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A History of the Mind: Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness / Edition 1

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ISBN-10:: 0387987193
ISBN-13:: 9780387987194
Pub. Date:: 06/18/1999
Publisher:: Springer New York

ISBN-10:: 0387987193
ISBN-13:: 9780387987194
Pub. Date:: 06/18/1999
Publisher:: Springer New York

A History of the Mind: Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness / Edition 1

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Overview

This book is a tour-de-force on how human consciousness may have evolved. From the "phantom pain" experienced by people who have lost their limbs to the uncanny faculty of "blindsight," Humphrey argues that raw sensations are central to all conscious states and that consciousness must have evolved, just like all other mental faculties, over time from our ancestors' bodily responses to pain and pleasure. '

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ISBN-13:	9780387987194
Publisher:	Springer New York
Publication date:	06/18/1999
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1992
Pages:	238
Sales rank:	701,396
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.36(d)

Mind and Body.- “Puzzling Work”: An Aside About Language.- What Happened in History: The Inside Story.- The Double Province of the Senses.- “What Do We See?”.- Color is the Keyboard.- In the Realm of the Senses.- Shuttle Vision.- “It Must Look Queer!”.- New Arrangements.- Mind-Blindness and Blind-Mindness.- More About Blindsight.- A Fire In The Hand; A Dagger of the Mind.- He Thought He Saw An Elephant.- Here It Lies.- Here What Lies? A Chapter About Definition.- Five Characteristics in Search of A Theory.- The Problem of Ownership (A Tack to Starboard).- The Question Of Indexicals (A Tack to Port).- Plus CA Change....- A Little Mind Music.- Specific Nerve Energies?.- Smoke Without Fire.- Time Present.- Hurrah!.- Being and Nothingness.- 229.- 235.

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Editorial Reviews

Himself a theoretical psychologist involved in primate studies (he worked with Dian Fossey in Rwanda), but equally au fait with philosophy and literature (he edited Granta), Humphrey seeks to demonstrate that consciousness is real, not a mere verbal leftover of theology; and he does this by tracing through a variety of experiments (actual and theoretical) its evolution and functions... Many pleasures in this powerful work.
—The Sunday Times, 7 July 1992

Roy Porter

Nicholas Humphrey's new book about the mind is exceptionally readable, and packed with fascinating psychological information and ingenious speculation... Humphrey writes with an unusual combination of verve, lucidity and charm.
—The Guardian, 4 June 1992

Michael Lockwood

An eloquent and persuasive theory - impossible to summarise briefly - on how the water of the physical brain is turned into the wine of consciousness. No other theoretical psychologist is so accessibly clear, and at the same time so provocatively philosophical.
—The Observer, 8 August 1993

Lorna Sage

With a seductive combination of enthusisatic zeal and effortless lucidity, [Humphrey] draws us into his personal map of the conscious world. The temptations he offers are difficult to resist.
—Literary Review, July 1992

Richard Horton

In a highly stimulating, unorthodox inquiry that cuts across many disciplines, experimental psychologist Humphrey argues that raw sensation, not thought, is the central fact of consciousness. Furthermore, he claims, mental activities other than the five senses enter consciousness only when accompanied by ``reminders'' of sensation, as with mental imagery. Humphrey ( Consciousness Regained ) posits two separate channels of the mind--one for sensation or subjective feelings, another for perception or objective knowledge of the external world. These two channels are said to employ very different styles of information processing: ``analog'' processing of sensations leads to pictorial images, while ``digital'' processing of perception yields propositions. Lightening his often technical discussion with thought experiments, drawings and illustrative examples from authors ranging from Lewis Carroll to Aldous Huxley, Humphrey sketches an evolutionary history of the mind, from ameboid wriggles in the primeval soup onward. Conscious feeling, he stresses, is a form of intentional doing, creating the thick moment of the subjective present. (Oct.)

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