(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best cognitive psychology books

Autogenerated.

I am neuroscientist Dr. Michael Merzenich, a principal discoverer of lifelong brain plasticity. AMA about your brain’s ability to change from the cradle to the grave.

Proof: http://imgur.com/iEJ46Bu

I’m here to introduce you to strategies for growing your brain power, and for adopting strategies for managing your organic brain health. For nearly five decades, I’ve been a leading pioneer in the science of neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to change its anatomical, neurochemical, and functional performance status across the lifespan. Neuroplasticity can enable the brain to change for the better, or for the worse. We know the neurological rules that govern this remarkable process—which has led us to a new understanding of why most individuals functionally deteriorate at an older age and also reveal powerful new strategies for more effectively engaging your brain to restore its functionality. With the proper forms of brain engagement and intensive computer-guided training, you can increase key neurotransmitters controlling brain change; improve the structural integrity of your brain; accelerate, refine, and grow the reliability of the brain’s information processing and recording (remembering); and improve your overall brain health. In other words, we now know how you can AGAIN GROW your brain powers see my book, Soft-Wired.

When I first helped pioneer this research beginning in the 1970s, most mainstream neuroscientists rejected the conclusion that the brain was subject to continuous, large-scale, lifelong brain remodeling. Hundreds of thousands of research reports have subsequently documented the fact of ‘adult’ brain plasticity, and millions of individuals have now benefited from the application of our intensive, highly efficient computer-guided training programs.

More recently, when we tried to explain to the scientific community that using pharmaceuticals to clear amyloid plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease would and could never really restore cognitive function—that drug trials predicated on this assumption were doomed to fail—this avenue for treatment was still being very aggressively pursued to the tune of billions of dollars. That investment reflects a fundamental lack of understanding of brain plasticity-related science and Alzheimer’s/dementia ‘disease’ origin. Although there is an ongoing presumption that Alzheimer’s disease is a disease, our brain science argues that Alzheimer’s is actually the catastrophic end stage of a long, completely natural, negative-plasticity-driven change progression. A fundamental misunderstanding of the origins of this train wreck explains why more than 450 FDA drug trials searching for a ‘magic bullet’ to treat Alzheimer’s have failed.

I’m joining the Reddit community to try to help you understand that the ways that scientists and doctors have thought about neurological and psychiatric illnesses like Alzheimer’s has been substantially in error. The slow, unrelenting decline in our functional abilities that culminate in those train wrecks that we’ve labelled “Alzheimer’s” or “dementia” or “Parkinson’s” or “schizophrenia” (among dozens of other adult-acquired maladies) are natural change progressions. Importantly, the same scientific studies have clearly shown that these negative progressions are NOT inevitable. We have the power to throw the plasticity switch from ‘decline’ to ‘grow.’ Understanding how to throw that switch is a central topic that I’m opening up for discussion on Reddit! What, exactly, should you be doing, to sustain or even grow your abilities, to successfully manage your organic brain health, to improve your lot in life, and keep yourself safer? My goal on Reddit is to educate you and other citizens about this scientific, economic, and societal revolution that is educating us about better ways to combat—and hopefully defeat— Alzheimer’s and other brain-related catastrophes. Our failure to apply this science in the world is currently devastating elder and other human populations. A medical course correction may be extremely important for you, and for every other older or otherwise-at-risk individual who you care about.

Credentials: I am an Emeritus Professor from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), have published more than 250 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and been awarded more than 60 US patents. For this work, I have been awarded the Kavli Prize, the highest international honor in neuroscience. I have also received the Russ Prize (highest honor in bioengineering), Ipsen Prize, Zülch Prize, Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award, Purkinje Medal, and membership to the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.

I will be here all day. My goal is to answer every question, which means I may visit again tomorrow.

Obligatory legal disclaimer: By law, medical information cannot be offered online. All information, content, and material is for informational purposes only and are not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis, and/or medical treatment of a qualified physician or healthcare provider. What I say here are my own opinions and may not necessarily reflect the views of the brain training companies I have founded.

EDIT: Thanks everyone -- I enjoyed your questions, they were good ones. I will try to get to the ones I didn't answer yet tomorrow.

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PacManFan123 :

How do I increase (either temporarily or permanently) my brain plasticity to

help me learn new things?

MichaelMerzenich :

There’s a class of exercises that you can do that we know will upregulate the

processes that control brain change itself. When we engage a brain to try to

improve its faculties we are commonly trying to exercise this “modulatory

control” machinery as a prerequisite as getting the most out of a brain

training experience. In general, intensive, serious, new-skill learning

commands the attention of the machinery that controls learning rate. If

you’re a life-long learner, and especially if that learning applies to

elaborating your operational skills and abilities it is likely that your

brain plasticity / control machinery is in good shape. Scientists have

extensively studied the way this learning machinery is controlled. They’ve

directly demonstrated ways to engage it that results in an amplification of

its powers. We apply those strategies in specific brain exercises and have

shown that when we precede learning by those exercises, learning is faster

and asymptotic performance achievements are elevated. If you want to self-

assess the status of this machinery consider your basic level of alertness,

brightness, sparkiness, and connection with the world. If you’re on the

sparky side of life this machinery is probably in pretty good shape. One

last point: a key neuromodulator of change in the brain is dopamine which is

associated with pleasure, happiness, and positive good spirits. Generous

people, people that are sympathetic to one another, people that are connected

to one another with positive good spirits have healthy assets in this sphere.

