You've probably seen it before: a human brain dramatically lit
from the side, the camera circling it like a helicopter shot of
Stonehenge, and a modulated baritone voice exalting the brain's
elegant design in reverent tones.
To which this book says: Pure nonsense. In a work at once
deeply learned and wonderfully accessible, the neuroscientist David
Linden counters the widespread assumption that the brain is a
paragon of design--and in its place gives us a compelling
explanation of how the brain's serendipitous evolution has resulted
in nothing short of our humanity. A guide to the strange and often
illogical world of neural function, "The Accidental Mind" shows how
the brain is not an optimized, general-purpose problem-solving
machine, but rather a weird agglomeration of ad-hoc solutions that
have been piled on through millions of years of evolutionary
history. Moreover, Linden tells us how the constraints of evolved
brain design have ultimately led to almost every transcendent human
foible: our long childhoods, our extensive memory capacity, our
search for love and long-term relationships, our need to create
compelling narrative, and, ultimately, the universal cultural
impulse to create both religious and scientific explanations. With
forays into evolutionary biology, this analysis of mental function
answers some of our most common questions about how we've come to
be who we are.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!