my mind on books

The Secret World of Sleep: The Surprising Science of the Mind at Rest by Penelope A. Lewis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)

(kindle ed.), (amazon.co.uk)

Book description from the publisher:

In recent years neuroscientists have uncovered the countless ways our brain trips us up in day-to-day life, from its propensity toward irrational thought to how our intuitions deceive us. The latest research on sleep, however, points in the opposite direction. Where old wives tales have long advised to “sleep on a problem,” today scientists are discovering the truth behind these folk sayings, and how the busy brain radically improves our minds through sleep and dreams. In The Secret World of Sleep, neuroscientist Penny Lewis explores the latest research into the nighttime brain to understand the real benefits of sleep. She shows how, while our body rests, the brain practices tasks it learned during the day, replays traumatic events to mollify them, and forges connections between distant concepts. By understanding the roles that the nocturnal brain plays in our waking life, we can improve the relationship between the two, and even boost creativity and become smarter. This is a fascinating exploration of one of the most surprising corners of neuroscience that shows how science may be able to harness the power of sleep to improve learning, health, and more.

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See also: Author interview on NPR

Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict by Ara Norenzayan (Princeton University Press, 2013)

(kindle ed.), (amazon.co.uk)

Book description from the publisher:

How did human societies scale up from small, tight-knit groups of hunter-gatherers to the large, anonymous, cooperative societies of today–even though anonymity is the enemy of cooperation? How did organized religions with “Big Gods”–the great monotheistic and polytheistic faiths–spread to colonize most minds in the world? In Big Gods, Ara Norenzayan makes the surprising and provocative argument that these fundamental puzzles about the origins of civilization are one and the same, and answer each other.

Once human minds could conceive of supernatural beings, Norenzayan argues, the stage was set for rapid cultural and historical changes that eventually led to large societies with Big Gods–powerful, omniscient, interventionist deities concerned with regulating the moral behavior of humans. How? As the saying goes, “watched people are nice people.” It follows that people play nice when they think Big Gods are watching them, even when no one else is. Yet at the same time that sincere faith in Big Gods unleashed unprecedented cooperation within ever-expanding groups, it also introduced a new source of potential conflict between competing groups.

In some parts of the world, such as northern Europe, secular institutions have precipitated religion’s decline by usurping its community-building functions. These societies with atheist majorities–some of the most cooperative, peaceful, and prosperous in the world–climbed religion’s ladder, and then kicked it away. So while Big Gods answers fundamental questions about the origins and spread of world religions, it also helps us understand another, more recent social transition–the rise of cooperative societies without belief in gods.

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See also: Author’s website

This is Philosophy of Mind by Pete Mandik (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013)

(kindle ed.), (amazon.co.uk)

Book description from the publisher (from back cover):

The nature of the human mind and its relationship with the body and the outside world has long been a central concern of western philosophy, and the last few decades have seen great strides on explanations of consciousness, brain function, explications of the nature of perception and emotion, and many other issues. This is Philosophy of Mind presents a lively and accessible introduction to our current understanding of the core issues related to the philosophy of mind, including the mind-body conundrum, artificial intelligence, the nature of consciousness, and many more. While several chapters focus on the traditional positions on the mind-body problem, others offer insights on such contemporary topics as the problems of mental causation and free will, as well as theories of consciousness and intentionality. Specifically written for students of philosophy without a great deal of background, This is Philosophy of Mind helps to unravel some of the deep mysteries surrounding the nature of the human mind.

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See also: Book’s companion blog

Mortal Rituals: What the Story of the Andes Survivors Tells Us About Human Evolution by Matt J. Rossano (Columbia University Press, 2013)

(kindle ed.), (amazon.co.uk)

On December 21, 1972, sixteen young survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 were rescued after spending ten weeks stranded at the crash site of their plane, high in the remote Andes Mountains. The incident made international headlines and spawned several best-selling books, fueled partly by the fact that the young men had resorted to cannibalism to survive.

Matt Rossano examines this story from an evolutionary perspective, weaving together findings and ideas from anthropology, psychology, religion, and cognitive science. During their ordeal, these young men broke “civilized” taboos to fend off starvation and abandoned “civilized” modes of thinking to maintain social unity and individual sanity. Through the power of ritual, the survivors were able to endure severe emotional and physical hardship. Rossano ties their story to our story, seeing in the mortal rituals of this struggle for survival a reflection of what it means to be human.

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See also: Author’s Mortal Rituals blog at Psychology Today

The Why of Things: Causality in Science, Medicine, and Life by Peter Rabins (Columbia University Press, 2013)

(kindle ed.), (amazon.co.uk)

Why was there a meltdown at the Fukushima power plant? Why do some people get cancer and not others? Why is global warming happening? Why does one person get depressed in the face of life’s vicissitudes while another finds resilience?

Questions like these — questions of causality — form the basis of modern scientific inquiry, posing profound intellectual and methodological challenges for researchers in the physical, natural, biomedical, and social sciences. In this groundbreaking book, noted psychiatrist and author Peter Rabins offers a conceptual framework for analyzing daunting questions of causality. Navigating a lively intellectual voyage between the shoals of strict reductionism and relativism, Rabins maps a three-facet model of causality and applies it to a variety of questions in science, medicine, economics, and more.

Throughout this book, Rabins situates his argument within relevant scientific contexts, such as quantum mechanics, cybernetics, chaos theory, and epigenetics. A renowned communicator of complex concepts and scientific ideas, Rabins helps readers stretch their minds beyond the realm of popular literary tipping points, blinks, and freakonomic explanations of the world.

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See also: Author’s website