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The Stuff of Thought
- Language as a Window into Human Nature
- Narrated by: Dean Olsher
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
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Publisher's summary
Now, in The Stuff of Thought, Pinker marries two of the subjects he knows best: language and human nature. The result is a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. What does swearing reveal about our emotions? Why does innuendo disclose something about relationships? Pinker reveals how our use of prepositions and tenses taps into peculiarly human concepts of space and time, and how our nouns and verbs speak to our notions of matter. Even the names we give our babies have important things to say about our relations to our children and to society.
With his signature wit and style, Pinker takes on scientific questions like whether language affects thought, as well as forays into everyday life: why is bulk e-mail called spam, and how do romantic comedies get such mileage out of the ambiguities of dating?
The Stuff of Thought is a brilliantly crafted and highly readable work that will appeal to fans of everything from The Selfish Gene and Blink to Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
Critic reviews
"Engaging and provocative...filled with humor and fun." (Douglas Hofstadter, Los Angeles Times)
"Pinker is a star, and the world of science is lucky to have him." (Richard Dawkins)
"Curious, inventive, fearless, naughty." (New York Times Book Review)
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- 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
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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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Louder Than Words
- The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning
- By: Benjamin K. Bergen
- Narrated by: Benjamin K. Bergen
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Whether it’s brusque, convincing, fraught with emotion, or dripping with innuendo, language is fundamentally a tool for conveying meaning - a uniquely human magic trick in which you vibrate your vocal cords to make your innermost thoughts pop up in someone else’s mind. You can use it to talk about all sorts of things - from your new labradoodle puppy to the expansive gardens at Versailles, from Roger Federer’s backhand to things that don’t exist at all, like flying pigs.
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Fun But Technical--Glad I Got It On Sale
- By Gillian on 05-22-17
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The Science of Discworld
- A Novel
- By: Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen
- Narrated by: Michael Fenton Stevens, Stephen Briggs
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Not just another science audiobook and not just another Discworld novella, The Science of Discworld is a creative, mind-bending mash-up of fiction and fact, that offers a wizard’s-eye view of our world that will forever change how you look at the universe.
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Not the best Pratchett, but gets there in the end
- By Rachel on 07-30-14
By: Terry Pratchett, and others
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Freedom Evolves
- By: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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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 Mother Tongue
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson - the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent - brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience, and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't) to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.
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More satire than history
- By Barbara Kindle Customer on 12-18-15
By: Bill Bryson
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A Most Elegant Equation
- Euler’s Formula and the Beauty of Mathematics
- By: David Stipp
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Bertrand Russell wrote that mathematics can exalt "as surely as poetry". This is especially true of one equation: ei(pi) + 1 = 0, the brainchild of Leonhard Euler, the Mozart of mathematics. More than two centuries after Euler's death, it is still regarded as a conceptual diamond of unsurpassed beauty. Called Euler's identity, or God's equation, it includes just five numbers but represents an astonishing revelation of hidden connections.
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Good treatment of the subject
- By Kindle Customer on 04-09-18
By: David Stipp
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The Pun Also Rises
- How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More Than Some Antics
- By: John Pollack
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The Pun Also Rises is an authoritative yet playful exploration of a practice that is common, in one form or another, to virtually every language on earth. At once entertaining and educational, this engaging book answers fundamental questions: Just what is a pun, and why do people make them? How did punning impact the development of human language, and how did that drive creativity and progress? And why, after centuries of decline, does the pun still matter?
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Punderful Little Book
- By B. Lane on 01-10-13
By: John Pollack
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The Mind Club
- Who Thinks, What Feels, and Why It Matters
- By: Daniel M. Wegner, Kurt Gray
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Nothing seems more real than the minds of other people. When you consider what your boss is thinking or whether your spouse is happy, you are admitting them into the "mind club". It's easy to assume other humans can think and feel, but what about a cow, a computer, a corporation? What kinds of minds do they have? Daniel M. Wegner and Kurt Gray are award-winning psychologists who have discovered that minds - while incredibly important - are a matter of perception.
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Who is the self in me? Am I part of something bigger?
