A new theory is taking hold in neuroscience. It is the theory that the brain is essentially a hypothesis-testing mechanism, one that attempts to minimise the error of its predictions about the sensory input it receives from the world. It is an attractive theory because powerful theoretical arguments support it, and yet it is at heart stunningly simple.
(2014, 282 pages)
The Predictive Mind by Jakob Hohwy (2014)
The central message of this book is that we will never fully understand living things if we continue to think of genes, organisms, and environments as separate entities, each with its distinct role to play in the history and operation of organic processes. Here Lewontin shows that an organism is a unique consequence of both genes and environment, of both internal and external features. Rejecting the notion that genes determine the organism, which then adapts to the environment, he explains that organisms, influenced in their development by their circumstances, in turn create, modify, and choose the environment in which they live. ( 136 pages, 1998)
The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, Environment by Richard Lewontin
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
A string of bestsellers have alerted us to the importance of grit – an ability to persevere and control one’s impulses that is so closely associated with greatness. But no book yet has charted the most accessible and powerful path to grit: our prosocial emotions. These feelings – gratitude, compassion and pride – are easier to generate than the willpower and self-denial that underpin traditional approaches to grit. And, while willpower is quickly depleted, prosocial emotions actually become stronger the more we use them. (227 pages, 2018)
Emotional Success: The Power of Gratitude, Compassion and Pride by David DeSteno
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In this groundbreaking work, philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark explores exciting new theories from these fields that reveal minds like ours to be prediction machines - devices that have evolved to anticipate the incoming streams of sensory stimulation before they arrive.
Neuroscientist David J. Linden approached leading brain researchers and asked each the same question: “What idea about brain function would you most like to explain to the world?” Their responses make up this one‑of‑a‑kind collection of popular science essays that seeks to expand our knowledge of the human mind and its possibilities. (312 pages, 2018)
Think Tank: Forty Neuroscientists Explore the Biological Roots of Human Experience by David J. Linden
The book presents lucid descriptions of human mental activity, with detailed considerations of the stream of thought, consciousness, time perception, memory, imagination, emotions, reason, abnormal phenomena, and similar topics. (first published 1890)
Principles of Psychology by William James
The Book of Human Emotions: An Encyclopedia of Feeling from Anger to Wanderlust by Tiffany Watt Smith
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This fascinating work is a persuasive explanation of how modern psychology found its language. Kurt Danziger develops an account that goes beyond the taken-for-granted quality of psychological discourse to offer a profound and broad-ranging analysis of the recent evolution of the concepts and categories on which it depends. (224 pages, first published January 1st 1997)
Naming the Mind: How Psychology Found Its Language by Kurt Danziger (1997)
Just as the phrenologist would insist that each organ must have its particular function, so contemporary cognitive neuroscience is committed to the notion that each brain region must have its fundamental computation. In After Phrenology, Michael Anderson argues that to achieve a fully post-phrenological science of the brain, we need to reassess this commitment and devise an alternate, neuroscientifically grounded taxonomy of mental function. (416 pages, 2014)
How Do You Feel? brings together startling evidence from neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry to present revolutionary new insights into how our brains enable us to experience the range of sensations and mental states known as feelings. Drawing on his own cutting-edge research, neurobiologist Bud Craig has identified an area deep inside the mammalian brain--the insular cortex--as the place where interoception, or the processing of bodily stimuli, generates feelings. (384 pages, 2014)
(352 pages, first published October 31st 2002)
Brain Architecture by Larry Swanson
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This short treatise looks at how we construct a social reality from our sense impressions; at how, for example, we construct a 'five-pound note' with all that implies in terms of value and social meaning, from the printed piece of paper we see and touch.
(256 pages, 1995)
The Construction of Social Reality by John Searle
This collection of revised and new essays argues that biology is an autonomous science rather than a branch of the physical sciences. Ernst Mayr, widely considered the most eminent evolutionary biologist of the 20th century, offers insights on the history of evolutionary thought, critiques the conditions of philosophy to the science of biology, and comments on several of the major developments in evolutionary theory. Notably, Mayr explains that Darwin's theory of evolution is actually five separate theories, each with its own history, trajectory and impact. (232 pages, 2007)
What Makes Biology Unique by Ernst Mayr
This book provides eloquent support for the idea that spontaneous neuron activity, far from being mere noise, is actually the source of our cognitive abilities.
