BOOK
When I opened the mammoth MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences, I was reminded of a time a friend shared with me copies of her latest brain scan. It was initially an incomprehensible Rorschach of abstract colors, but she showed me her brain's structure in terms of the centers for movement, language, and feeling, transforming what first seemed like an expressionist canvas into a map of cognitive country few of us ever see.
Editors Robert A. Wilson and Frank C. Keil have produced a sort of world atlas of the brain, tapping international authorities from psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, linguistics, cultural studies, and computational intelligence. This is the first exhaustive reference book to outline a sprawling and bewildering body of brain research. Though some of the drier entries may make a telephone directory seem riveting, most articles will be enjoyable to lay readers. The six opening essays are terrific guides to the many disciplines that are the cognitive sciences' basic building blocks. And "Animal Communication" kicks off with a cacophonous written enactment of animal sounds to delight the Dr. Seuss fan in us all.
The last few decades have seen many dialogues - sometimes cooperative, sometimes fiercely contentious - among psychologists and neuroscientists, linguists and philosophers, cultural and computational theorists, about how brains think. Taken in small bits, it makes for enlightening reading. The articles are brief but dense, with areas of heated controversy explained in detail. Read the "Artificial Life" entry and you're swept into a philosophical debate over the very legitimacy of the term. Dozens of articles, written from cross-disciplinary perspectives, offer new angles from which to compare humans with computers. Therein lies the excitement of this work: It's a testament to how brain research provides a fertile ground for scientists and shrinks, nerds and cultural critics.
Of course, such a brainy get-together has its price - graphics are few, color is absent. But these shortcomings seem small when you consider the scope and depth of this encyclopedia. And MIT Press deserves credit for setting up a Web page for updated entries. It also promises a CD-ROM for easy navigation. Think of this work as a streetwise brain map for anyone deep in thought about thinking.
The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences edited by Robert A. Wilson
STREET CRED
Network in a Cable
Virtual Velvet Underground
Dangerous Beauty
GloboPOP
Buying Time
Holy Roller
The Feel World
ReadMe
Music
Iridium Showers
Brain Bytes
Fishing the Art-House Stream
Think Fast
Just Outta Beta
Image Conscious
Lonelies Get Linked
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