Be one of them.

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IamAbot_v01. Alpha version. Under care of /u/oppon.
Comment 1 of 13
Updated at 2017-06-29 11:59:33.282607

This is the final update to this thread

My stance on free will used to be like this: if we don't have free will, we can't choose whether or not to believe in it. That's only possible if we have free will. So stating "I don't believe in free will" is a logical contradiction if free will exists and an inevitability if it doesn't. So why discuss it at all?

After having been obsessed with neuroscience for many years, I've changed my mind. Because I've become convinced that free will isn't an either-or question. I now believe free will is a matter of degree.

A standard argument against free will is this: we live in a deterministic universe where every effect has a cause. Thus, everything that happens is the only thing that can happen. Because of this, free will can't exist.

My view on free will isn't original. But it will probably sound strange to most. I believe causation can be retroactive. Roger Sperry outlined this view in his 1993 essay "The Impact and Promise of the Cognitive Revolution". The idea is that cognition is about creating an internal representation/model of the world in your mind. This model can be used to predict the future. When the predictions control your behavior, causation flows downward. According to this view, your consciousness is this process in action. You might argue that the model is an effect following from earlier causes, but there's a counter-argument to that.

Complexity has become a big topic in physics. Stephen Hawking famously said that the 21st century will be the century of complexity. What is complexity? Consider a number of components acting in accordance to certain rules. Together they can form behavior that can't be predicted from the behavior of the components. We call this 'emergence'. Some believe consciousness is such an emergent feature and that it allows for the higher-order system (cognition) to control its components.

The physics of it is pretty interesting. Take the second law of thermodynamics. The entropy of an open system must always increase. Life only seemingly defies this law because the local lower entropy of lifeforms produce a higher global entropy. This idea has been explored extensively. A new theory of evolution grounded in physics suggests that evolution is really about creating new structures that are better at capturing and dissipating heat. Actually, according to this theory, evolution isn't just about life. It's about the whole universe. New structures arise when become better at capturing energy and passing it through their systems.

This brings us to the brain and free will. What if consciousness/the neocortex is simply an evolved structure that is better at this than the parts that came before? And what if it is at all times competing with the evolutionarily older parts for control? And what if the "winner" is the system that is the most efficient?

This would mean that free will is a possibility. And that there are levels of free will.

As I said, this is not an original idea. It's one of the core concepts of social cognitive theory.

Terrence Deacon, in his Incomplete Nature did a really great job explaining how causation can flow downward. Even arch-determinist Daniel Dennett had to commend him on his effort (even though it didn't convince him).

Thanks for posting, appreciate the post. I have been considering tech like others, I wanted to just put a few thoughts down, but there's easily so much, so this is messy.

If you go off of work like Beniger's "Control Revolution," technology can be seen almost entirely within a context of control, of separating access to information and displacing authority from those controlled by the outcomes; he seems to define it as a direct continuation of the industrial revolution and bureaucracy through a lens of control (organizing a group to work together for a common goal).

A few weeks ago I came to the conclusion that technology appropriates the spell from the spell-caster. While this is perhaps a strange metaphor, if I write a phrase on a piece of paper, and that phrase sparks thought from anyone that views it, than to take that paper and copy it and hand it out allows someone to contextualize the phrase within the parameters of whoever copies it. Then my "spell" (a symbol that creates energy in reaction) is out of my hands, and usable by anyone, for whatever purpose. That is, technological reproduction allows control of the representation of intent.

Another issue is that technology now caters to platform reliance ("platform capitalism") - of renting out use of a tool, with the understanding that information about how you use the tool will be scrutinized and likely sold to others as an image of you. This places a ready middle-man (beyond the others...) as an integral part of both commerce and communication, and promotes a circular system of defining self and others through the authority of the platform (which is primarily interested in commerce).

Moving a lot of traditional meatspace things into the realm of IT... If I sell Dave an apple in person, he sees the apple, he hands me the money and we're done. If I sell Dave an apple online, there is an entire apparatus of bureaucracy between us that can obfuscate and control information, one that is ultimately reliant on commerce and attention, and several layers of interspersed but connected entities that operate outside of our awareness but have full access to all the details of a communication.

That's not even touching that social media pushes to homogeny because of the complexity of language and the inherent problems with communication (simpler messages are required for propagation); and if people utilize opportunities to define themselves within these confines, and don't define themselves otherwise, then they are being conditioned to define themselves by as simple terms as possible, which I imagine displaces one from a real sense of self (and thus strong personal opinions). Panopticon stuff - give ideas of authority so people police and define themselves through given narratives.

While I'm at it - technology in my mind also does create dependance on the intangible, which makes individuals more capable of being manipulated (in some ways); and by "embodying our cognition" into our tools (utilizing technology as a means of organizing and externalizing our thoughts), we risk becoming dependent on the machine being a representation of our thoughts, not just a tool for the mind (I consider IT folks that are conditioned to think in terms applicable to computers, and then using that perspective to define human beings in terms that are failures in comparison to the perfection of the computer).

