-
Self Comes to Mind
- Constructing the Conscious Brain
- Narrated by: Fred Stella
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $25.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Self Comes to Mind is a nuanced and original chronicle of the evolution of the human brain. It reveals how the brain's development of a self becomes a challenge to nature's indifference and opens the way for the appearance of culture, a radical break in the course of evolution.
Damasio views brain development through the lens of biological evolution - starting with the simplest organisms that exhibit elaborate life regulation devices but do not require brains. The arrival of neurons, possessed of the unique ability to transmit and receive messages, allows neurons to organize themselves in complex circuits and networks, networks that serve to represent events occurring in the body, influence the function of other cells, even their own function. In this framework, the distinction between body and brain is blurred - the neurons that make up the brain and eventually generate the mind are body cells and are perpetually connected to the body.
Neurons are the producers of mind states. And in the increasing complexity of the patterns in which neurons organize themselves is to be found at once the mystery and the clues to the myriad ways in which the brain operates.
The systems of neurons that govern life in the interior of a body - the process of homeostasis - are first assisted by reflex-like dispositions, and eventually by images, the basic ingredient of minds. But the flexibility and creativity of the human mind do not emerge from images alone. They require images to create a protagonist, a self capable of reflection. Once self comes to mind, the devices of reward and punishment, drives and motivations, and emotions can be controlled by an autobiographical self, capable of personal reflection and deliberation. The reflective self becomes a rebellious apprentice to nature's indifferent sorcerer. It uses expanded memory, language, and reasoning to create the very possibility of culture.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals
- The Complete Work Plus an Overview, Summary, Analysis and Author Biography
- By: Charles Darwin, Israel Bouseman
- Narrated by: Rupert Bush
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The name of Charles Darwin is known to nearly all who have had the benefit of a Western-style education. It is synonymous with the theory of evolution and due to his perspective of man as an animal, his worked ushered in a new paradigm of understanding of the physical and mental behavior of man. However, because of the immense impact of his best known theory, most know only of his work through reviews and historical reports.
-
-
Great reading and materials, please add chapters
- By Bob Villa Tells the Truth on 05-19-23
By: Charles Darwin, and others
-
The Strange Order of Things
- Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures
- By: Antonio Damasio
- Narrated by: Steve West, Antonio Damasio
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Strange Order of Things is a pathbreaking investigation into homeostasis, the condition that regulates human physiology within the range that makes possible not only the survival but also the flourishing of life. Antonio Damasio makes clear that we descend biologically, psychologically, and even socially from a long lineage that begins with single living cells; that our minds and cultures are linked by an invisible thread to the ways and means of ancient unicellular life and other primitive life-forms.
-
-
Homeostasis and Metabolism give self awareness
- By Gary on 03-22-18
By: Antonio Damasio
-
Feeling & Knowing
- Making Minds Conscious
- By: Antonio Damasio
- Narrated by: Julian Morris
- Length: 3 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In recent decades, many philosophers and cognitive scientists have declared the problem of consciousness unsolvable, but Antonio Damasio is convinced that recent findings across multiple scientific disciplines have given us a way to understand consciousness and its significance for human life. In Feeling & Knowing, Damasio helps us understand why being conscious is not the same as sensing, why nervous systems are essential for the development of feelings, and why feeling opens the way to consciousness writ large.
-
-
That's it??
- By aaron on 11-13-21
By: Antonio Damasio
-
The Archaeology of Mind
- Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions
- By: Jaak Panksepp, Lucy Biven, Daniel J. Siegel - foreword
- Narrated by: Peter Lerman
- Length: 27 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What makes us happy? What makes us sad? How do we come to feel a sense of enthusiasm? What fills us with lust, anger, fear, or tenderness? Traditional behavioral and cognitive neuroscience have yet to provide satisfactory answers. The Archaeology of Mind presents an affective neuroscience approach - which takes into consideration basic mental processes, brain functions, and emotional behaviors that all mammals share - to locate the neural mechanisms of emotional expression. It reveals - for the first time - the deep neural sources of our values and basic emotional feelings.
-
-
Narrator 👎🏻
- By shiva on 12-03-21
By: Jaak Panksepp, and others
-
Determined
- A Science of Life Without Free Will
- By: Robert M. Sapolsky
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Robert Sapolsky’s Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: We may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at the base of human behavior, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there is some separate self telling our biology what to do.
-
-
Abridged - no Appendix!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-02-23
-
Consciousness Explained
- By: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Paul Mantell
- Length: 21 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The national bestseller chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 1991 is now available as an audiobook. The author of Brainstorms, Daniel C. Dennett replaces our traditional vision of consciousness with a new model based on a wealth of fact and theory from the latest scientific research.
-
-
Confuses Consciousness with Ego
- By Rahul Yadav on 07-11-19
-
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals
- The Complete Work Plus an Overview, Summary, Analysis and Author Biography
- By: Charles Darwin, Israel Bouseman
- Narrated by: Rupert Bush
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The name of Charles Darwin is known to nearly all who have had the benefit of a Western-style education. It is synonymous with the theory of evolution and due to his perspective of man as an animal, his worked ushered in a new paradigm of understanding of the physical and mental behavior of man. However, because of the immense impact of his best known theory, most know only of his work through reviews and historical reports.
