Misreading the mind - Los Angeles Times - About

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Saved by 1 people (0 private), first by anonymouse user on 2008-01-21

Brianddrpm on 2008-01-21 - Tags brain , psychology , science

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The success of modern neuroscience represents the triumph of a method: reductionism. The premise of reductionism is that the best way to solve a complex problem -- and the brain is the most complicated object in the known universe -- is to study its most basic parts. The mind, in other words, is just a particular trick of matter, reducible to the callous laws of physics.

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on 2008-01-21 by brianddrpm

Thumbnail book review: Proust was a Neuroscientist Category: Opinion

Posted on: December 21, 2007 11:47 AM, by Greta Munger

I just finished reading Jonah Lehrer's book Proust was a Neuroscientist.

Quick review: good book, very fun read, and I'm happy to recommend it to almost everyone. I just have one small quibble. For the quibble to make any sense, you need to know something about my teaching. Students in all my psychology classes have to write a few paragraphs to earn "culture points." They must consider how psychology connects to art, though the social context surrounding the event is also fair game for analysis. So my students attend a concert, visit a museum, or go to a play or dance performance and then write a paragraph connecting some aspect of psychology to their experience. I get a lot of discussion of the Gestalt grouping principles with paintings, but every semester several students make more interesting connections: noticing how a theatrical production manipulated their attention using a sudden movement, or positive reinforcement at work between live performers and their audience, or discussing how a particular aspect of memory may explain a very surprising emotional reaction to a sculpture.

Misreading the mind - Los Angeles Times