Reddit Reddit reviews How the Mind Works

We found 14 Reddit comments about How the Mind Works. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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How the Mind Works
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14 Reddit comments about How the Mind Works:

u/distantocean · 10 pointsr/exchristian

That's one of my favorite popular science books, so it's wonderful to hear you're getting so much out of it. It really is a fascinating topic, and it's sad that so many Christians close themselves off to it solely to protect their religious beliefs (though as you discovered, it's good for those religious beliefs that they do).

As a companion to the book you might enjoy the Stated Clearly series of videos, which break down evolution very simply (and they're made by an ex-Christian whose education about evolution was part of his reason for leaving the religion). You might also like Coyne's blog, though these days it's more about his personal views than it is about evolution (but some searching on the site will bring up interesting things he's written on a whole host of religious topics from Adam and Eve to "ground of being" theology). He does also have another book you might like (Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible), though I only read part of it since I was familiar with much of it from his blog.

> If you guys have any other book recommendations along these lines, I'm all ears!

You should definitely read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, if only because it's a classic (and widely misrepresented/misunderstood). A little farther afield, one of my favorite popular science books of all time is The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, which looks at human language as an evolved ability. Pinker's primary area of academic expertise is child language acquisition, so he's the most in his element in that book.

If you're interested in neuroscience and the brain you could read How the Mind Works (also by Pinker) or The Tell-Tale Brain by V. S. Ramachandran, both of which are wide-ranging and accessibly written. I'd also recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow by psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Evolution gets a lot of attention in ex-Christian circles, but books like these are highly underrated as antidotes to Christian indoctrination -- nothing cures magical thinking about the "soul", consciousness and so on as much as learning how the brain and the mind actually work.

If you're interested in more general/philosophical works that touch on similar themes, Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach made a huge impression on me (years ago). You might also like The Mind's I by Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, which is a collection of philosophical essays along with commentaries. Books like these will get you thinking about the true mysteries of life, the universe and everything -- the kind of mysteries that have such sterile and unsatisfying "answers" within Christianity and other mythologies.

Don't worry about the past -- just be happy you're learning about all of this now. You've got plenty of life ahead of you to make up for any lost time. Have fun!

u/Kakuz · 5 pointsr/books

I would go with Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow". It can be rather tedious at times, but it's such a great summary of recent work in social and cognitive psychology that it's worth it.

Oliver Sacks, as mentioned before, is another great author. Very approachable, very interesting, yet quite informative.

I have heard that Dan Ariely is a great author. Predictably Irrational might be a great read.

Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works is also great, but I would recommend Kahneman over him.

Finally, I would recommend a classic: William James - The Principles of Psychology. It's old, and some stuff is dated, but the guy had amazing insight nonetheless. It'd be a great intro reading just to see where psychology came from.

I would stay away from Jonah Lehrer, since he was accused of academic dishonesty. His book "How we Decide" was an extremely easy read, and a bit watered down. On that tangent, I would also avoid Malcolm Gladwell. Sacks does a better job at explaining psychology and neuroscience to a general audience.

Hope that helps!

u/tndal · 4 pointsr/science

How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker.

u/DeterminedThrowaway · 4 pointsr/DebateAnAtheist

> There's nothing strange about that, humans are not just information processing machines.

I would like to refer you to the book How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker, because it turns out that humans are information processing machines. Our brains don't work by magic, they follow the same laws of physics as everything else.

u/camspiers · 3 pointsr/Christianity

I recommend a book by Steven Pinker called How the Mind Works.

u/chops893 · 3 pointsr/books

I agree with The Selfish Gene and Surely You're Joking and would like to add:

u/Jenycroispas · 2 pointsr/TrueAtheism

I'm reading How The Mind Works right now. I can tell you, no extra-natural explanation is reasonable to entertain for consciousness. They are not necessary. My prior reading deals with this as well. What happens to our brains affects our conscious experience with such fidelity that the only way to imagine that consciousness doesn't emerge as a property of a brain is to ignore what we know to be true.

Here are some examples of articles I am amassing that relate to brains and therefore consciousness:

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2009/11/11/learned-helplessness/

https://www.broadinstitute.org/news/3048

http://loiter.co/v/the-mysterious-you-dont-understand-me-workings-of/

http://www.livescience.com/23283-east-vs-west-coast-culture-differences.html

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2006-07/mental-workout

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article750838.ece

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-humans-are-biased-toward-good-news-20120924,0,1690699.story

http://www.nih.gov/news/health/aug2012/nichd-28.htm

http://www.mindflash.com/blog/2011/02/how-does-the-brain-retain-information/?view=mindflashgraphic

http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/this-must-be-heaven

http://loiter.co/v/mathematician-participates-in-an-experiment-design/

http://www.kyb.mpg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/files/publications/pdfs/pdf2059.pdf

http://www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_journal_individual.asp?blog_id=2300277

This one is solid science, it's not directly relevant, but I'll leave it here since the wikibot is already on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_oTEhFAAARE