-
-
Great reading and materials, please add chapters
- By Bob Villa Tells the Truth on 05-19-23
By: Charles Darwin, and others
-
The Strange Order of Things
- Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures
- By: Antonio Damasio
- Narrated by: Steve West, Antonio Damasio
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Strange Order of Things is a pathbreaking investigation into homeostasis, the condition that regulates human physiology within the range that makes possible not only the survival but also the flourishing of life. Antonio Damasio makes clear that we descend biologically, psychologically, and even socially from a long lineage that begins with single living cells; that our minds and cultures are linked by an invisible thread to the ways and means of ancient unicellular life and other primitive life-forms.
-
-
Homeostasis and Metabolism give self awareness
- By Gary on 03-22-18
By: Antonio Damasio
-
Feeling & Knowing
- Making Minds Conscious
- By: Antonio Damasio
- Narrated by: Julian Morris
- Length: 3 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In recent decades, many philosophers and cognitive scientists have declared the problem of consciousness unsolvable, but Antonio Damasio is convinced that recent findings across multiple scientific disciplines have given us a way to understand consciousness and its significance for human life. In Feeling & Knowing, Damasio helps us understand why being conscious is not the same as sensing, why nervous systems are essential for the development of feelings, and why feeling opens the way to consciousness writ large.
-
-
That's it??
- By aaron on 11-13-21
By: Antonio Damasio
-
The Archaeology of Mind
- Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions
- By: Jaak Panksepp, Lucy Biven, Daniel J. Siegel - foreword
- Narrated by: Peter Lerman
- Length: 27 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What makes us happy? What makes us sad? How do we come to feel a sense of enthusiasm? What fills us with lust, anger, fear, or tenderness? Traditional behavioral and cognitive neuroscience have yet to provide satisfactory answers. The Archaeology of Mind presents an affective neuroscience approach - which takes into consideration basic mental processes, brain functions, and emotional behaviors that all mammals share - to locate the neural mechanisms of emotional expression. It reveals - for the first time - the deep neural sources of our values and basic emotional feelings.
-
-
Narrator 👎🏻
- By shiva on 12-03-21
By: Jaak Panksepp, and others
-
Determined
- A Science of Life Without Free Will
- By: Robert M. Sapolsky
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Robert Sapolsky’s Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: We may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at the base of human behavior, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there is some separate self telling our biology what to do.
-
-
Abridged - no Appendix!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-02-23
-
Consciousness Explained
- By: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Paul Mantell
- Length: 21 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The national bestseller chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 1991 is now available as an audiobook. The author of Brainstorms, Daniel C. Dennett replaces our traditional vision of consciousness with a new model based on a wealth of fact and theory from the latest scientific research.
-
-
Confuses Consciousness with Ego
- By Rahul Yadav on 07-11-19
-
How Emotions Are Made
- The Secret Life of the Brain
- By: Lisa Feldman Barrett
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology. Leading the charge is psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, whose research overturns the long-standing belief that emotions are automatic, universal, and hardwired in different brain regions. Instead, Barrett shows, we construct each instance of emotion through a unique interplay of brain, body, and culture.
-
-
Emotions are not things!!!!!!
- By Gary on 03-14-17
-
The Body Keeps the Score
- Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
- By: Bessel van der Kolk M.D.
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent more than three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust.
-
-
Overall Worthwhile, Lingers Too Long in the Why
- By LittleBeadsOfMercury on 04-07-21
-
The Hidden Spring
- A Journey to the Source of Consciousness
- By: Mark Solms
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Mark Solms, one of the boldest thinkers in contemporary neuroscience, discovering how consciousness comes about has been a lifetime's quest. Scientists consider it the "hard problem" because it seems an impossible task to understand why we feel a subjective sense of self and how it arises in the brain. Venturing into the elementary physics of life, Solms has now arrived at an astonishing answer. In The Hidden Spring, he brings forward his discovery in accessible language and graspable analogies.
-
-
Fascinating
- By Aston on 04-26-21
By: Mark Solms
-
The Emotional Brain
- The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life
- By: Joseph Ledoux
- Narrated by: Graham Rowat
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happens in our brains to make us feel fear, love, hate, anger, joy? Do we control our emotions, or do they control us? Do animals have emotions? How can traumatic experiences in early childhood influence adult behavior, even though we have no conscious memory of them? In The Emotional Brain, Joseph LeDoux investigates the origins of human emotions and explains that many exist as part of complex neural systems that evolved to enable us to survive.
By: Joseph Ledoux
-
The Developing Mind, Third Edition
- How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are
- By: Daniel J. Siegel M.D.
- Narrated by: Fred Stella
- Length: 31 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This highly influential work - now in a revised and expanded third edition incorporating major advances in the field - gives clinicians, educators, and students a new understanding of what the mind is, how it grows, and how to promote healthy development and resilience.
-
-
Life changing
- By robin fletcher on 11-03-20
-
How the Mind Works
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 26 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this delightful, acclaimed bestseller, one of the world’s leading cognitive scientists tackles the workings of the human mind. What makes us rational—and why are we so often irrational? How do we see in three dimensions? What makes us happy, afraid, angry, disgusted, or sexually aroused? Why do we fall in love? And how do we grapple with the imponderables of morality, religion, and consciousness?
-
-
Excellent, but a difficult listen.
