In the Palaces of Memory
How We Build the Worlds Inside Our Heads
Published on 22. September 2010
272 pages
978-0-307-76546-8 (ISBN)
Description
Even as you read these words, a tiny portion of your brain is physically changing. New connections are being sprouted--a circuit that will create a stab of recognition if you encounter the words again. That is one of the theories of memory presented in this intriguing and splendidly readable book, which distills three researchers' inquiries into the processes that enable us to recognize a face that has aged ten years or remember a melody for decades. Ranging from experiments performed on the "wetware" of the brain to attempts to re-create human cognition in computers, In the Palaces of Memory is science writing at its most exciting.
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George Johnson
In the Palaces of Memory
Book
11/1998
Random House Value Publishing
€23.67
Article exhausted; check different version
Book
03/1992
Vintage Books
€17.00
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Book
01/1991
Alfred A. Knopf
€41.12
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Person
George Johnson writes regularly about science for the New York Times. He has also written for National Geographic, Slate, Discover, Scientific American, Wired, and the Atlantic, and his work has been included in The Best American Science Writing. A former Alicia Patterson fellow, he has received awards from PEN and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and his books were twice finalists for the Royal Society's book prize. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Content
- Intro
- Other Books by This Author
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface: Invisible Palaces
- Prelude: The Tower in the Jungle
- Part One - Mucking Around in the Wetware
- A Dark Continent
- Looking for Engrams
- The Brain's Volume Controls
- Early Obsessions
- Growing New Wires
- Strengthening Connections
- An Exotic Phenomenon
- The Porcupine Effect
- Sharing a Hallucination
- Artificial Amnesia
- A Hostile Replication
- The King of the Hill
- Off-the-shelf Enzymes
- Religious Feuds
- "A Beautiful Little Switch"
- Hebb's Return
- Intuition and Ambiguity
- First Interlude: A Brain in a Box
- Part Two - The Memory Machine
- Theorizing About Theorizing
- Atomic Choreography
- The Structures of Experience
- Magnets and Brain Cells
- Universal Machines
- Toward a Mushier Computer
- The Exorcists
- Systems of Symbols
- A Model of Memory
- Animal Logic
- Resonance and Reality
- Something Deeply Hidden
- Knowledge Engineering
- Another Change in Fashion
- The Man in the Pineapple Shirt
- The Price of an Idea
- Second Interlude: "God Is a Tinkerer"
- Part Three - The End of Philosophy
- Spooky Stuff
- Philosophy's Hinterlands
- Celestial Navigation
- Rocky Waters
- What a Number Is
- Final Reflections
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Bibliography
- About the Author