The problem with this, at least with "computers" in general, is that it's all encapsulated within a highly specialized and controlled environment (which is addicting on these terms alone). Often I worry about kids because this is the world they can control entirely, and many feel as though they are disinterested in a world they can't control so readily. Which may push people to be more apathetic toward the physical world, I suppose; that is, more susceptible to not thinking about (and preparing for) actual physical force being used against them.

> Moreover, is technology ultimately stripping us of our present, forcing us to live in the past and future? As the Buddha states,...

This makes me think of so called "techno-shamanism" and utilizing computers as means of attaining mental states defined by flow (like playing a video game and being in the "present" of the game, in the same way one might get swept up in a song). Obviously to look at a screen you've already displaced yourself from some reality; but I don't want to say that the power to create "presence" in a virtual reality is devoid of positive consequence, though it is certainly different. It seems if anything, it's a personal/augmented state of presence, but still presence, in a sense, to the user. Not to say the rest, vast majority of IT use, is not about controlling and refining information on a screen in conceptual ways, which is certainly not being present.

I guess what I'm saying points to technology acting as an active force of divorcing us from ourselves (through controlling methods of embodied cognition) and mediating our understanding of others, while necessitating elaborate and well documented control mechanisms in-between all parties. Techno-immortality seems, unfortunately, like a predicated point in the future on the line of "progress," and I don't think there's much that can stop that or turn people away from the convenience it gives, especially when technological progress and superiority is necessitated in regards to the competitive capitalist system we exist in.

As you’ve intuited, talking about human “intelligence” is like talking about human “strength.” Dead-lift ability? Marathon time? 100 meter time? Similarly you can measure mental abilities like spatial rotations, random digit recall, pattern recognition, reaction time, etc.

Two points. First is that many special mental abilities are loosely correlated. That is, being good at one predicts a propensity to be somewhat better at others, compared to someone who was weak on the predictor. This has led some intelligence theorists to posit a “general intelligence” that manifests partly in these special abilities, just like a well-trained sprinter will probably be better than average at lots of strength measures compared to a couch potato. Making sense of these correlations among mental abilities has driven lots of research programs (notably, Cattell, 1987).

Second, more recently researchers have focused on the “situation” where intelligence is exhibited. Being clever at logic problems in law school is not necessarily strongly predictive of similar problems in a different field. The degree to which experiences and abilities generalize (or not) has also driven research programs. Jean Lave's seminal work in situated cognition lays the foundation. (Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991)

Ok, third point. A helpful question to ask is “when does it matter?” Say I present two people, one at the 25th and the other at the 75th percentile of whatever general intelligence test you choose. When does that different matter, and how strongly does that difference manifest in things you might care about ( performance on a specific job, etc). You might be surprised how small a difference that measured difference makes in the real world.

Ok, last point, a bit tangential but related to the last. College entrance exams, while not “intelligence” tests, are designed to be as predictive as possible of college success (freshman GPA is often the target). Now, test companies apply the best psychometrics they can, and test scores plus high school GPA at best predict less than 25% of GPA variance. That’s when trying to be as predictive as possible. So imagine how well measured intelligence predicts performance in a wide range of domains when those instruments arent optimized for prediction.

Edit (citations):

• Cattell (1987). An oldie but goodie. https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Structure-Growth-Advances-Psychology/dp/0444879226
  
  
• Lave (1988). https://smile.amazon.com/Cognition-Practice-Mathematics-Everyday-Learning/dp/0521357349
  
  
• Lave & Wenger (1992). https://www.amazon.com/Situated-Learning-Participation-Computational-Perspectives/dp/0521423740
  
  
• (I don't have access to my home bookshelf and will post a reference for the predictive utility of college entrance exams)

I'll have a go, but do also try /r/cogsci.

I'm just finishing up my undergrad in industrial psychology and I've been looking around for cognitive science programs for a while.

For a career as a cognitive science researcher you will probably need post-graduate training in cognitive science.

As far as I can tell, cognitive science departments typically accept students for graduate programs with all kinds of backgrounds. Students with bachelor degrees in philosophy, psychology, biology, computer science, linguistics or even mathematics all stand a decent chance.

Cognitive science is interdisciplinary and few universities do interdisciplinary research well. So, cognitive science professors are used to taking in students with biased background lacking in some respect.

So, you don't necessarily need to change majors to pursue cognitive science at post graduate level. If you can take a couple of courses in neuroscience, cognitive or experimental psychology and philosophy of mind, that would improve your chances.

If you don't want to pursue graduate studies, then out of all the undergraduate majors that feed into cognitive science programs, computer science and mathematics are likely going to give you the strongest employment prospects. So you don't necessarily want to change majors.

I think of cognitive science as really just psychological science done properly. Ideally, you could just switch to psychology subjects and hit the ground running, but mainstream psychology is a cesspool of pseudoscientific rubbish. Your very valuable background in mathematics, computer science and engineering will count for almost nothing in most psychology departments.

So I reckon you should finish with a major in computer engineering (perhaps taking a couple of extra courses to fill in some of the gaps) and then pursue graduate training at a strong cognitive science department, if you can.

Also if you haven't yet, have a look at these books:

Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Science of the Mind

Cognitive Science: A Philosophical Introduction

Mind: An Introduction to Cognitive Science

A History of Modern Experimental Psychology: From James and Wundt to Cognitive Science

The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Science

The Oxford Handbook of Computational and Mathematical Psychology

(All available for free at gen.lib.rus.ec)

Also Cambrigde university press will be publishing a new handbook of mathematical and computational psychology soon, so keep your eye out for that.

Trends in Cognitive Sciences is a good general cognitive science journal you should check out too.

If you find some of the work inspiring, look at the people who did the research up and see where they are working.

Oh...internet hugs. I was pretty much where you were fifteen years ago. I didn't go to a Christian high school, but I may as well have- I went to school in the Bible Belt. I am also bi, and I went through a long, shitty process of self-loathing thanks to messages from the pulpit every Sunday about how homosexuality was a sin.

I know you know this, but you're not unnatural. I'd actually suggest seeking out some scientific sources looking at homosexuality in the natural world. I thought this book was particularly interesting: http://www.amazon.com/Homosexual-Behaviour-Animals-Evolutionary-Perspective/dp/0521182301

Your local library might have it...or if you have a university nearby, you may be able to find it there. Some universities will allow high school students to check books out from their libraries. If nothing else, a university wifi network should let you get access to most scientific journals.

From what I've read, it sounds like bisexuality is actually a pretty natural, widespread phenomenon. Many animal species engage in homosexual behavior to strengthen social bonds. We humans are animals, so why should we be any different?

We're here for you when you need to vent, too :)

Hmmm well if you want something more 'rigorous' than Albert I would assume you are decently comfortable with high level math so I would probably recommend How is Quantum Field Theory Possible? by Auyang. It is (obviously) mostly about issues specific to QFT but it has a lot of great stuff about QM as well. Be warned, it is not for the unmotivated reader.

Another excellent book that deals not just with QM issues, but with all of physics is An Introduction to The Philosophy of Physics by Lange. It has a section specifically devoted to philosophical issues of QM, but the real gold of the book are the discussions of locality, fields, and energy, which will obviously motivate much of the QM stuff.

One other recommendation would be Physics and Chance by Sklar. Although this is a book on the philosophical foundations of Statistical Mechanics, much of the discussion also applies to QM.

The questions you are asking are related to philosphy of mind. Two good, recent, and not too dense books on the topic are http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Brief-Introduction-Fundamentals-Philosophy/dp/0195157346/ and
http://www.amazon.com/Body-Shapes-Mind-Shaun-Gallagher/dp/0199204160/

To understand how consciousness works you probably need to start with the brain. You can look at it from afar and you'll see a mess of grey tissue and up close you'll see a bunch tiny cells and electrical and chemical signals. You won't find any consciousnesses. So you pay more attention and see that the tiny cells (neurons) are constantly interacting with each other and with different parts of the body like eyes and limbs. These interactions start small and gradually build up. Making a big leap, you see that human biology has organized these interactions to perform higher order tasks like using visual information (a ball rushing through the air towards you) to direct limb movement (reaching out your hands to catch it.) But these types of actions aren't necessarily the result of conscious states, they could just be reflex actions.

Making the next step is difficult. You know that you have consciouness and that you have higher order brain activities, but dreams for example seem to be higher order brain activities that occur when you're unconscious. So what makes higher order brain activities into conscious states? Philosophy and cognitive science have a great deal to say here and there's not a definitive answer, but I think Gallagher (in ch. 8 from the second book above) has a pretty good model (building off of Husserl's phenomenology of time-consciousness.)

According to Gallagher's model your ongoing experience of the world breaks down into three time-based phases. You have the sense of the now, of what is happening at this very moment (primal impression.) You feel itchy or see blue or smell cinammon. You also have a working memory (retention) of the recent past. You weren't just feeling itchy or seeing blue or smelling cinammon. And you also are able to anticipate what is just about to happen (protention.) You aniticpate scratching the itch or being crushed by a tidal wave or eating dessert. Your being conscious is the result of your brain performing these phases in unison. Your stream of consciousness is the ongoing temporal connection. When you're unconscious you don't have full access to all three phases, when you're dreaming you don't really utilize retention or protention. There is a lot more to the model and its implications, but that's a very general picture.

Other organisms probably (in most cases certainly) don't have the sophisticated interactions that the human brain does which create consciousness. There are also complications with other aspects of mind stuff (esp. intentionality) would keep a computer from being conscious as we generally understand even if it was programmed with retention, protention, and now-ness (and getting proper anticipation/protention into a computer is a big challenge on its own.) I don't think we know enough to say when evolution produced consciousness. And while consciousness is not reducible to individual cells and electrochemical impulses it is a result of our biology, so when human babies get made and develop normally they end up gaining consciousness

Don't bother, you'll get enough of it in med school haha.

As far as I know, one of the gold standards for anatomy is the Frank H Netter material. There's a nice Atlas of Human Anatomy (keep in mind an atlas usually doesn't have information about the functions of any anatomy, just the names), and study cards (even referenced here).

Gray's Anatomy is good (obviously), but really long. The student's version may be shorter/more manageable.

My undergrad class used Grant's Atlas of Anatomy/Grant's Dissector, and a Human Anatomy textbook. They were not bad as well. Anatomy material is always pretty dry.

