my mind on books

More than Nature Needs: Language, Mind, and Evolution by Derek Bickerton (Harvard University Press, 2013)

(amazon.co.uk)

Book description from the publisher:

The human mind is an unlikely evolutionary adaptation. How did humans acquire cognitive capacities far more powerful than anything a hunting-and-gathering primate needed to survive? Alfred Russel Wallace, co-founder with Darwin of evolutionary theory, saw humans as “divine exceptions” to natural selection. Darwin thought use of language might have shaped our sophisticated brains, but his hypothesis remained an intriguing guess–until now. Combining state-of-the-art research with forty years of writing and thinking about language evolution, Derek Bickerton convincingly resolves a crucial problem that both biology and the cognitive sciences have hitherto ignored or evaded.

What evolved first was neither language nor intelligence–merely normal animal communication plus displacement. That was enough to break restrictions on both thought and communication that bound all other animals. The brain self-organized to store and automatically process its new input, words. But words, which are inextricably linked to the concepts they represent, had to be accessible to consciousness. The inevitable consequence was a cognitive engine able to voluntarily merge both thoughts and words into meaningful combinations. Only in a third phase could language emerge, as humans began to tinker with a medium that, when used for communication, was adequate for speakers but suboptimal for hearers.

Starting from humankind’s remotest past, More than Nature Needs transcends nativist thesis and empiricist antithesis by presenting a revolutionary synthesis–one that instead of merely repeating “nature and nurture” clichés shows specifically and in a principled manner how and why the synthesis came about.

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See also: Author at Academia.edu – “How ‘More Than Nature Needs’ Changes the Linguistic and Cognitive Landscape: A Study Guide”

Intuition by Elijah Chudnoff (Oxford University Press, 2013)

(Hardcover – 2/5/14), (amazon.co.uk), (UK kindle ed)

Book description from the publisher:

We know about our immediate environment–about the people, animals, and things around us–by having sensory perceptions. According to a tradition that traces back to Plato, we know about abstract reality–about mathematics, morality, and metaphysics–by having intuitions, which can be thought of as intellectual perceptions. The rough idea behind the analogy is this: while sensory perceptions are experiences that purport to, and sometimes do, reveal how matters stand in concrete reality by making us aware of that reality through the senses, intuitions are experiences that purport to, and sometimes do, reveal how matters stand in abstract reality by making us aware of that reality through the intellect. In this book, Elijah Chudnoff elaborates and defends such a view of intuition. He focuses on the experience of having an intuition, on the justification for beliefs that derives from intuition, and on the contact with abstract reality via intuition. In the course of developing a systematic account of the phenomenology, epistemology, and metaphysics of intuition on which it counts as a form of intellectual perception Chudnoff also takes up related issues such as the a priori, perceptual justification and knowledge, concepts and understanding, inference, mental action, and skeptical challenges to intuition.

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See also: Author’s webpage

The Proteus Paradox: How Online Games and Virtual Worlds Change Us—And How They Don’t by Nick Yee (Yale University Press, 2013)

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

Book description from the publisher:

Proteus, the mythical sea god who could alter his appearance at will, embodies one of the promises of online games: the ability to reinvent oneself. Yet inhabitants of virtual worlds rarely achieve this liberty, game researcher Nick Yee contends. Though online games evoke freedom and escapism, Yee shows that virtual spaces perpetuate social norms and stereotypes from the offline world, transform play into labor, and inspire racial scapegoating and superstitious thinking. And the change that does occur is often out of our control and effected by unparalleled—but rarely recognized—tools for controlling what players think and how they behave.

Using player surveys, psychological experiments, and in-game data, Yee breaks down misconceptions about who plays fantasy games and the extent to which the online and offline worlds operate separately. With a wealth of entertaining and provocative examples, he explains what virtual worlds are about and why they matter, not only for entertainment but also for business and education. He uses gaming as a lens through which to examine the pressing question of what it means to be human in a digital world. His thought-provoking book is an invitation to think more deeply about virtual worlds and what they reveal to us about ourselves.

See also: Author’s website

Philosophy of Mind: The Key Thinkers, ed. by Andrew Bailey (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013)

(paperback – 1/16/14), (amazon.co.uk)

Book description from the publisher:

Exploring what great philosophers have written about the nature of thought and consciousness Philosophy of Mind: The Key Thinkers offers a comprehensive overview of this fascinating field. Thirteen specially commissioned essays, written by leading experts, introduce and explore the contributions of those philosophers who have shaped the subject and the central issues and arguments therein.

The modern debate about the mind was shaped by Descartes in the seventeenth century, and then reshaped in the mid-twentieth century, and since, by exciting developments in science and philosophy. This book concentrates on the development of philosophical views on the mind since Descartes, offering coverage of the leading thinkers in the field including Husserl, Ryle, Lewis, Putnam, Fodor, Davidson, Dennett and the Churchlands. Crucially the book demonstrates how the ideas and arguments of these key thinkers have contributed to our understanding of the relationship between mind and brain.

Ideal for undergraduate students, the book lays the necessary foundations for a complete and thorough understanding of this fascinating subject.

Table Of Contents

Notes on Contributors
1. Introduction: 90 Years of Philosophy of Mind Andrew Bailey
2. Decoding René Descartes’ ‘Myth’ of Mind Patricia Easton
3. Edmund Husserl and Phenomenology Dermot Moran
4. Maurice Merleau-Ponty: A Phenomenological Philosophy of Mind and Body Sara Heinämaa
5. Gilbert Ryle and Logical Behaviourism William Lyons
6. The Contributions of U.T. Place, H. Feigl, and J.J.C. Smart to the Identity Theory of Consciousness Brian P. McLaughlin and Ronald Planer
7. David Lewis, David Armstrong, and the Causal Theory of the Mind David Braddon-Mitchell
8. Hilary Putnam and Computational Functionalism Oron Shagrir
9. Jerry Fodor and the Representational Theory of Mind Matthew Katz
10. Donald Davidson, Daniel Dennett, and the Origins of the Normative Model of the Mind Andrew Brook
11. Tracking Representationalism: William Lycan, Fred Dretske, and Michael Tye David Bourget and Angela Mendelovici
12. The Neurophilosophies of Patricia and Paul Churchland John Bickle
13. Andy Clark, Antonio Damasio, and Embodied Cognition Monica Cowart
14. David Chalmers on Mind and Consciousness Richard Brown
15. Postscript: Philosophy of Mind—The Next Ten Years? Andrew Bailey
Index

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— Debbie A Foster (@mymindonbooks) December 4, 2013