I'll leave this one here, because psychology is fun http://loiter.co/v/how-to-fool-a-baboon/

http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/molyneuxs-question-gets-answered-after-300-years/story-fn5fsgyc-1226037177460

There is pseudoscience here, but it makes me think: http://jewels.hubpages.com/hub/Consciousness__Thoughts_and_the_Brain

http://www.33rdsquare.com/2012/06/will-neuroscience-lead-to-new-type-of.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx53Zj7EKQE

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/retrieve/pii/S096098221300002X

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7456588.stm

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/03/21/174830095/frans-de-waals-bottom-up-morality-were-not-good-because-of-god

http://www.nicolelislab.net/?p=369

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/03/20/174729853/where-did-life-come-from-the-mind-the-universe-can-we-even-know

http://www.nature.com/news/see-through-brains-clarify-connections-1.12768

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/cns-mta041613.php

Pseudoscientific thought experiment, fun to argue with http://www.west.net/~simon/brain-soul-consciousness.html

http://www.livescience.com/28941-physicist-proposes-new-way-to-think-about-intelligence.html?cid=dlvr.it

http://www.treehugger.com/health/study-shows-walk-park-fixes-fuzzy-brain.html

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/understanding-the-brain-of-a-man-with-no-conscious-memory/

Interesting, still no idea what to make of it, though: http://www.gizmag.com/quantum-entanglement-speed-10000-faster-light/26587/

More pseudoscientific thought experiments. http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_paradigmaholo06.htm

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2013/11/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath/

http://www.businessinsider.com/cognitive-biases-2013-8?op=1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23431793

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/three-years-later-the-girl-in-the-window-learns-to-connect/1186860

Edit: I accidentally lumped some links in there that have nothing to do with the subject. I will be reviewing these and deleting them in the next minutes.

Edit 2: done deleting stuff. If anyone wants anything back, or wants to discuss part of it, go ahead.

u/SuperC142 · 2 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

I recommend reading: The User Illusion by Tor Norretranders, Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter, and I Am a Strange Loop also by Douglas R. Hofstadter for some interesting reading on the subject (Warning: Gödel, Escher, Bach isn't for everyone- it's a bit strange, but I love it). I read a lot of books on science in general and, based on that, it seems like many believe consciousness and also free will is just an illusion. In fact, just a few days ago, physicist Brian Greene sorta-kinda said as much in his AMA - granted, he's talking specifically about free will and not consciousness per se, but I think the two must be very related.

I, too, believe in God and also have a very strong belief in and enthusiasm for science, so this is an especially fascinating question for me.

BTW: if you're interested in the way the brain works in general, I highly recommend How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker.

u/yardley101 · 1 pointr/cogsci

Before you get too far into the artificial intelligence you may want to update your knowledge of the real thing: Steven Pinker's the stuff of thought and How the mind works will get you most of the way.

And read or skim The Big Book Of Concepts by Murphy. He shoots holes in some very basic assumptions of GOFAI and AGI and points out how weak is our knowledge of the structure of human thought.

u/devnull5475 · 1 pointr/latin

Actually, according to Steven Pinker, there are two really fundamental metaphors, so to speak, at the level of so-called mentalese, below the level of any particular language:

  • Space or place
  • Force, agency

    So, we talk about "friends in your life," etc; and we don't hesitate to talk about, say, computer programs that "want to shut down," etc. Zillions of examples; totally pervasive.

    So, I guess it's not surprising that agere is so widely used.
u/Darwins_Beard · 1 pointr/evolution

If you're really interested in the evolution of the human brain and how evolution has shaped our psychology, I suggest reading Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works." It's not a light read, but it's incredibly fascinating.

For a more general look at recent human evolution, I enjoyed "The 10,000 Year Explosion." The authors argue that genetic changes have led to higher than average IQs among European Jews.


u/pikus_gracilens · 1 pointr/AcademicPsychology

I don't mean to sound harsh, but just as an alternative view, I don't have much respect for the 'forefathers' of psychology, especially Psychoanalysts.. In fact, I think that they are responsible for leading psychology down the pseudo-scientific path that has been hard to shed for so many years (despite meticulous efforts by Skinner, James, etc.)

What someone called "unified theories" were not unified in the sense of all-encompassing, but were rather shoddy attempts to synthesize rote observations and philosophical mumbo-jumbo. Other sciences were way more advanced than psychology because they were inventing new technologies and methods (Cajal, Darwin, Mendel, to name a few) several years before Freud and Co. came along. Therefore, I don't think they deserve any sympathy. Rather, they were willfully ignorant.

As for OP's question, I think as broad areas of research, there are TONNES of good books to read in case you are (rightfully) moving forward from the dark ages of psychology. For example, Cognition is quite a fantastic coverage of brilliant scientific research in psychology, so is Psychological Science. There is also Choices, Values, Frames which is a bit more applied, and How the Mind Works, which may be a bit more speculative, but fascinating.

u/rationalitylite · -7 pointsr/DecidingToBeBetter

Some ideas in 4 categories:

Body Language: