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How the Mind Works
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 26 hrs and 5 mins
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In this delightful, acclaimed best seller, 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?
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Between what can be learned from evolutionary psychology and cognitive science a picture emerges. In Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life, social psychologist Douglas Kenrick fuses these two fields to create a coherent story of human nature. In his analysis, many ingrained, apparently irrational behaviors—one-night stands, prejudice, conspicuous consumption, even art and religious devotion—are quite explicable and (when desired) avoidable.
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Rather dated and self-aggrandizing
- By Laurie Frick on 07-21-11
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Freedom Evolves
- By: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
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Can there be freedom and free will in a deterministic world? Renowned philosopher Daniel Dennett emphatically answers "yes!" Using an array of provocative formulations, Dennett sets out to show how we alone among the animals have evolved minds that give us free will and morality. Weaving a richly detailed narrative, Dennett explains in a series of strikingly original arguments - drawing upon evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, and philosophy - that far from being an enemy of traditional explorations of freedom, morality, and meaning, the evolutionary perspective can be an indispensable ally.
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I knew I was going to like this book
- By Gary on 05-30-14
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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
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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.
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Effectively demystifies consciousness
- By Gary on 11-18-12
By: Daniel Bor
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Riveted
- The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe
- By: Jim Davies
- Narrated by: Matthew Josdal
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
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Professor Jim Davies's fascinating and highly accessible book, Riveted, reveals the evolutionary underpinnings of why we find things compelling. Drawing on work from philosophy, anthropology, religious studies, psychology, economics, computer science, and biology, Davies offers a comprehensive explanation to show that in spite of the differences between the many things that we find compelling, they have similar effects on our minds and brains.
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Fun and excellent listen!
- By Alejandro Franco on 04-13-18
By: Jim Davies
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Out of Our Heads
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- By: Alva Noe
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
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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.
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A bold, yet ultimately unsupported, hypothesis
- By Keith Pyne-Howarth on 01-17-10
By: Alva Noe
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At the Edge of Uncertainty
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The atom, the big bang, DNA, natural selection - all are ideas that have revolutionized science; and all were dismissed out of hand when they first appeared. The surprises haven't stopped in recent years, and in At the Edge of Uncertainty, best-selling author Michael Brooks investigates the new wave of radical insights that are shaping the future of scientific discovery.
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All smoke, no fire
- By Kenton on 07-25-15
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The Blind Watchmaker
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The Blind Watchmaker, knowledgably narrated by author Richard Dawkins, is as prescient and timely a book as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the 18th-century theologian William Paley, who argued that just as a watch is too complicated and functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Charles Darwin's brilliant discovery challenged the creationist arguments; but only Richard Dawkins could have written this elegant riposte.
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Challenging textbook more than an enjoyable listen
- By Eric on 01-15-12
By: Richard Dawkins
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The Moral Animal
- Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
- By: Robert Wright
- Narrated by: Greg Thornton
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
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Are men literally born to cheat? Does monogamy actually serve women's interests? These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animal one of the most provocative science books in recent years. Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics - as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies.
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Ridiculously Insightful
- By Liron on 10-25-10
By: Robert Wright
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Perception
- How Our Bodies Shape Our Minds
- By: Dennis Proffitt, Drake Baer
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
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Perception marries academic rigor with mainstream accessibility. The research presented and the personalities profiled will show what it means to not only have, but be, your unique human body. The positive ramifications of viewing ourselves from this embodied perspective include greater athletic, academic, and professional achievement, more nourishing relationships, and greater personal well-being. The better we can understand what our bodies are - what they excel at, what they need, what they must avoid - the better we can live our lives.
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The body-mind connection well explained
- By Lucy A. Pithecus on 12-11-22
By: Dennis Proffitt, and others
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The Self Illusion
- Why There Is No "You" Inside Your Head
- By: Bruce Hood
- Narrated by: Bruce Hood
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
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The Self Illusion provides a fascinating examination of how the latest science shows that our individual concept of a self is in fact an illusion. Most of us believe that we possess a self - an internal individual who resides inside our bodies, making decisions, authoring actions and possessing free will. The feeling that a single, unified, enduring self inhabits the body is compelling and inescapable. But that sovereignty of the self is increasingly under threat from science as our understanding of the brain advances.