- By David Roseberry on 12-11-11
By: Steven Pinker
-
Will in the World
- How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning author Stephen Greenblatt is one of the most influential literary thinkers in the world. An acclaimed interpreter of Shakespeare's works, his ideas have changed the way countless people approach the classics. Now Greenblatt's uniquely brilliant voice delivers a magnificent biography of the Bard himself.
-
-
Politically Motivated
- By Donald on 09-29-04
-
Your Brain Is a Time Machine
- The Neuroscience and Physics of Time
- By: Dean Buonomano
- Narrated by: Aaron Abano
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Your Brain Is a Time Machine, brain researcher and best-selling author Dean Buonomano draws on evolutionary biology, physics, and philosophy to present his influential theory of how we tell and perceive time. The human brain, he argues, is a complex system that not only tells time but creates it; it constructs our sense of chronological flow and enables "mental time travel" - simulations of future and past events.
-
-
Great book on an underrated subject
- By Neuron on 05-09-17
By: Dean Buonomano
-
In Search of Memory
- The Emergence of a New Science of Mind
- By: Eric R. Kandel
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deft mixture of memoir and history, modern biology and behavior, In Search of Memory brings listeners from Kandel's childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna to the forefront of one of the great scientific endeavors of the 20th century: the search for the biological basis of memory. Nobel Prize winner Eric R. Kandel intertwines the intellectual history of the powerful new science of the mind - a combination of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology - with his own personal quest to understand memory.
-
-
Is a neural circuit like a red or green signal?
- By India Clamp on 11-24-18
By: Eric R. Kandel
-
Consciousness and the Brain
- Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts
- By: Stanislas Dehaene
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How does the brain generate a conscious thought? And why does so much of our knowledge remain unconscious? Thanks to clever psychological and brain-imaging experiments, scientists are closer to cracking this mystery than ever before. In this lively book, Stanislas Dehaene describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs of other cognitive neuroscientists worldwide have accomplished in defining, testing, and explaining the brain events behind a conscious state.
-
-
I had no idea we knew this much.
- By Tristan on 01-18-16
-
Mind and Cosmos
- Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False
- By: Thomas Nagel
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete.
-
-
Intellectual honesty at its finest
- By Alice Walker on 02-15-18
By: Thomas Nagel
-
The Case Against Reality
- Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes
- By: Donald Hoffman
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Challenging leading scientific theories that claim that our senses report back objective reality, cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman argues that while we should take our perceptions seriously, we should not take them literally. How can it be possible that the world we see is not objective reality? And how can our senses be useful if they are not communicating the truth? Hoffman grapples with these questions and more over the course of this eye-opening work.
-
-
Don't buy - visual examples missing, no pdf
- By Richard Pickett on 08-26-19
By: Donald Hoffman
Critic reviews
Related to this topic
-
Consciousness and the Social Brain
- By: Michael S. A. Graziano
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is consciousness and how can a brain, a mere collection of neurons, create it? In Consciousness and the Social Brain, Princeton neuroscientist Michael Graziano lays out an audacious new theory to account for the deepest mystery of them all. In Graziano's theory, the machinery that attributes awareness to others also attributes it to oneself. Damage that machinery and you disrupt your own awareness. Graziano discusses the science, the evidence, the philosophy, and the surprising implications of this new theory.
-
-
Cutting edge...
- By Douglas on 08-07-14
-
Out of Our Heads
- You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness
- By: Alva Noe
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alva Noë is one of a new breed - part philosopher, part cognitive scientist, part neuroscientist - who are radically altering the study of consciousness by asking difficult questions and pointing out obvious flaws in the current science. In Out of Our Heads, he restates and reexamines the problem of consciousness, and then proposes a startling solution: Do away with the 200-year-old paradigm that places consciousness within the confines of the brain.
-
-
A bold, yet ultimately unsupported, hypothesis
- By Keith Pyne-Howarth on 01-17-10
By: Alva Noe
-
The Age of Insight
- The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present
- By: Eric R. Kandel
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A brilliant book by Nobel Prize winner Eric R. Kandel, The Age of Insight takes us to Vienna 1900, where leaders in science, medicine, and art began a revolution that changed forever how we think about the human mind - our conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions - and how mind and brain relate to art.
-
-
Worth the listen
- By Amazon Customer on 01-28-19
By: Eric R. Kandel
-
The Ego Tunnel
- The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self
- By: Thomas Metzinger
- Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We're used to thinking about the self as an independent entity, something that we either have or are. In The Ego Tunnel, philosopher Thomas Metzinger claims otherwise: No such thing as a self exists. The conscious self is the content of a model created by our brain - an internal image, but one we cannot experience as an image. Everything we experience is "a virtual self in a virtual reality." But if the self is not "real," why and how did it evolve? How does the brain construct it?
-
-
non-specialist literature at its best
- By Esmeralda on 03-17-10
By: Thomas Metzinger
-
The Ravenous Brain
- How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning
- By: Daniel Bor
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Consciousness is our gateway to experience: it enables us to recognize Van Gogh’s starry skies, be enraptured by Beethoven’s Fifth, and stand in awe of a snowcapped mountain. Yet consciousness is subjective, personal, and famously difficult to examine: philosophers have for centuries declared this mental entity so mysterious as to be impenetrable to science. In The Ravenous Brain, neuroscientist Daniel Bor departs sharply from this historical view, and proposes a new model for how consciousness works.