If you can, maybe see what your school uses? That way you won't start reading and then have to switch to a different book (though I suppose extra reading is never a bad thing).

And congrats again on getting into med school!

Every book on consciousness will have its own pet theory. I haven't found many great books on the neuroscience of consciousness, though Giulio Tononi and Christof Koch have a pretty good review paper on the subject. The one caveat is that they mostly review evidence for their own theory of consciousness, the Information Integration Theory.

As for the philosophy of consciousness, there are a number of good books, again each with their own agenda/pet theory. If you want the entire spectrum of opinions, check out Paul Churchland's Matter and Consciousness, which both provides a good overview of the field and also offers a defense of Churchland's materialist view; I'd also check out John Searle's The Rediscovery of the Mind, which presents Searle's biological naturalism, a sort of "centrist" view in the array of popular positions, and which is written in very straightforward language; a third option, which is more complicated than the other two but is really important in the field, is Chalmers' The Conscious Mind.

Hope that helps!

The best way for you to give good guidance your child is get clear yourself on what good critical thinking skills are, which is what your parents should have done for you.

To that end, I strongly suggest that you go to your library and check out Martin Cohen's Critical Thinking Skills for Dummies. It's also cheap for kindle and his other books are good too.

I also suggest Phil Zuckerman's Living the Secular Life, which Heath from the Infants on Thrones podcast touts as preparing her to raise her children outside of religion. You can listen to the author give an interview on RadioWest through that link or through iTunes' podcast app.

A good children's book you can checkout or leave lying around in your children's bookshelf to look at and read from is Richard Dawkins' children's book The Magic of Reality. Don't be put off by his public persona, since as a children's book it's very non-controversial and non-confrontational and very suitable for children.

I'd be interested in working through some stuff. However, I strongly recommend against that textbook unless you are far more mathematically inclined than biologically inclined. A book I regularly hear is better is https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Computational-Neuroscience-Thomas-Trappenberg-ebook/dp/B00F1D7K90/ref=pd_sim_351_5/142-8547797-4404628?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00F1D7K90&pd_rd_r=94bccf74-72a6-11e9-a70e-fdfd69152f1b&pd_rd_w=BAcvA&pd_rd_wg=OSgsO&pf_rd_p=90485860-83e9-4fd9-b838-b28a9b7fda30&pf_rd_r=P95Z6WQ78BG4FXFDSHPC&psc=1&refRID=P95Z6WQ78BG4FXFDSHPC

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I have it and find it far more approachable, and thoughtfully put together. I took a class with Abbott and he himself didn't seem to think particularly highly of the text.

I don't think there's a definite answer to this yet. But it's certainly true that many auditory neurons, even to cortical level, respond to a narrow range of periodicities of the input waveform (see, e.g. chapter three of this book). I think it is therefore reasonable to speculate that harmoniousness is something to do with different frequencies exciting neurons of the same characteristic frequency. For example, a tone with period T also has period 2T, so frequencies an octave apart would stimulate the same neurons.

>First, morality is primarily cultural rather than biological.

No it's not. Unfortunately this idea has been promoted by incredibly sloppy academics and pseudo-philosophers.

Fortunately people like Sam Harris, Steven Pinker, Andy Thompson and many other very intelligent people are starting to show that it is not true that morality is primarily cultural. It is primarily biological.

Our morality has evolved, we share a common evolutionary history and a commonly evolved moral sense.

A book on this topic that I've heard is good, though I'm yet to read it, is moral minds which looks at the evolution of morality.

>Every human society that anthropologists have studied has a religion and a belief in God.

Harvard anthropologist Marc Hauser detailed a study in his book about a Central American tribe of people called the Kuna, who have no formal religion. So there goes that theory. I have more examples if you'd like, but please cite your sources.


Regardless I think most scientists when confronted with the notion that humans are born with innate knowledge and belief of God would either laugh in your face or do what I just did.

There's lots of them, so I think one should start in the area they're most interested in and then branch from there.

Here' a general survey of the areas of philosophy.

The areas usually have their own articles in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy with extensive bibliographies (e.g. Modal Logic). Same goes for particular problems from these areas, like Truth, and some of the philosophers themselves (e.g. Bertrand Russell). There's also the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

For less technical and more structured introductions, there are plenty of textbooks, like Logic, This is Philosophy of Mind or The Fundamentals of Ethics. Books from the Very Short Introductions series are sometimes decent (e.g. Metaphysics), and they really are short.

The textbooks usually have further reading recommendations, some of which are compiled readers like The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness or The Ethical Life: Fundamental Readings in Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems. I think these are good starting points as well.

Most of the books are going to be available on libgen of course.

And then there's of course podcasts. Some of the good ones I like:

• Philosophy Bites – very concise episodes with experts speaking on singular subjects
  
• Elucidations – basically the above, but with longer episodes
  
• Very Bad Wizards – a philosopher an a psychologist meme a lot and then discuss some ethics
  
• The Panpsycast – meant as beginner introductions to various subjects; kinda hit-and-miss for me I guess, but the eps where they invite experts to speak are good
  
• History of Philosophy without any gaps – they mean the title
  
  Lastly, Gregory B. Sadler is a big guy.

>You either have govt enforce the rules or some warlord.

