The Evolution of Consciousness: Of Darwin, Freud, and Cranial Fire - The Origins of the Way We Think

Ornstein, Robert

ISBN 10: 0671792245 / ISBN 13: 9780671792244

Published by Simon & Schuster - A Touchstone Book, New York, 1991

About this Item

304 Pages Indexed. Line illustrations by Ted Dewan on almost every page. This book will change the way you lthink about your mind. Ornstein introduces his panoramic history of the mind's evolution by explaining that we are not rational, but adaptive. The mind, like our bodies, evolved to help us survive --- avoid danger, procure food, and perpetuate the species ---- not to reason why. Our mind still contais within itself not two hemispheres, buet a phalanx of adaptations to circumstances. Passionate, enteertaining, and provocative, this is nothing less than a fundamental challenge to our assumptions about the human and mind and how it works. Contents in Eight Parts: The Work of the Mind, The Long View The Physical Evolution of the Mind, The Inner Workings of the Mind, Pieces of the Puzzle Brain Prodcesses and Organization, The Dream of the World, Is This the Person to Whom I'm Speaking, Getting to Know Yous, and Why There Will Be No Further Evolution Without Conscious Evolution. Plus Preface, Afterword, and Bibliography. The author is President of the institute for the Study of Human Knowledge. He teaches at University of California Medical Center in San Francisco, and at Stanford University. He has done extensive research on the human brain is the author of several books on the brain, psychology of consciousness, healthy pleasures, and related subjects.

Seller Inventory # 10348

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Evolution of Consciousness: Of Darwin, Freud, and Cranial Fire - The Origins of the Way We Think
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster - A Touchstone Book, New York
• Publication Date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0671792245
• ISBN 13: 9780671792244
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Illustrator: DeWan, Ted
• Edition: First Printing
• Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis

Based on his life's research, the author of the bestseller The Psychology of Consciousness provides a provocative look at the evolution of the mind.

In Evolution of Consciousness Robert Ornstein explains that we are not rational but adaptive, and that it is Darwin, not Freud, who is the central scientist of the brain.

Reviews

Ornstein's elegant inquiry into the history of consciousness revises Darwin and Freud by positing that the modern mind is a disunified jumble.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.