-
-
Effectively demystifies consciousness
- By Gary on 11-18-12
By: Daniel Bor
-
Why God Won't Go Away
- Brain Science and the Biology of Belief
- By: Andrew Newberg, Eugene d'Aquili, Vince Rause
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this groundbreaking new book, researchers Andrew Newberg and Eugene d'Aquili offer an explanation that is at once profoundly simple and scientifically precise: The religious impulse is rooted in the biology of the brain. In Why God Won't Go Away, Newberg and d'Aquili document their pioneering explorations in the field of neurotheology, an emerging discipline dedicated to understanding the complex relationship between spirituality and the brain.
-
-
My opinion
- By David Berry on 09-06-18
By: Andrew Newberg, and others
-
Consciousness and the Social Brain
- By: Michael S. A. Graziano
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is consciousness and how can a brain, a mere collection of neurons, create it? In Consciousness and the Social Brain, Princeton neuroscientist Michael Graziano lays out an audacious new theory to account for the deepest mystery of them all. In Graziano's theory, the machinery that attributes awareness to others also attributes it to oneself. Damage that machinery and you disrupt your own awareness. Graziano discusses the science, the evidence, the philosophy, and the surprising implications of this new theory.
-
-
Cutting edge...
- By Douglas on 08-07-14
-
Out of Our Heads
- You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness
- By: Alva Noe
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alva Noë is one of a new breed - part philosopher, part cognitive scientist, part neuroscientist - who are radically altering the study of consciousness by asking difficult questions and pointing out obvious flaws in the current science. In Out of Our Heads, he restates and reexamines the problem of consciousness, and then proposes a startling solution: Do away with the 200-year-old paradigm that places consciousness within the confines of the brain.
-
-
A bold, yet ultimately unsupported, hypothesis
- By Keith Pyne-Howarth on 01-17-10
By: Alva Noe
-
The Age of Insight
- The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present
- By: Eric R. Kandel
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A brilliant book by Nobel Prize winner Eric R. Kandel, The Age of Insight takes us to Vienna 1900, where leaders in science, medicine, and art began a revolution that changed forever how we think about the human mind - our conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions - and how mind and brain relate to art.
-
-
Worth the listen
- By Amazon Customer on 01-28-19
By: Eric R. Kandel
-
The Ego Tunnel
- The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self
- By: Thomas Metzinger
- Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We're used to thinking about the self as an independent entity, something that we either have or are. In The Ego Tunnel, philosopher Thomas Metzinger claims otherwise: No such thing as a self exists. The conscious self is the content of a model created by our brain - an internal image, but one we cannot experience as an image. Everything we experience is "a virtual self in a virtual reality." But if the self is not "real," why and how did it evolve? How does the brain construct it?
-
-
non-specialist literature at its best
- By Esmeralda on 03-17-10
By: Thomas Metzinger
-
The Ravenous Brain
- How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning
- By: Daniel Bor
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Consciousness is our gateway to experience: it enables us to recognize Van Gogh’s starry skies, be enraptured by Beethoven’s Fifth, and stand in awe of a snowcapped mountain. Yet consciousness is subjective, personal, and famously difficult to examine: philosophers have for centuries declared this mental entity so mysterious as to be impenetrable to science. In The Ravenous Brain, neuroscientist Daniel Bor departs sharply from this historical view, and proposes a new model for how consciousness works.
-
-
Effectively demystifies consciousness
- By Gary on 11-18-12
By: Daniel Bor
-
Why God Won't Go Away
- Brain Science and the Biology of Belief
- By: Andrew Newberg, Eugene d'Aquili, Vince Rause
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this groundbreaking new book, researchers Andrew Newberg and Eugene d'Aquili offer an explanation that is at once profoundly simple and scientifically precise: The religious impulse is rooted in the biology of the brain. In Why God Won't Go Away, Newberg and d'Aquili document their pioneering explorations in the field of neurotheology, an emerging discipline dedicated to understanding the complex relationship between spirituality and the brain.
-
-
My opinion
- By David Berry on 09-06-18
By: Andrew Newberg, and others
-
The Accidental Mind
- How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God
- By: David J. Linden
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You've probably seen it before: a human brain dramatically lit from the side, the camera circling it like a helicopter shot of Stonehenge, and a modulated baritone voice exalting the brain's elegant design in reverent tones... to which this book says: Pure nonsense.
-
-
Best general-public Brain Science book to date
- By Francisco on 02-14-11
By: David J. Linden
-
The Perfect You
- A Blueprint for Identity
- By: Dr. Caroline Leaf, Avery Jackson, Peter Amua-Quarshi, and others
- Narrated by: Margaret Winston
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There are a lot of personality tests out there designed to label you and put you in a particular box. But Dr. Caroline Leaf says there's much more to you than a personality profile can capture. In fact, you cannot be categorized! In this fascinating book, she takes listeners through seven steps to rediscover and unlock their unique "you quotient".