Warlords aren't much concerned with the cannabis trade these days. Gangs either. There is much greater profit to be made with the harder drugs.
I have friends who've worked the cannabis fields in northern California. These guys aren't hardened criminals. They like pot, they grow pot, they sell pot. That's it. No force, no coercion, no murder or theft involved. They hire their friends to help with the harvest and they pay them very well. People don't need external rules to guide their economic behavior and they certainly don't need to be forced to be good. Morality is in our very Nature. We are social beings.

Great list, thank you...

I would add:
http://www.amazon.com/Body-Shapes-Mind-Shaun-Gallagher/dp/0199204160
http://www.amazon.com/From-Molecule-Metaphor-Language-Bradford/dp/0262062534
http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Jeff-Hawkins/dp/0805078533/

I've learned this from a mixture of personal experience, hilarious family, cognitive science books (mainly this one), articles, a little Kurt Vonnegut, and a lot of professional comedians.

I highly recommend that Steven Pinker book, pages 545-554. You don't have to buy it. Just go to Barnes and Noble and read that section in the coffee shop. He explains it much better than I can.

And I'm just going to give the skeleton of what I understand man and you ask questions about what you want me to go deeper into. Filling up the entire skeleton is turning out to be a huge project that I won't be able to do at the moment. I can later though. And this'll give you something to work with as you mow through those other resources.

---

The different forms of humor.

• Dignicide. An anti-dominance weapon.
  
  
• Showing submission.
  
  
• Coping with stressful situations.
  
  
• Social bonding. Showing someone you're not going to hurt them.
  
  ---
  
  The strategies of humor.
  
  
• Connecting two things that aren't usually connected, but are close enough for the audience to make the connection themselves.
  
  
• Setting up A and B, where there's a socially-agreed-upon line between the two, but drawing a new line.
  
  
• Building and holding tension, with the punchline being the release of tension.
  
  
• Self-deprecating humor. Making fun of your own flaws and inviting others to laugh with you.
  
  
• Attacking someone who values themselves higher than they should. (I hate this one and never use it because it's hurtful, but it is an effective strategy)
  
  ---
  
  Building your humor skills.
  
  
• Practice free association. Make connections between things that aren't usually connected.
  
  
• Diversity of intake, for reference material for your target audience.
  
  
• Expose yourself to very shitty situations so you don't freeze up when you're in them.
  
  
• Lose your ego, get comfortable with your flaws.
  
  
• Overcome any fear you have of being the center of attention.

• reddit is not marshallp's personal blog for blabbing away about his own independent research.
  
  
• Episodic Memory is understood and clearly defined in all modern neuroscience texts.
  
  
• Chapter 6.1 from the Cognitive Computing Research Group elaborates at length about the role played by Episodic Memory in Action Selection and Attentional Awareness.
  
  
  
• Episodic memory is a major topic in the neuroscience of memory of laboratory mice. And numerous experiments have been performed showing that the hippocampus plays a major role in the processing of Episodic Memory of mice.
  
  
• Ben Goetzel has spoken about Episodic Memory in lectures and has written about it in recent blog posts. By "recent" I mean in the last 2 months.
  

They cite Rationality and the Reflective Mind, which looks potentially interesting.

> Stanovich argues that to fully characterize differences in rational thinking, we need to replace dual-process theories with tripartite models of cognition. Using a unique individual differences approach, he shows that the traditional second system (System 2) of dual-process theory must be further divided into the reflective mind and the algorithmic mind. Distinguishing them will allow us to better appreciate the significant differences in their key functions: The key function of the reflective mind is to detect the need to interrupt autonomous processing and to begin simulation activities, whereas that of the algorithmic mind is to sustain the processing of decoupled secondary representations in cognitive simulation.

The same author also wrote What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought, which also looks pretty good.

> He mentions Georges Bush, Jr. who was very intelligent as measured by IQ tests. But, he was not a proficient thinker as he was dogmatic, ill informed, impatient, and prone to rash decisions sometimes associated with devastating outcomes. Stanovich describes Bush condition as Dysrationalia or someone who is less rational than his IQ would suggest.

Anthologies are a good resource because if you read a book by one author you'll get a slanted picture of the field. A new edition of a good Blackwell companion just came out, with leading philosophers, neuroscientists, and psychologists all weighing in on issues related to consciousness and cognition. Here is a link:
https://www.amazon.com/Blackwell-Companion-Consciousness-Susan-Schneider/dp/0470674075

One way to see EM is as a rejection of language-like theories of cognition:

> Plainly, early humans modeled their conception of human cognitive activity on the only systematic medium of representation and computation available to them at the time: human language. And a good thing, too, for it gave us at least some predictive and explanatory advantages, for the behavior of humans, and also for animals. But ultimately, [the eliminativist] says, that linguaformal conception of our cognition is no more accurate for us than it is for any of the other creatures. Our brains work in essentially the same ways as all of our evolutionary brothers and sisters, and ‘propositional attitudes’ have little or nothing to do with our mostly shared cognitive activities. If we want to really understand human cognition, he concludes, we need to get rid of our linguaformal self-delusion, and learn to discuss, and even to introspect, our cognition from within the conceptual framework of a theory (cognitive neurobiology) that is adequate to all of the Earth’s creatures. Our current conception is useful, no doubt, but at bottom it must misrepresent our true cognitive economy.