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Disappointing
- By David R Pinsof on 05-10-12
By: Bruce Hood
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We live in the best of all times
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Leave out the politics please
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How do neurons turn into minds? The problem of consciousness has gnawed at us for millennia. In the last century there have been massive breakthroughs that have rewritten the science of the brain, and yet the puzzles faced by the ancient Greeks are still present. In The Consciousness Instinct, the neuroscience pioneer Michael S. Gazzaniga puts the latest research in conversation with the history of human thinking about the mind, giving a big-picture view of what science has revealed about consciousness.
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Not recommended
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Incognito
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In this sparkling and provocative new book, the renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman navigates the depths of the subconscious brain to illuminate surprising mysteries. Taking in brain damage, plane spotting, dating, drugs, beauty, infidelity, synesthesia, criminal law, artificial intelligence, and visual illusions, Incognito is a thrilling subsurface exploration of the mind and all its contradictions.
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The author is NOT a good reader
- By MaryEllen on 06-17-11
By: David Eagleman
What listeners say about How the Mind Works
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- David Roseberry
- 12-11-11
Excellent, but a difficult listen.
What made the experience of listening to How the Mind Works the most enjoyable?
Pinker answers a lot of questions about how and why people think the way they do. As always, he doesn't just make assertions, he backs everything up by explaining the state of the research and the ideas of the researchers in the field (even when those ideas are different from his). It's a much easier read than actual research papers, and has wit and good story telling to leven the large doses of information, but it's not easy to follow when listening. It requires a lot of concentration or you can do what I did and just listen to everything twice, sometimes three times, until you get it.
If you consider yourself an intellectual, you'll want to be familiar with Stephen Pinker's work. The Better Angels of our Nature, and The Blank Slate are easier to pick up just listening once so I would recommend one of those as a place to start.
This book was written more than 10 years ago. It's holding up very well though and an afterword written only a couple of years ago is included which explains how recent research relates to the book.
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- Eleanor
- 09-14-12
There are so many better books on this topic
Any additional comments?
I got this audiobook on sale for $4.95 and probably wouldn't have gotten it otherwise. I really liked Eagleman's Incognito, Lehrer's How We Decide, Nørretranders' User Illusion and even Kahneman's plodding Thinking Fast and Slow, so How the MInd Works seemed like a good fit. The author is not particularly interested in how the mind actually works (and when he does talk about the mechanisms of thinking, he gets terribly bogged down in computer programming minutiae). The book is actually about evolutionary biology, and Pinker spends a huge amount of the book bashing feminists and sociologists. The book was written in the 90's, so the author had probably been on the receiving end of a lot of fuzzy thinking about everything being socially constructed, but his harping makes the book seem incredibly dated (especially compared to the User Illusion, which still seems very fresh). I would also say that as the mother of a truck-loving toddler girl who has been told by other mothers that "girls don't like trucks," I see gender roles being socially constructed every day.
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66 people found this helpful
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- SANTIAGO
- 04-14-12
Misleading book title
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes, I'd definitively recommend it to friends. The book is very interesting, but Pinker got the title wrong. The book explains very well WHAT the mind works, and WHY does it make sense that the mind does what it does. But the book NEVER explains HOW the mind does it.
What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?
The most interesting is the variety of topics covered in the book. Full with interesting specific cases and references to studies.
The least interesting is the lack of substance in the theory of How the mind works. Pinker basically pushes 3 ideas through: 1) natural selection, 2) the mind is made up of organs like the rest of the body, 3) the analogy of the mind as a computational device
As much as those ideas are interesting, they are old and well accepted. So, the book is just a nice way to put them together, but without bringing any new argument to the discussion.
What about Mel Foster’s performance did you like?
The performance of Mel Foster was outstanding.
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56 people found this helpful
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- David R Pinsof
- 04-30-12
Classic!