-
-
Hands down, the most helpful book I've listened to
- By Rose O'Connor on 07-31-17
By: Dr. Caroline Leaf, and others
-
Think, Learn, Succeed
- Understanding and Using Your Mind to Thrive at School, the Workplace, and Life
- By: Dr. Caroline Leaf, Robert Turner - afterword, Peter Amua-Quarshi - foreword
- Narrated by: Sandra Burr
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our thought lives have incredible power over our mental, emotional, and even physical well-being. In fact, our thoughts can either limit us to what we believe we can do or release us to experience abilities well beyond our expectations. When we choose a mindset that extends our abilities rather than placing limits on ourselves, we will experience greater intellectual satisfaction, emotional control, and physical health. The only question is... how?
-
-
Great new perspective
- By Felipe J. Flores III on 05-10-19
By: Dr. Caroline Leaf, and others
-
About Behaviorism
- By: B.F. Skinner
- Narrated by: Matthew Josdal
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
About Behaviorism is about the controversial philosophy known as behaviorism, written by its leading exponent.
-
-
Refreshing and concise
- By Autumn and Sam on 07-30-22
By: B.F. Skinner
-
The Master and His Emissary
- The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
- By: Iain McGilchrist
- Narrated by: Dennis Kleinman
- Length: 27 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This pioneering account sets out to understand the structure of the human brain - the place where mind meets matter. Until recently, the left hemisphere of our brain has been seen as the "rational" side, the superior partner to the right. But is this distinction true? Drawing on a vast body of experimental research, Iain McGilchrist argues while our left brain makes for a wonderful servant, it is a very poor master.
-
-
The Master and His Emissary
- By Michael on 11-07-20
By: Iain McGilchrist
-
A User's Guide to the Brain
- Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain
- By: John J. Ratey
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Ratey, best-selling author and clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, lucidly explains the human brain's workings, and paves the way for a better understanding of how the brain affects who we are. Ratey provides insight into the basic structure and chemistry of the brain, and demonstrates how its systems shape our perceptions, emotions, and behavior. By giving us a greater understanding of how the brain responds to the guidance of its user, he provides us with knowledge that can enable us to improve our lives.
-
-
Great book, mediocre narration
- By Dr. B on 09-25-18
By: John J. Ratey
-
How Language Began
- The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention
- By: Daniel L. Everett
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mankind has a distinct advantage over other terrestrial species: we talk to one another. But how did we acquire the most advanced form of communication on Earth? Daniel L. Everett, a "bombshell" linguist and "instant folk hero" (Tom Wolfe, Harper's), provides in this sweeping history a comprehensive examination of the evolutionary story of language, from the earliest speaking attempts by hominids to the more than 7,000 languages that exist today.
-
-
Hard to endure
- By Michael D. Busch on 09-09-18
-
The Spiritual Brain
- A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul
- By: Mario Beauregard, Denyse O'Leary
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Does religious experience come from God, or is it just the random firing of neurons in the brain? Drawing on brain research on Carmelite nuns that has attracted major media attention and provocative new research in near-death experiences, The Spiritual Brain proves that genuine, life-changing spiritual events can be documented. The authors make a convincing case for what many in science are loathe to consider: that it is God who creates our spiritual experiences, not the brain.
-
-
interesting topic, but frustrating listen
- By Barry T on 08-27-08
By: Mario Beauregard, and others
-
Autopilot
- The Art & Science of Doing Nothing
- By: Andrew Smart
- Narrated by: Kevin Free
- Length: 3 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Andrew Smart wants you to sit and do nothing much more often - and he has the science to explain why. At every turn we’re pushed to do more, faster, and more efficiently: That drumbeat resounds throughout our wage-slave society. Multitasking is not only a virtue, it’s a necessity. But Andrew Smart argues that slackers may have the last laugh. The latest neuroscience shows that the “culture of effectiveness” is not only ineffective, it can be harmful to your well-being.
-
-
Not worth it.
- By B Lee on 04-30-14
By: Andrew Smart
-
The Mind of God
- Neuroscience, Faith, and a Search for the Soul
- By: Dr. Jay Lombard
- Narrated by: David Acord
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Is there a God? It's a question billions of people have asked since the dawn of time. You would think by now we'd have a satisfactory, universal answer. No such luck...or maybe we do and we just need to look in the right place. For Dr. Jay Lombard that place is the brain, and more importantly the mind, that center of awareness and consciousness that creates reality. In The Mind of God, Dr. Lombard employs case studies from his own behavioral neurology practice to explore the spiritual conundrums that we all ask ourselves.
-
-
Keenly insightful
- By Rick Smith on 09-30-19
By: Dr. Jay Lombard
-
Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?
- A Neuroscientific View of the Zombie Brain
- By: Timothy Verstynen, Bradley Voytek
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?, neuroscientists and zombie enthusiasts Timothy Verstynen and Bradley Voytek apply their neuro-know-how to dissect the puzzle of what has happened to the zombie brain to make the undead act differently than their human prey. Combining tongue-in-cheek analysis with modern neuroscientific principles, Verstynen and Voytek show how zombism can be understood in terms of current knowledge regarding how the brain works.
-
-
Fun and informative; brilliant reading
- By Robert on 12-25-14
By: Timothy Verstynen, and others
-
A General Theory of Love
- By: Richard Lannon MD, Thomas Lewis MD, Fari Amini MD
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This original and lucid account of the complexities of love and its essential role in human well-being draws on the latest scientific research. Three eminent psychiatrists tackle the difficult task of reconciling what artists and thinkers have known for thousands of years about the human heart with what has only recently been learned about the primitive functions of the human brain.