(From Paul Churchland's Matter and Consciousness)

We're very close.

Recent results allow automatic labeling of images with sentences that describe not only the objects in the scene but the actions going on: http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-picture-is-worth-thousand-coherent.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/18/science/researchers-announce-breakthrough-in-content-recognition-software.html?_r=0 http://cs.stanford.edu/people/karpathy/deepimagesent/

The new technique combines neural networks for vision, which now roughly match human performance as of ImageNet 2014, with recent techniques for translating sentences between languages with neural networks.

Neural networks are able to assign high dimensional vectors to words by considering the frequency and placement of words in the surrounding context of each word for which they calculate a vector. By sequentially feeding these word vectors into a recurrent neural network, one which also keeps an internal state vector of similar dimension, one can then extract word vectors in sequence which represent words in some other language. The neural network learns to translate sequences like X Y Z into A B C D (where X Y Z might be English and A B C D might be French).

The image captioning technique is basically the same, but instead of feeding in a sentence, you feed in an image to a convolutional neural network (a different variant of neural network structure) which outputs the initial state vector encoding features and objects of the image. Then you feed this state vector into a recurrent neural network which unpacks it sequentially into the word vectors in a particular language, such as English.

These word and sentence vectors seem to be becoming the most plausible mechanism for how thoughts and concepts are represented in the brain. The book How to Build a Brain http://www.amazon.com/How-Build-Brain-Architecture-Architectures/dp/0199794545 argues from the side of neuroscience and large-scale brain simulation that these high dimensional vector representations are sufficient for simulating several human level behaviors at much smaller scales in supercomputers.

The image captioning and language translation with neural networks is coming from the computer science area. These two areas, neuroscience and computer science seem to be converging on a similar model, which demonstrably is approaching thinking.

I want to update Nagarjuna. I see his Root Verses as being refutations of the major metaphysical notions of his time. I don't think he thereby refuted every possible metaphysical notion - I don't think such a thing is possible! It's not really necessary either. Folks can figure out the general pattern and just let go of fixations on metaphysical notions, without being spoonfed custom-tailored refutations.

All the same, not everybody is ready to figure out the general pattern. Lots of folks are too stuck to be able to free themselves. Most of us need some help at the start.

As a specific example, Nagarjuna refutes the existence of atoms. What we conventionally call atoms... it's a misnomer. The word atom should properly be applied to what we call elementary particles. So Nagarjuna was really refuting the existence of elementary particles. But his refutation doesn't really work. It would have been OK in the nineteenth century. But in the early twentieth century the whole way that atoms (e.g. of Hydrogen) are constructed from elementary particles (e.g. electrons and protons) slammed into serious troubles. Folks worked out quantum mechanics, with principles like the Fermi-Dirac exclusion principle.

So an update for our time of Nagarjuna's Root Verses should include a refutation of quantum field theory, a cornerstone of modern physics.

Here's a book that heads in this direction: https://www.amazon.com/How-Quantum-Field-Theory-Possible/dp/0195093453/

Depends on the level at which you are looking. Cellular stuff? Signal processing and calculus. Population dynamics? Linear algebra and calculus. Brain regions/networks/whole brain? Graph theory and linear algebra.

And for all of them, statistics will be the tool to understand what's happening within the mathematical formulations.

On side note: if you're looking at the level of behavior, many other discrete methods become much more important in my opinion. However, it is fairly uncommon for people to use a behavioral approach these days without linking it to some other measurement one of the levels I mentioned before.

See From Neuron to Cognition, Fundamentals of Computational Neuroscience, and Theoretical Neuroscience for some foundational understanding.

There is an excellent set of essays on the subject in this book: Homosexual Behaviour in Animals: An Evolutionary Perspective

For an excellent and very readable introduction to the various issues and positions in the philosophy of mind, you might also check out Paul Churchland's Matter and Consciousness.

There we go. Book 1.

Book 2.

Enjoy. If those two flew over your head, try this:

You're welcome.

I can vouch for these:

http://www.routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/9780415820929/

https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Thinking-Skills-Dummies-Martin/dp/111892472X

The dummies one doesn't have as much formal logic but It's definitely more readable than the textbook.

Here is a link to the table of contents: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/toc/0199794545/ref=dp_toc?ie=UTF8&n=916520

and there should be a button on this page (below the picture of the book on the left) to let them know that there is interest in a kindle version! http://www.amazon.com/How-Build-Brain-Architecture-Architectures/dp/0199794545

I was going to respond, but I left my second sock puppet at home.. and I just know if I tell you that I'm going to use the single one as multiple actors it would be above you.

Instead, let me just offer what little help I can :

https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Thinking-Skills-Dummies-Martin/dp/111892472X

>i am unaware of any anthropological studies that have established this "truth" of which you speak. could you perhaps post a few links to them?

You need an anthropological study to confirm that the heterosexual union is procreative and that procreation is a biological imperative for virtually all species? (Except the human gay, oddly).

How do you think a study like that would look? Other than a chapter from a 3rd grade biology book, I mean.