- By Philomath on 03-24-16
By: Daniel M. Wegner, and others
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You Are Now Less Dumb
- How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself
- By: David McRaney
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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You Are Now Less Dumb is grounded in the idea that we all believe ourselves to be objective observers of reality - except we’re not. But that's okay, because our delusions keep us sane. Expanding on this premise, McRaney provides eye-opening analyses of 15 more ways we fool ourselves every day. This smart and highly entertaining audiobook will be wowing listeners for years to come.
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Not a lot of guidance
- By A. Yoshida on 02-08-14
By: David McRaney
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A great book, done a great injustice by the audio
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The nation's premier communications expert shares his wisdom on how the words we choose can change the course of business, of politics, and of life in this country. In Words That Work, Luntz offers a behind-the-scenes look at how the tactical use of words and phrases affects what we buy, who we vote for, and even what we believe in. With chapters like "The 10 Rules of Successful Communication" and "The 21 Words and Phrases for the 21st Century", he examines how choosing the right words is essential.
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Repetative vainglorious windbag
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The Elements of Eloquence
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In his inimitably entertaining and wonderfully witty style, he takes apart famous phrases and shows how you too can write like Shakespeare or quip like Oscar Wilde. Whether you’re aiming to achieve literary immortality or just hoping to deliver the perfect one-liner, The Elements of Eloquence proves that you don’t need to have anything important to say - you simply need to say it well.
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Who knew rhetoric could be so much fun?
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Were it not for the calculus, mathematicians would have no way to describe the acceleration of a motorcycle or the effect of gravity on thrown balls and distant planets, or to prove that a man could cross a room and eventually touch the opposite wall. Just how calculus makes these things possible and in doing so finds a correspondence between real numbers and the real world is the subject of this dazzling book by a writer of extraordinary clarity and stylistic brio.
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Top Poet among Mathemeticians
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What listeners say about The Stuff of Thought
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Rudi
- 06-17-09
Pinker is truly a brilliant and lucid explainer...
I loved this book! I had enjoyed "The Blank Slate" by Pinker. One of the downsides is that I used to think I was a bit of an intellectual...once you read or hear Pinker, you realize how high the bar of genuine intellect truly goes. The guy is "freakin" brilliant.
Some reviewers complained that the material was too dense for audiobook format. There were a few sections in which I found it helpful to back the story up and re-listen...but the format was fine.
Both my parents were academics and language lovers, so Pinkers obvious erudition and use of occasionally obscure verbiage was enjoyable to me, not off-putting.
The basic premise of the book is that human nature, and brain "hard-wiring" is illuminated by the way we use language.
The only reason this didn't get five stars is that I liked Bill Bryson's "A Brief History of Nearly Everything" even a bit better, and I consequently wanted to rate it even higher.
If you liked "Outliers" and appreciate genuine philisophical depth and orginality, you will like this book. Pinker knows and brings to bear on his thesis about a remarkable number of fields. Just as I felt about "The Blank Slate," my private thought was, "If I can ever be half as articulate and intellectually gifted as this guy, I would be ecstatic."
But be warned...if you are aren't willing to do just a bit of intellectual "heavy lifting" in parts, this book may not be for you. Pinker is not writing for the undergrads and underachievers here...he does not bother to dumb things down.
In summary, I learned about my own character and nature, as well as others, while thinking about ideas elucidated and spawned by this book.
It is a winner.
Rudi Hoffman
Port Orange, FL
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33 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Miroslaw
- 09-12-09
Escaping the Cave
Steven Pinker's "The Stuff of Thought" is about language. Yet - it is not just about the language. It's a deep philosophical tractate about the very nature of mind and its interaction with the world.
"Language is a window into human nature, exposing deep and universal features of our thoughts and feelings. The thoughts and feelings cannot be equated with the words themselves"
The central theme of the book is an attempt to uncover the abstract layer that our mind uses to think, to perceive, to be conscious. Going from the concepts of innate words, through polysemy, metaphors, names, and language games we play - Steven slowly makes evident the existence of deeper, more abstract, but also more precise layer of the human mind. There are numerous examples that illustrate the specific reflection of this abstract "stuff" in our language. Equally amazing is to find reflections of concepts of space, time and causality in the forms of our language.
I'm glad to notice that Pinker goes far beyond the biological interpretation of our mind. When you read "The stuff of thought" you have the impression that this author finally writes about the software our brain runs. To me - this software is the "stuff", although Pinker does not formulate such thesis.