-
-
Great subject matter-hard to listen to
- By Laurel on 07-22-19
By: Richard Lannon MD, and others
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Feeling & Knowing
- Making Minds Conscious
- By: Antonio Damasio
- Narrated by: Julian Morris
- Length: 3 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In recent decades, many philosophers and cognitive scientists have declared the problem of consciousness unsolvable, but Antonio Damasio is convinced that recent findings across multiple scientific disciplines have given us a way to understand consciousness and its significance for human life. In Feeling & Knowing, Damasio helps us understand why being conscious is not the same as sensing, why nervous systems are essential for the development of feelings, and why feeling opens the way to consciousness writ large.
-
-
That's it??
- By aaron on 11-13-21
By: Antonio Damasio
-
The Strange Order of Things
- Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures
- By: Antonio Damasio
- Narrated by: Steve West, Antonio Damasio
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Strange Order of Things is a pathbreaking investigation into homeostasis, the condition that regulates human physiology within the range that makes possible not only the survival but also the flourishing of life. Antonio Damasio makes clear that we descend biologically, psychologically, and even socially from a long lineage that begins with single living cells; that our minds and cultures are linked by an invisible thread to the ways and means of ancient unicellular life and other primitive life-forms.
-
-
Homeostasis and Metabolism give self awareness
- By Gary on 03-22-18
By: Antonio Damasio
-
The Archaeology of Mind
- Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions
- By: Jaak Panksepp, Lucy Biven, Daniel J. Siegel - foreword
- Narrated by: Peter Lerman
- Length: 27 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What makes us happy? What makes us sad? How do we come to feel a sense of enthusiasm? What fills us with lust, anger, fear, or tenderness? Traditional behavioral and cognitive neuroscience have yet to provide satisfactory answers. The Archaeology of Mind presents an affective neuroscience approach - which takes into consideration basic mental processes, brain functions, and emotional behaviors that all mammals share - to locate the neural mechanisms of emotional expression. It reveals - for the first time - the deep neural sources of our values and basic emotional feelings.
-
-
Narrator 👎🏻
- By shiva on 12-03-21
By: Jaak Panksepp, and others
-
In Search of Memory
- The Emergence of a New Science of Mind
- By: Eric R. Kandel
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deft mixture of memoir and history, modern biology and behavior, In Search of Memory brings listeners from Kandel's childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna to the forefront of one of the great scientific endeavors of the 20th century: the search for the biological basis of memory. Nobel Prize winner Eric R. Kandel intertwines the intellectual history of the powerful new science of the mind - a combination of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology - with his own personal quest to understand memory.
-
-
Is a neural circuit like a red or green signal?
- By India Clamp on 11-24-18
By: Eric R. Kandel
-
Cool Food
- Erasing Your Carbon Footprint One Bite at a Time
- By: Robert Downey Jr., Thomas Kostigen
- Narrated by: Robert Downey Jr, Thomas Kostigen, Deepti Gupta
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What we eat matters—to us, and to the planet. Cool food is a game-changing new food category and way of thinking that can help fix the climate. This engaging and persuasive book will show you how to make simple choices, starting today—in the supermarket, in your kitchen, and in the world—to reduce your environmental impact. Hundreds of cool foods exist, but until now have gone largely uncelebrated for their climate-positive powers. Some of these foods may already be on your shelf, and some are just on the horizon.
-
-
Learned so much!
- By Kathleen Haslbauer on 07-23-24
By: Robert Downey Jr., and others
-
The Conquest of Happiness
- By: Bertrand Russell
- Narrated by: Chris Lutkin
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This metaphysical self-help classic instills happiness within and urges individuals to pursue a content life without sin, boredom, or contempt. Written decades ago with post-war depression in mind, this text has transcended time and continues to give applicable advice for modern-day individuals.
-
-
Narrator was horrible
- By Mar on 09-09-20
By: Bertrand Russell
-
Feeling & Knowing
- Making Minds Conscious
- By: Antonio Damasio
- Narrated by: Julian Morris
- Length: 3 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In recent decades, many philosophers and cognitive scientists have declared the problem of consciousness unsolvable, but Antonio Damasio is convinced that recent findings across multiple scientific disciplines have given us a way to understand consciousness and its significance for human life. In Feeling & Knowing, Damasio helps us understand why being conscious is not the same as sensing, why nervous systems are essential for the development of feelings, and why feeling opens the way to consciousness writ large.
-
-
That's it??
- By aaron on 11-13-21
By: Antonio Damasio
-
The Strange Order of Things
- Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures
- By: Antonio Damasio
- Narrated by: Steve West, Antonio Damasio
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Strange Order of Things is a pathbreaking investigation into homeostasis, the condition that regulates human physiology within the range that makes possible not only the survival but also the flourishing of life. Antonio Damasio makes clear that we descend biologically, psychologically, and even socially from a long lineage that begins with single living cells; that our minds and cultures are linked by an invisible thread to the ways and means of ancient unicellular life and other primitive life-forms.