>http://www.yalescientific.org/2012/03/do-animals-exhibit-homosexuality/

Anything older than the past 20 years or so? Isn't it strange that all this homo-science and homo-history suddenly appeared in the past few decades?


>http://www.amazon.com/Homosexual-Behaviour-Animals-Evolutionary-Perspective/dp/0521182301

Is homosexual behavior the same thing as homosexual orientation? I wonder how those authors asked those animals how they choose to identify?

There's a perspective of "extended cognition" that is widespread in cognitive science and philosophy. Andy Clark's "Supersizing the Mind" is a good introduction.

I've got just the book for you!

But seriously, try Nengo a bit. Spaun is pretty decent.

Det er et fascinerende eksempel!

Jeg er utrolig inspireret af den canadiske psykolog Keith Stanovich, som er en af de førende forskere inden for det specifikke felt i psykologien.

Den bedste og mest tilgængelig bog er "The Robots Rebellion" Som jeg ikke kan anbefale nok. Men, den handler om mange flere ting end bare rationalitet og intelligens.

Han har også skrevet "Rationality and the Reflective Mind" som specifikt handler om rationalitet og intelligens. Den er en lille smule fagtung, og det er svært for mig at vurdere, hvor svær den er for lægmand. Men du er meget velkommen til at skrive til mig og spørge om enkeltdele, hvis du giver dig i kast med den,

Endelig har Stanovich, sammen med en række kolleger, skrevet en bog om rationalitet som et målbart parameter, hvor de forsøger at opstille en gennemgående skala for rationalitet på linje med de klassiske IQ tests. "The rationality quotient" Jeg har ikke læst den, men den er allerøverst på min læseliste.

Surprised no one has mentioned something like this.

Conciousness is not a prerequitite for memory. It simply means retaining information for later use. hardrives do it all the time. The mechanisms for how the brain retains memory are not fully understood, but we have come a long way. If you deny this you are simply willfully ignorant. Although not fully up to date, here is a good review backing up this claim. (more depth can be found here. pdf, if you don't object to piracy). This is not arbitrary gospel, if you give me good reason why all the existing evidence might be wrong, I will reconsider. But just saying 'Buddhists reckon maybe we can remember past lives' will not cut it.

As for conciousness, you are right, it is a tougher nut to crack. I however have made no claims of knowing its origins or limitations, only that it is not worthwhile to, in the name of openmindedness, spend time and effort on every baseless theory that flies in the face of what little we do know. Progress is made by building on previous knowledge, otherwise you just end up reinventing the wheel a million times over.

Here's a link for Grant's. It's what we used as well: http://www.amazon.com/Grants-Dissector-Tank-15th/dp/1609136063

I like this question.

Beginner:

• Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain (I don't like this text, but it's fairly accessible to beginners.)
  
  
• Auditory Neuroscience
  
  
• Musicophilia
  
  Student:
  
  
• Neuroscience
  
  
• MATLAB for Neuroscientists
  
  
• An Introduction to the Psychology/Physiology of Hearing (sorry, that was cheating)
  
  Expert:
  
  
• Principles of Neural Science
  
  
• Spikes
  
  
• Signal Detection Theory and Psychophysics
  

• Patricia Churchland - Neurophilosophy
  
• Paul Churchland - Matter and Consciousness
  
• William Lycan (ed.) - Mind and Cognition

Critical Thinking Skills For Dummies

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Critical-Thinking-Skills-Dummies-Martin/dp/111892472X

1. Anden fejlslutning
   
2. Læs den eller køb den her bog
   
3. Tredje fejlslutning
   
   Har fundet et kursus til dig på Folkeuniversitetet

Are you on the Olympic mental gymnastics team or something? That isn't even close to what I said. You really think that allowing for people to have beliefs means I'm ok with being murdered? Jesus Christ dude. Here, stick this on your wish list, maybe Santa will bring it for you.

i am unaware of any anthropological studies that have established this "truth" of which you speak. could you perhaps post a few links to them?

here, i'll post one that describes the homosexual parings of over 450 life forms

http://www.yalescientific.org/2012/03/do-animals-exhibit-homosexuality/


perhaps a book on the subject instead?

http://www.amazon.com/Homosexual-Behaviour-Animals-Evolutionary-Perspective/dp/0521182301

What about the guy who tried to run from the cops in a vehicle with his pregnant gf in it?

Because she got hurt doesn't mean she's automatically the victim and is "right."

I think the verdict to not indict Darren Wilson demonstrated that.

Here. Let me help you out. Put this on your wishlist for Santa.

>it sounds to me like you have an incomplete understanding of evolution.

Elaborate please.

>this is no more an indicator than the fact that we have mathematical models to represent force or gravity.

Valid point, but does not the fact that there appears to be some kind of order to the universe which we can represent mathematically suggest some kind of design? For instance, say you found a rock and a motor in the desert, never having seen either before, but you had mathematical analysis, would not the ordered nature of the data retrieved from the analysis of the motor compared to the chaotic nature of the data retrieved from the rock suggest to you that the motor had been built and did not simply arise from nature?

>This sounds also like you have an incomplete understanding of the biological processess involved in the brain.

Ask any epistemologist or read any basic text on epistemology (might I suggest this as a starting point?) and you will see that there is currently little or no demonstrable or philosophically sound evidence of a link between mind and matter.