The Mind is Flat: The Illusion of Mental Depth and The Improvised Mind
Material type:![Text](/opac-tmpl/lib/famfamfam/BK.png)
- 9780241208441
- 153 CHA-M
Item type | Current library | Home library | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() |
Dept. of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Processing Center | Dept. of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics | 153 CHA-M (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | DCB3487 |
We all like to think we have a hidden inner life. Most of us assume that our beliefs and desires arise from the murky depths of our minds, and, if only we could work out how to access this mysterious world, we could truly understand ourselves. For more than a century, psychologists and psychiatrists have struggled to discover what lies below our mental surface. In The Mind Is Flat, pre-eminent behavioural scientist Nick Chater reveals that this entire enterprise is utterly misguided. Drawing on startling new research in neuroscience, behavioural psychology and perception, he shows that we have no hidden depths to plumb, and unconscious thought is a myth. Instead, we generate our ideas, motives and thoughts in the moment. This revelation explains many of the quirks of human behaviour - for example why our supposedly firm political beliefs, personal preferences and even our romantic attractions are routinely proven to be inconsistent and changeable. As the reader discovers, through mind-bending visual examples and counterintuitive experiments, we are all characters of our own creation, constantly improvising our behaviour based on our past experiences. And, as Chater shows us, recognising this can be liberating.
There are no comments on this title.