-
-
Homeostasis and Metabolism give self awareness
- By Gary on 03-22-18
By: Antonio Damasio
-
The Archaeology of Mind
- Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions
- By: Jaak Panksepp, Lucy Biven, Daniel J. Siegel - foreword
- Narrated by: Peter Lerman
- Length: 27 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What makes us happy? What makes us sad? How do we come to feel a sense of enthusiasm? What fills us with lust, anger, fear, or tenderness? Traditional behavioral and cognitive neuroscience have yet to provide satisfactory answers. The Archaeology of Mind presents an affective neuroscience approach - which takes into consideration basic mental processes, brain functions, and emotional behaviors that all mammals share - to locate the neural mechanisms of emotional expression. It reveals - for the first time - the deep neural sources of our values and basic emotional feelings.
-
-
Narrator 👎🏻
- By shiva on 12-03-21
By: Jaak Panksepp, and others
-
In Search of Memory
- The Emergence of a New Science of Mind
- By: Eric R. Kandel
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deft mixture of memoir and history, modern biology and behavior, In Search of Memory brings listeners from Kandel's childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna to the forefront of one of the great scientific endeavors of the 20th century: the search for the biological basis of memory. Nobel Prize winner Eric R. Kandel intertwines the intellectual history of the powerful new science of the mind - a combination of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology - with his own personal quest to understand memory.
-
-
Is a neural circuit like a red or green signal?
- By India Clamp on 11-24-18
By: Eric R. Kandel
-
Cool Food
- Erasing Your Carbon Footprint One Bite at a Time
- By: Robert Downey Jr., Thomas Kostigen
- Narrated by: Robert Downey Jr, Thomas Kostigen, Deepti Gupta
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What we eat matters—to us, and to the planet. Cool food is a game-changing new food category and way of thinking that can help fix the climate. This engaging and persuasive book will show you how to make simple choices, starting today—in the supermarket, in your kitchen, and in the world—to reduce your environmental impact. Hundreds of cool foods exist, but until now have gone largely uncelebrated for their climate-positive powers. Some of these foods may already be on your shelf, and some are just on the horizon.
-
-
Learned so much!
- By Kathleen Haslbauer on 07-23-24
By: Robert Downey Jr., and others
-
The Conquest of Happiness
- By: Bertrand Russell
- Narrated by: Chris Lutkin
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This metaphysical self-help classic instills happiness within and urges individuals to pursue a content life without sin, boredom, or contempt. Written decades ago with post-war depression in mind, this text has transcended time and continues to give applicable advice for modern-day individuals.
-
-
Narrator was horrible
- By Mar on 09-09-20
By: Bertrand Russell
-
Open
- Living with an Expansive Mind in a Distracted World
- By: Nate Klemp
- Narrated by: Nate Klemp
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most of us don’t want to be constantly distracted and outraged by texts, emails, social media, and noise, but what’s the solution? Bestselling author Nate Klemp shares a treasury of insights and practical tools to become more open to life—helping you shift to a way of living that is expansive, creative, and filled with wonder.
-
-
Listening to A Man's Personal Story, Not a book to actually help the reader
- By Marie Arrington on 09-13-24
By: Nate Klemp
-
The Genius of Empathy
- Practical Skills to Heal Your Sensitive Self, Your Relationships, and the World
- By: Judith Orloff, His Holiness the Dalai Lama - foreword
- Narrated by: Judith Orloff
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ignite empathy as a superpower for personal healing, deeper relationships, and more potent work in the world. New York Times bestselling author Dr. Judith Orloff draws on insights from neuroscience, psychology, and energy medicine to show us how to access our sensitivities, soothe our nervous systems, and embody our most fierce and authentic selves.
-
-
Good helpful information
- By Jes_074 on 09-07-24
By: Judith Orloff, and others
-
Take Charge of Your Life
- The 12 Master Skills for Success
- By: Brian Tracy
- Narrated by: Michael Tracy
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the hallmark's of Brian Tracy's philosophy is that you are 100% responsible for the results in your life. While Brian Tracy has discussed this philosophy since the 1980's, it is increasingly out of place in our current cultural moment. Today there are numerous voices telling you that any of your struggles or challenges are due to other people or societal conditions that are beyond your control. But, as you'll hear in this life-changing book, the philosophy of complaint and "blaming others" is ultimately a dead-end path that leads to despair.
-
-
GOAL SETTING
- By Tyson Alfons on 08-09-24
By: Brian Tracy
-
Rise Above the Story
- Free Yourself from Past Trauma and Create the Life You Want
- By: Karena Kilcoyne
- Narrated by: Karena Kilcoyne
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Karena Kilcoyne shares with raw vulnerability how she rose above her stories of abandonment, worthlessness, and shame. She’ll help you let go of your own past by embracing every beautiful, imperfect piece of yourself—no matter what your story looks like. Rising above your story will empower you to live the life of your dreams. Karena’s beautifully simple yet powerful formula offers emotional freedom and unfettered joy when you’re ready to embrace the vibrant, worthy, and lovable person you truly are.
-
-
Some suggestions were helpful
- By Kimberly Miller on 05-14-24
By: Karena Kilcoyne
-
The Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition
- By: Daniel N. Robinson, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Daniel N. Robinson
- Length: 30 hrs and 11 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Grasp the important ideas that have served as the backbone of philosophy across the ages with this extraordinary 60-lecture series. This is your opportunity to explore the enormous range of philosophical perspectives and ponder the most important and enduring of human questions-without spending your life poring over dense philosophical texts.
