The Mind within the Brain
How We Make Decisions and How those Decisions Go Wrong
Published on 6. August 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
394 pages
978-0-19-026317-1 (ISBN)
Description
In The Mind within the Brain, David Redish brings together cutting edge research in psychology, robotics, economics, neuroscience, and the new fields of neuroeconomics and computational psychiatry, to offer a unified theory of human decision-making. Most importantly, Redish shows how vulnerabilities, or "failure-modes," in the decision-making system can lead to serious dysfunctions, such as irrational behavior, addictions, problem gambling, and PTSD.
Told with verve and humor in an easily readable style, Redish makes these difficult concepts understandable. Ranging widely from the surprising roles of emotion, habit, and narrative in decision-making, to the larger philosophical questions of how mind and brain are related, what makes us human, the nature of morality, free will, and the conundrum of robotics and consciousness, The Mind within the Brain offers fresh insight into one of the most complex aspects of human behavior.
Told with verve and humor in an easily readable style, Redish makes these difficult concepts understandable. Ranging widely from the surprising roles of emotion, habit, and narrative in decision-making, to the larger philosophical questions of how mind and brain are related, what makes us human, the nature of morality, free will, and the conundrum of robotics and consciousness, The Mind within the Brain offers fresh insight into one of the most complex aspects of human behavior.
Reviews / Votes
The Mind Within the Brain is a very valuable introduction to the neuroscientific paradigm and to understanding how we make choices. It is an enjoyable read, easy to relate to and very educational... is ambitious in its scope and style; not only does he want to explain how action-selection systems work in the brain, but also how they malfunction whilst delving into the philosophical and ethical consequences of analysing the mind in such a manner. * Jodie Russell (University of Edinburgh), British Society for Literature and Science * Well researched and delivered with a light touch."- Nature The author, a neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota, has a flair for explaining complex ideas, and he uses humor and personal stories to keep the lay reader interested. (He also has kindly included appendices for us neuroscience neophytes.) Know that Redish has done some important work here, challenging some of our assumptions about how the brain works and paving new ways for working with some of the most challenging problems involving the brain."-Daily Kos David Redish is a leading neuroscientist known for his pioneering, creative work. In this thoughtful book, he clearly describes the latest findings in brain science to help readers better understand what really drives the choices we make."
-Tali Sharot, Affective Brain Lab, Cognitive, Perceptual, & Brain Science, University College London, author of The Optimism Bias Over the last decade there has been an explosion in our understanding of how the brain makes decisions. This book, written by one of the leading scholars in the field, is a must read for anyone interested in this area."
-Antonio Rangel, Professor of Neuroscience and Economics, California Institute of Technology
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Illustrations
With illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
669 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-026317-1 (9780190263171)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
08/2013
Oxford University Press Inc
€62.00
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
A. David Redish is Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and the Graduate Program in Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota.
Content
Decisions and the brain ; 1 What is a decision? ; 2 The tale of the thermostat ; 3 The definition of value ; 4 Value, euphoria, and the do-it-again signal ; 5 Risk and reward ; The decision-making system ; 6 Multiple Decision-making systems ; 7 Reflexes ; 8 Emotion and the Pavlovian action-selection system ; 9 Deliberation ; 10 The habits of our lives ; 11 Integrating Information ; 12 The stories we tell ; 13 Motivation ; 14 The tradeoff between exploration and exploitation ; 15 Self-control ; The brain with a mind of its own ; 16 The physical mind ; 17 Imagination ; 18 Addiction ; 19 Gambling and behavioral addictions ; 20 PTSD ; 21 Computational psychiatry ; The human condition ; 22 What makes us human? ; 23 The science of morality ; 24 The conundrum of robotics ; Epilogue ; Appendix ; A Information processing in neurons ; B Gleaning information from the brain ; C Content-addressable memory ; Bibliography