in the context of three types of attention theories: (1)’Cause’ theories, in which attention is presumed to modulate information-processing (e .g., Attention as a Spotlight ; Attention as a Limited Resource), (2 )`effect’ theories, in which attention is considered to be the by-product of information-processing (e.g., the Competition metaphor), and (3) hybrid theories that combine `cause’ and `effect’ aspects (e .g., Biased-Competition models). Our analysis reveals the crucial role of metaphors in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and the efforts of scientists to find a resolution to the classic problem of `cause’ versus `effect’ interpretations.
A Mind Alphabet - I got this idea from Bella Dia’s “Encyclopedia of Me Meme” but will be adapting it to the “mind on books” theme. It seems like a good way to explore some different mind-related topics. I may do more than one topic for each letter & intersperse them among other posts.
***** Attention – a collection of notes & resources
What is the ideal form of attention – the ability to stay in focus, or the ability to shift, strengthen and loosen focus at will?
Without attention, information that our senses take in – what we see and hear, feel, smell, and taste – literally does not register in the mind. It may not be stored even briefly in memory. What you see is determined by what you pay attention to. …
Paying attention physically damps down activity in neurons other than those involved in focusing on the target of your attention. … Attention, then, pumps up neuronal activity. Attention is real, in the sense that it takes a physical form capable of affecting the physical activity of the brain. [p. 158]
Begley goes on to discuss the relationship between attention and neuroplasticity, based on some experiments with monkeys in which cortical areas expanded in response to attention paid to corresponding sensory inputs.
by Edward Castronova:
by McKenzie Wark (with a superb 
by Steven Berlin Johnson: “In this provocative, intelligent, and convincing endorsement of today’s mass entertainment, national bestselling author Steven Johnson argues that the pop culture we soak in every day-from “The Lord of the Rings” to “Grand Theft Auto” to “The Simpsons”-has been growing more and more sophisticated and, far from rotting our brains, is actually posing new cognitive challenges that are making our minds measurably sharper.”
by Bernard Suits (which I found via a 
by James P. Carse, which begins:
by Robert Kane (Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2005).
by Peter Van Inwagen (Oxford [Oxfordshire] : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1983).
by Chris Nunn (New York : Macmillan, 2005).
by Daniel Clement Dennett (Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 1984).
by John Martin Fischer (Malden, MA ; Oxford : Blackwell Pub., 2007).
by Robert Kane (Wiley, 2001). [readings]
by Thomas Pink (Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2004).
by Alfred R Mele (Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006). 
I’ll have to give up on the Amazon slideshow widget at least for now. I thought I had it figured out earlier today; it worked in Internet Explorer but I found out that it didn’t work in Firefox at all. So here is a selection of books on emotion that would have been in the slideshow… (and I apologize for any problems that occurred with the feed):
by Daniel Goleman
by 
ed. by Lisa Feldman Barrett, Paula M. Niedenthal, and Piotr Winkielman
by Susan Greenfield
by Daniel Goleman
by Joseph Ledoux
ed, by Robert C. Solomon
by James A Autry; Peter Roy (New York : Morgan Road Books, 2006). [business-oriented]
(Boston, Mass. : Harvard Business School ; London : McGraw-Hill [distributor], 2006). [business-oriented]
by John Eric Adair (London ; Philadelphia : Kogan Page, 2007). [business-oriented]
ed. by Malcolm Cook; Janet M Noyes; Yvonne Masakowski (Aldershot, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007). [technical/specialized]
by Alain Berthoz; tr. Giselle Weiss (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2006).
by Edward C Rosenthal (Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2005).
by Howard Gardner (New York: Basic Books, 1985, 1987) – Ch. 12 “A World Categorized.”
by George Lakoff (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1987). [listed first at both WorldCat and LibraryThing, the most popular book on the topic at both institutional and personal libraries]
by Susan A Gelman et al; Society for Research in Child Development. (Chicago, IL : University of Chicago Press, 1998). (
Continuing the “mind alphabet”… The intersection between Buddhism and Western brain/mind science is a burgeoning field…
and 
by James H. Austin
by Christopher deCharms
by B. Alan Wallace