This is one of my favorite books, and the audio format does not disappoint. If you're interested about human nature, why we are the way we are, why we're so smart, why we're conscious, and even why fools fall in love, this book is for you. (But be warned, this book is for people who like to think; don't expect to breeze through it like a malcom gladwell book.) Also, one recommendation: unless you're really interested in visual perception, I would recommend skipping the chapter called "The Mind's Eye," as it is hard to follow in audio format without the pictures, and it is the most technical chapter.
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- Douglas
- 07-06-12
Classic Pinker
In this wonderfully informative and entertaining book on the human thought process, the source of emotions, sexual desire and everything else this marvelous three pound lump of spam in our head does for us, Pinker writes in the intelligent but amazingly amusing and witty style that makes him one of the greatest translators of complex science into lay terms, in the main because he does so without compromising or dumbing-down in the process. It is no wonder that this man is considered one of the greatest minds of our time. Buy the book and find out how his, and everyone else's works--and why.
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- SM_NZ
- 09-10-12
Loved it
Would you listen to How the Mind Works again? Why?
Yes, there's. Lot in here, some 25 hours worth of listening, and I want to come ack and listen to some things again!
What was one of the most memorable moments of How the Mind Works?
The development of the sexual brain the differences in the sexual mind was very interesting indeed. It's easy to forget out behaviour and preferences were actually established during our extended hunter gatherer lifestyle, and how this fashioned our behaviour from an evolutionary perspective
Have you listened to any of Mel Foster’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
Easy to listen to. Always run at 1.5x
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Certainly made me think.
Any additional comments?
Love Steven Pinker, and would like to just read more. It's so refreshing to hear all the concepts related back to actual studies! I enjoyed this as much as the Blank Slate, possibly more.
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14 people found this helpful
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- UncleH
- 12-23-11
Why did he bother?
What disappointed you about How the Mind Works?
More than 1/2 way through, and still didn't have any idea where the book was going.
What was most disappointing about Steven Pinker’s story?
No point was being made. Just a string of thoughts. Kind of like Kurt Vonnegot's "Breakfast of Champions".
Have you listened to any of Mel Foster’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No. He did an excellent job.
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
TEEEEDEEEEUUUUUUM.
Any additional comments?
Maybe, if I could have held out longer, I'd have seen a point to it. But, life is way too short. On to the next book. (By the way, I only very rarely give up on a book.)
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13 people found this helpful
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- David
- 04-02-17
Old Book, and Obviously Not "How the Mind Works"
This book came out in the 90s and I read it then, and forgot it entirely because it was so obviously wrong about "how the mind works", even for what was known then.
The mind doesn't work as Pinker says at all - it's not even close - and even lay people know it. The book is so intellectually dishonest that the title really amounts to defrauding the reader / listener.
The narrator, Mel Foster, gets a good rating, but I cannot rate the book itself low enough.
Since AI is highly Topical now, the re-marketing of this stinker is more than a little mercenary - unimpressed all over again.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Rob
- 04-02-15
Excellent treatment of a broad topic
Where does How the Mind Works rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I have consumed countless books, lectures, seminars, and podcasts about science, skepticism, critical thinking, behavioral economics, evolution, meta-cognition, and everything else that this book touches on. Pinker goes above and beyond by linking it all together in an engaging way. The concepts are deep but he breaks them down in such a way that they become simple.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Not applicable - this is non-fiction.
What does Mel Foster bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Excellent pace and tone. Auditory cheesecake!
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I laughed several times, and it made me think very deeply and in new ways about many very basic concepts about life, relationships, and thinking.
Any additional comments?
Though we may be sacks of meat through-and-through we still manage to find each other beautiful, and that itself is beautiful.
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7 people found this helpful
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- D. Defoe
- 11-12-12
Misleading Title
What would have made How the Mind Works better?
The book started out good and seemed to be on topic. Not long into the book it was no longer about the mind. This should have been titled "An Argument for Evolution and Natural Selection". Never seemed to get back to how the mind works. After hours and hours of why birds have wings and how we grew eyes I just shut if off.
Any additional comments?
If you want a good book on Natural Selection this is a great listen. If you want a book on the mind look elsewhere.
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7 people found this helpful