Rhythms of the Brain by George Buzsaki
Highlighting the many emerging points of contact between neuroscience and network science, the book serves to introduce network theory to neuroscientists and neuroscience to those working on theoretical network models. (412 pages, 2010)
Networks of the Brain by Olaf Sporns
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Telling the dramatic story of our quest for understanding, The Island of Knowledge offers a highly original exploration of the ideas of some of the greatest thinkers in history, from Plato to Einstein, and how they affect us today. (359 pages, 2014)
The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning by Marcelo Gleiser
Two distinguished neuroscientists distil general principles from more than a century of scientific study, "reverse engineering" the brain to understand its design.
Principles of Neural Design by Peter Sterling and Simon Laughlin
We all want to be happy, but do we know how? When it comes to improving tomorrow at the expense of today, we're terrible at predicting how to please our future selves.
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
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Books referenced in articles
Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour by Kevin N. Laland
The Psychology of Affiliation : Experimental Studies of the Sources of Gregariousness by Stanley Schachter
Ignorance : How It Drives Science by Stuart Firestein
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Moral tribes: Emotion, reason, and the gap between us and them by Joshua Greene
Jerome Bruner argues that the cognitive revolution, with its current fixation on mind as ?information processor,? has led psychology away from the deeper objective of understanding mind as a creator of meanings. Only by breaking out of the limitations imposed by a computational model of mind can we grasp the special interaction through which mind both constitutes and is constituted by culture.
Acts of Meaning : Four Lectures on Mind and Culture by Jerome Bruner
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The renowned philosopher John Searle reveals the fundamental nature of social reality. What kinds of things are money, property, governments, nations, marriages, cocktail parties, and football games? Searle explains the key role played by language in the creation, constitution, and maintenance of social reality.
Making the social world: The structure of human civilization by John Searle
Integrating the findings of anthropological, psychological, and biological studies in his wide-ranging discussion, Kagan explores the evidence for great variation in the frequency and intensity of emotion among different cultures. He also discusses variations among individuals within the same culture and the influences of gender, class, ethnicity, and temperament on a person's emotional patina. In his closing chapter, the author proposes that three sources of evidence-verbal descriptions of feelings, behaviors, and measures of brain states-provide legitimate but different definitions of emotion. Translating data from one of these sources to another may not be possible, Kagan warns, and those who study emotions must accept-at least for now-that their understanding is limited to and by the domain of their information.
What Is Emotion?: History, Measures, and Meanings by Jerome Kagan
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The contributors to this volume argue that psychologists and their predecessors have invariably turned to metaphor in order to articulate their descriptions, theories, and practical interventions with regard to psychological functioning. By specifying the major metaphors in the history of psychology, these contributors have offered a new "key" to understanding this critically important area of human knowledge. This theme has become an issue of central concern in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics and literary studies to cognitive science, psychology, and philosophy. Through the identification of these metaphors, the contributors to this volume have provided a remarkably useful guide to the history, current orientations, and future prospects of modern psychology. (400 pages, 1990)
Metaphors in the History of Psychology by David E. Leary
An Intimate History of Killing: Face-to-Face Killing in Twentieth- Century Warfare by Professor Joanna Bourke
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- Neuroconstructivism-I: How the Brain Constructs Cognition
- Words and the Mind: How words capture human experience by Barbara Malt and Phillip Wolff
- The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance by Ernst Mayr
- The Big Book of Concepts by Gregory Murphy
- Categories and Concepts by Edward E Smith and Douglas L Medin
- A Natural History of Human Thinking by Michael Tomasello
- Managing Turbulent Hearts: A Balinese Formula for Living
- The Mind Club Who Thinks, What Feels, and Why It Matters by Wegner, Daniel M Gray, Kurt
- Spikes: Exploring the Neural Code
- Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution
- Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel
- Searching for Memory: The Brain, the Mind, and the Past
- Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges
- Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness
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Quotes from the book "How emotions are made"
"Whether you cultivate awe, meditate, or find other ways to deconstruct your experience into physical sensations, recategorization is a critical tool for mastering your emotions in the moment. When you feel bad, treat your- self like you have a virus, rather than assuming that your unpleasant feel- ings mean something personal. Your feelings might just be noise. You might just need some sleep."
―How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett, page 194
...recategorize your thoughts, feelings, and perceptions as physical sensations, which are easier to let go of. You can use meditation, at least at first, to prioritize categorizations that focus on the physical, and deprioritize those that add more psychological meaning about you or your place in the world.
