Why read Out of Our Minds?

Book cover of Out of Our Minds: What We Think and How We Came to Think It

Book description

To imagine-to see what is not there-is the startling ability that has fueled human development and innovation through the centuries. As a species we stand alone in our remarkable capacity to refashion the world after the picture in our minds.

Traversing the realms of science, politics, religion, culture, philosophy and…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Out of Our Minds as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Michael C. Corballis

Author

Much of what we do and think comes from imagination, generated by our minds rather than by the physical world. This includes art, literature, music, religion, even science. Our dreams are spontaneous acts of creativity, and even memory itself can be distorted by the restless mind. Fernandez-Armesto argues that many animals have better memories than we do, because the human system produces spontaneously creative thoughts at the expense of fidelity. That’s why memories are often false. The author is a historian with an interest in how the mind works, and his book is an amazingly comprehensive history of the human…

From Michael's list on the mind (how it works and where it came from).