Here is a small weakness of the book - while Pinker convinces the reader to his main argument - and the reader expects to learn more about "the stuff of thought" - he suddenly comes short on this subject.
But the book ends with fantastic chapter "Escaping the Cave" where the cave is Platon's metaphorical cave. The language is our cave, but it also can help us to escape this cave. Here lies its strength, beauty and power...
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24 people found this helpful
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Overall
- mhz00544
- 12-29-07
Great Book
As a former teacher of English (as a foreign language - TEFL), I found this book excellent. English is my second language and for a long time I have been facinated by the "behavior" of verbs, be in English or my own native language. It will help TEFL teachers explaining why certain words behave in a particular way. I think this ought to be a required reading for all who intend to teach English as a second/foreign language. The reader is also outstanding.
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21 people found this helpful
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Overall
- William
- 10-29-07
okay book, poorly read
While not uniformly interesting, the book itself has something to offer, but the narrator reads it so breathlessly fast (as if in a hurry to reach the end) that I found it very hard to follow, and had to keep backing up. It's the only audible book that has caused my iPod to create a screen to set the speed. I tried slowing it down, but the voice became very warrrrbbbbld. I gave up on reaching the overly long section on baby names. If I had a hard copy, I could have skipped that. So, basically, ill suited to be an audio book.
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20 people found this helpful
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Overall
- ShanghaiLilly
- 04-19-08
Audiobook does not do the material justice
Very difficult book for an audiobook. Hard to follow. The reader went very fast. There is no time to absorb the ideas-- particularly the examples. You can't easily page back and relisten to key parts. The ideas were not that dense; but they were hard to follow.
I also thought the book was heavier on technical linguistics and less on insights into human nature than I was expecting. At least listening to it during a commute, it came out very disjointed and without a clear theme.
If you are still interested, I'd recommend using old technology and actually reading it-- but only if you are really into linguistics. There are some interesting concepts here but no great insights into human nature.
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17 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Alicia
- 11-04-07
A step ahead
I'm a translator and lover of all things linguistics. I find that this book brings together the contents of Pinker's Language Instinct and How the Mind Works very well and makes rather complex knowledge more accessible to the lay person. This audio book was so interesting and definitely a step ahead of my understanding, so it encourages me to buy the book after all, to take my time to ponder his theories and conclusions. Thank you!
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Overall
- Dan
- 10-24-07
disappointing
I was excited about this book because I am a self-avowed "word geek", but ended up disappointed. This is really a philosophy book, with (sometimes) interesting reflections on how the brain and human nature affect the languages we speak.
While this would be a great book to read for an academic course, in my mind Pinker's writing did not possess the story-telling ability required to make the academic details of what he was explaining seem intuitive or compelling (a la "Blink" by Gladwell or "Freakconomics" by Dubner & Levitt).
The book does get more enjoyable after the first hour or two (I almost didn't make it), but the material covered there seemed less novel (e.g., the cycles of baby's names has been covered many times over in the pop-psychology genre).
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Overall
- J. M. Walker
- 07-13-09
Brilliant, practical, engaging
Steven Pinker blends remarkably astute observations that seem obvious once made, clear summaries of different theories and researches, and persuasive speculations into a great narrative.
I certainly do intend to listen to it again, but that is testimony to its richness of thought, not to any failing of the recording.
I don't believe that reading the hard copy would be as much fun or any more productive.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Art Maker
- 05-06-08
Challenging listening
This audiobook is challenging though fascinating listening. The exploration of how we use language to represent our social, psychic and physical worlds is well researched and often surprising and amusing. It's rather difficult to keep one's concentration given the complexity of many of the ideas and theories presented here. I've often wished I was reading the actual text, to see the words and technical jargon on the printed page. There do seem to be gaps in the narrative, and I plan to go to the hard copy version of the book now that I've finished listening. Worth the effort, though, for the insights it offers on how we process language to negotiate the worlds we live in.
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Overall
- Pedram Kazemian
- 11-15-07
Not an enjoyable read
I found the subject matter very interesting and thought that I would find relevant and relatively easily understandable information on what the topic purports to present. Unfortunately, I found this book very difficult to follow. I felt the writer spoke from his ivery tower of academic literature and never bothered to dissect the subject and explain it to an interested reader. I essentially lost my interest half-way through and didn't finish the book.
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6 people found this helpful