Introducing Mind & Brain, 2nd Edition

Recently, I have been reading several books on the brain--not just its cold, on-the-slab anatomy but its functional anatomy at the neuron column level. I read: "On Intelligence" [Jeff Hawkins] which was excellent "The Creative Brain" [Nancy Andreason] "Origins of Genius" [Keith Simonton] among others. This one tiny volume, almost like a comic book at first glance because of the profusion of illustrations [one of these authors must be left handed], was the absolute most important resource on the structure and function of the brain. Other books I read and set aside. This one I keep around as a guide book to the brain. I would suggest this "Introducing Mind and Brain" book and "On Intelligence" as the only must buy.

I stumbled upon this book while searching for books on philosophical theory of consciousness. I figured it wouldn't hurt (obviously) to learn first about the more basic, concrete functions of the brain and the brain/mind relationship. However, this book totally opened up new areas of interest for me. I quickly became interested in the subject for its own sake. I always knew the brain was interesting to study, but reading about actual biological theories/discoveries was definitely a lot more fascinating than I ever imagined. This book really illustrates how truly remarkable the mind is, and yet, how much more there is to learn. I am still interested in learning about the philosophical perspective of consciousness, however, this is a whole new topic I am definitely going to take on in addition to it. This book really does a great job covering all important aspects: people that historically played important roles in the development of the theories, explanation of theories themselves, how complex functions and "simple" functions are executed, questions about the existence of "mind" vs. biological brain, introduces a variety mental/physical conditions and its explanations, the list goes on and on (there are MANY more interesting topics I'm leaving out). There are SOOOO MANY interesting things covered in this book and it is done so well, you can't help but to become interested in further reading, whether it be philosophical, biological, or psychological.

The area of the mind and brain is a difficult one to present to the non-specialist, since on the one hand, it requires an understanding of traditional philosophical areas like epistemology, and modern scientific areas such as perception, psychophysics, and neurobiology. This makes it a formidable area to try to read and get some background in for the layman, but there is no more fascinating and important subject than the understanding of our own minds, brains, and selves, and yet few people, even those trained in the sciences, have a knowledge of it.This book presents this difficult and technical area in a clear, concise and even engaging and witty way, using a cartoon-like style to illustrate and elaborate on the concepts of the text. If there is an easier way to get a basic grasp of the issues I haven't seen it, and I enjoyed reading this book although this is my own specialty and I can read the more technical literature too, because it gave me many ideas about how to explain the concepts better myself in my own conversations with people.I just wanted to make one other comment. A long-standing and still controversial issue in the mind-brain field is the problem of psychophysical reductionism. This is the idea that the mind can ultimately be reduced to the actions of individual neurons, and to brain physiology in general. Although there is now a great amount of research to support this idea now, I didn't want to discuss idea so much as people's usual reactions to it.The main problem here is that as human beings we seem to have an aversion to being reduced to our biology, as if this makes us some sort of machine, or at least a "biological machine." For many people, our new understanding of the brain doesn't seem to leave much room for phenomena such as consciousness, let alone the soul. Human beings are a very creative and resourceful species. Our imaginations take flight so easily, both as individuals and as a species, that we shudder at the thought that the mind can be reduced to mere matter, to "ordinary" biology.This biology, however, is far from "ordinary." Your brain contains 60 trillion neurons, which are connected to anywhere from 3,000 to 100,000 other neurons. This is a lot of interconnections. To calculate how many connections this is, is very interesting. Mathematically, this is known as a "combinatorial explosion" problem because of the large numbers generated. In practical terms, this means that the number of interconnections in a human brain is greater than the number of atoms in the Milky Way galaxy, which contains 80 billion stars. Another way of saying it is that your brain is the equivalent of millions of the most powerful computer chips. Your brain is thousands, probably millions, of times more complex than the most powerful computer we can build-- not bad for a blob of "mere matter" that weighs only 3 pounds.This having been said, is it really so bad to have one's consciousness reduced to neuronal mechanisms?"Anyway, I just

Pretty much everything you need to know about brain physiology, perception, and psychology of consciousness, presented in easy-to-read cartoon form! As an emotional intelligence trainer, I found it a lot better than many other books from this rather patchy series. I recommend it to my students.

The book is short, illustrated and aimed at the general audience. It's not in-depth but does cover quite a bit of ground. It's no replacement for the various case studies by Oliver Sacks, Pinker' _How The Mind Works_ or even Dennett's _Consciousness Explained_, but it does have material worth reading. On the negative side, it's not quite as easy to follow as some other illustrated guides, but I'd still recommend it to anyone interested in neurology.