―How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett, page 193
With practice, you can learn to deconstruct an affective feeling into its mere physical sensations, rather than letting those sensations be a filter through which you view the world. You can dissolve anxiety into a fast- beating heart. Once you can deconstruct into physical sensations, then you can recategorize them in some other way, using your rich set of concepts. Perhaps that pounding in your chest is not anxiety but anticipation, or even excitement.
―How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett, page 188
Affect, on the other hand, transforms interoceptive sensation into some- thing about you, with your particular strengths and faults. Now the sen- sations are personal—they reside inside your affective niche. When you feel wretched, the world seems like an awful place. People are judging you. Wars are raging. The polar ice caps are melting. You are suffering.
―How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett, page 188
It might seem like your brain has a quick, intuitive process and a slower, deliberative one, and that the former is more emotional and the latter more rational, but this idea is not defensible on neuroscience or behavioral grounds.
―How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett, page 223
Anytime you feel miserable, it’s because you are experiencing unpleasant affect due to interoceptive sensations. Your brain will dutifully predict causes for those sensations. Perhaps they are a mes- sage from your body, like “I have a stomachache.” Or perhaps they’re say- ing, “Something is seriously wrong with my life.” This is the distinction be- tween discomfort and suffering. Discomfort is purely physical. Suffering is personal.
―How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett, page 187
Emotions are not temporary deviations from rationality. They are not alien forces that invade you without your consent. They are not tsunamis that leave destruction in their wake. They are not even your reactions to the world. They are your constructions of the world. Instances of emotion are no more out of control than thoughts or perceptions or beliefs or memories.
―How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett, page 225
But here’s the thing: If he had simply diagnosed me with depression, he could have actually cultivated a feeling of depression in me in that instant. Sure, I was fatigued, and I probably had some inflamma- tion going on due to a bit of chronic stress. If I hadn’t resisted, I could have come away with a prescription for antidepressants and a belief that some- thing was seriously wrong with my life or myself for being unable to cope. This belief might have worsened my miscalibrated body budget, if I started to search for problems in my life . . . and you can always find something if you look. Instead, my doctor and I uncovered a body-budgeting issue and looked for ways to repair it. My doctor didn’t realize it, but he was co-con- structing my experience. He wanted to construct one social reality, and I had another.
―How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett, page 214
“An emotion is your brain’s creation of what your bodily sensations mean, in relation to what is going on around you in the world.”
― How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett (emphasis added).
“Emotions are not reactions to the world; they are your constructions of the world.”
― How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett (emphasis added).
“When you categorize something as “Not About Me,” it exits your affective niche and has less impact on your body budget.”
― How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett (emphasis added).
“Perceptions of emotion are guesses, and they’re “correct” only when they match the other person’s experience; that is, both people agree on which concept to apply. Anytime you think you know how someone else feels, your confidence has nothing to do with actual knowledge. You’re just having a moment of affective realism.”
― How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett (emphasis added).
“The concept of “Emotion” itself is an invention of the seventeenth century. Before that, scholars wrote about passions, sentiments, and other concepts that had somewhat different meanings.”
― How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett (emphasis added).
Other Quotes
"In the 19th century, faculties were the categories that described what the mind is (as a formal ontology), what the mind does (as a set of psychological processes), and how the mind is caused (i.e., a functional architecture of biological processes that create the psychological processes and corresponding mental phenomena)."
― Barrett, Lisa Feldman, and Ajay B. Satpute. "Historical pitfalls and new directions in the neuroscience of emotion." Neuroscience letters 693 (2019): 9-18. (emphasis added).
"Psychological essentialism allows people to define a psychological phenomenon by its causes and consequences while positing [put forward as fact or as a basis for argument] a hypothetical state and its hypothetical causal mechanism." |
" The neural circuitry for freezing only reveals something about “fear” when you equate emotion with behavior and stipulate, at the out- set, that freezing occurs during a state of fear (and only during fear)." |
"What we learn (or fail to learn) about emotion in any experiment is determined by how we define emotions in the first place." |
"Brains evolved...to efficiently ensure resources for physiological systems within an animal’s body… [t]his balancing act is called allostasis. The brain networks that are most important for implementing allostasis [default mode]...represent the sensory consequences of allostasis [interoception]" |
"Emotions are not reactions to the world. We hypothesize that they are constructions of the world (or more specifically, they are your brain’s construction of your bodily sensations and movements in the immediate context). They are a brain’s explanation for bodily sensations in relation to the surrounding situation." |
"From this perspective, emotions are not organized reactions to the world. They are guesses about what to do next, rooted in prior experience, and the sensory consequences of those guesses..." |