-
-
A Hard Review to Write
- By Ark1836 on 11-20-15
By: Daniel N. Robinson, and others
-
The Whole Story
- Adventures in Love, Life, and Capitalism
- By: John Mackey
- Narrated by: Adam Barr, John Mackey
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Whole Foods Market's cofounder and CEO for forty-four years, John Mackey offers an intimate and provocative account of the rise of this iconic company and the personal and spiritual journey that inspired its remarkable impact.
-
-
Uplifting, inspiring, and educational.
- By Court Rye on 10-27-24
By: John Mackey
What listeners say about Self Comes to Mind
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tom
- 06-17-22
Another successful Damasio explanation of a complex Brain function
I always enjoy listening to Damasio’s mind work, even when he delves into details of the inner workings of the Brain far beyond my understanding. This book is another example of that experience.
His description of the role of the neuron in the evolution of the Human Brain and ultimately the autobiographical Self, while a little dense for the layman, becomes clear with a couple of careful readings. I admit that it can be slow going but the process that took place over Millennia to tie mental functions to physical, biological ones is incredibly complex.
There are definitely chapters that were more detailed than this reader needed but I found the overall theory that he proposed very convincing. Four stars. Thank you Antonio! ****
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Stephen
- 09-30-22
Hard to get one’s head around
This is a complex book. I had to listen to it many times and got more out of it on each pass. The author addresses the topic of consciousness. The topic is addresses starting with basic physico-chemical and biological principles such as homeostasis. At times the explanations drift into philosophy and broaden out to social organization. There are is adequate use of analogy and the material should be accessible to non scientists.
I highly recommend this book to persons with college degrees in physical, natural or social sciences.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Manhattan Lenape
- 05-05-19
grade school science
Way too simplistic. Found it painful to listen even with many fast forwards. i was expecting some new information.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- Ken
- 06-21-11
Not quite an answer to the questions it raises
If you are not already familiar with Damasio's work, this is a great introduction, and one that does a solid, concise job of covering both basic concepts and neurophysiological details. He does a terrific job of closing some of the gaps in previous accounts of how intentional decision making and reasoning work, but his goal of explaining how self comes to mind is unreached. What David Chalmers calls the Really Hard Problem of consciousness remains a "smooth-walled mystery," as Patricia Churchland would put it -- there are no handholds here. If you want a good functional account of how self works, however, this is a great read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
17 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Lynn
- 08-01-11
Want to Understand Consciousness?
If you read Descartes’ Error, then you already know what Antonio Damasio can do with technical and philosophical material. In Self Comes to Mind, he applies current neuroscience to the area of human consciousness. Along the way, the reader is introduced to what that research is saying about how we think, provides new insights into history and the development of art and culture. Yes, there are some technical terms here, but nothing that the novice cannot understand. Professionally trained individuals may find fault with portions of the book. This is not the only book which the interested amateur will be reading. However, it is just enough to help the uninitiated a basic of understanding of human consciousness. Antonio Damasio has done a beautiful job. The reading of Fred Stella is good.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mohanish
- 03-01-12
insightful
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
opens up the mind to think in new direction. Lots of technical details on brain and neuroscience, i sometimes felt the need to have a written copy so that i can refer the text themselves and do some further reading.
How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
Maybe some more real life example, some drama
Have you listened to any of Fred Stella’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
yes, very good
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
no, it is a technical book. It wonder!! and Wows! not laugh or cry.
Any additional comments?
Tony Damasio is genius.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dan
- 05-05-21
Great Book. Dumbed Down Performance
I just can’t listen to an important work being read as though to a five year old at bed time. I tried.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- J.
- 01-12-15
Elegant science and exposition.
Damasio does a good job of balancing scientific detail and readability. He is a world leader in the field. Good narration as well,
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- EbuyerLA
- 04-08-15
Fascinating
Very interesting explanation for the synthesis of human consciousness and the elements responsive for memories and feelings. A very good read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- Jeff Cartwright
- 05-17-11
Some important and amazing stuff in this book!
I can’t imagine a better author to take this subject matter on.
Damasio’s offerings about the genesis of the conscious self are both comprehensive and remarkably clever. He offers lots of justifications for why we construct our sense of self the way we do. Those justifications and explanations seem to arrive at the perfect time in the dialog. It seems Damasio knows and anticipates the readers reaction to each of the new cutting-edge assemblage he creates for us. Just as my mind would stall with one of those - “Yeah, OK, but what about … ?”, he anticipates and addresses my ego's reactive inquiry in the very next paragraph. I found that to be very thoughtful and considerate in a technical publication. It went a long way to keep my ego out of defensive mode and in a more focused learning mode.
I must admit that I did choke on a few of his choices of very large compound words, some of his own design, in a gratuitous fashion. “I get it Antonio, you’re brilliant… now stop it [Smack], I don’t need any extra sizzle from you, I’m totally here for the steak my friend.”
The book is dense with technical content which was useful, delightful and challenging at times. It’s the type of challenge that gives me that feeling of accomplishment when I discover something I could not conceive of before. So it was all good. There were some noticeable places where the narrator was not entirely grasping what he was reading. He would place emphasis on the wrong part of a phrase and I had to play it over in my head several ways with different emphasis before it made sense in context.
I would imagine this book will become a very important body of work as more and more people realize the value in knowing how their own, and each other’s stuff works “under the hood”. 5 Stars by a mile. Thank You Mr. Damasio!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
14 people found this helpful