The Mind within the Brain: How We Make Decisions and How those Decisions Go Wrong - Hardcover

Redish, A. David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199891885 ISBN 13: 9780199891887

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2013

Synopsis

In The Mind within the Brain, David Redish brings together cutting edge research in psychology, robotics, economics, neuroscience, and the new fields of neuroeconomics and computational psychiatry, to offer a unified theory of human decision-making. Most importantly, Redish shows how vulnerabilities, or "failure-modes," in the decision-making system can lead to serious dysfunctions, such as irrational behavior, addictions, problem gambling, and PTSD.

Told with verve and humor in an easily readable style, Redish makes these difficult concepts understandable. Ranging widely from the surprising roles of emotion, habit, and narrative in decision-making, to the larger philosophical questions of how mind and brain are related, what makes us human, the nature of morality, free will, and the conundrum of robotics and consciousness, The Mind within the Brain offers fresh insight into one of the most complex aspects of human behavior.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"David Redish is a leading neuroscientist known for his pioneering, creative work.
In this thoughtful book, he clearly describes the latest findings in brain science to
help readers better understand what really drives the choices we make."
--Tali Sharot, Affective Brain Lab, Cognitive, Perceptual, & Brain Science, University
College London, author of The Optimism Bias

"Over the last decade there has been an explosion in our understanding of how the
brain makes decisions. This book, written by one of the leading scholars in the
field, is a must read for anyone interested in this area."
--Antonio Rangel, Professor of Neuroscience and Economics, California Institute of
Technology

"Many parts that make up the mind have been found by now, the product
of experiments and deductions from psychology, behavioral economics,
neurophysiology, brain imaging, robotics, and even the philosophy of mind. A
distinguished researcher in neurophysiology and behavior, Redish has started
with the basic purpose for which the mind evolved--making decisions--and has
used it to organize what I judge to be the best synthesis now available of these
findings. In this book, he calls on his extensive working knowledge of all these
fields to explain in readable steps how the elements of decision work--and often
fail to work. With meticulous but unobtrusive documentation for readers who
want to go deeper, this book will appeal to novice and expert alike."
--George Ainslie, author of Breakdown of Will and Picoeconomics

"Decisions are sometimes conscious, but surprisingly often not. With an engineer's
attention to mechanisms and a novelist's feel for an engaging story, Redish shows
how this tension is not only possible, but sits at the core of human struggles,
triumphs, and failures."
--Don Ross, University of Cape Town and Georgia State University, author of
Economic Theory and Cognitive Science: Microexplanation

About the Author

David Redish is a professor of Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota. Trained in
computational, theoretical, and experimental neuroscience, he has contributed to our
understanding of decision-making and cognition. Dr. Redish received a dual-degree BA
in the writing seminars (poetry, plays) and computer science from The Johns Hopkins
University, and his PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0199891885
• ISBN 13: 9780199891887
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 392