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Synesthesia by Richard E. Cytowic
Category: Science | Series: The\MIT Press Essential Knowledge Ser.
An accessible, concise primer on the neurological trait of synesthesia--vividly felt sensory couplings--by a founder of the field. One in twenty-three people carry the genes for the synesthesia. Not a disorder but a neurological trait--like perfect pitch--synesthesia creates vividly felt cross-sensory ...Show more
The Conscious Mind by Zoltan Torey
Category: Health and Wellbeing | Series: MIT Press Essential Knowledge
How did the human mind emerge from the collection of neurons that makes up the brain? How did the brain acquire self-awareness, functional autonomy, language, and the ability to think, to understand itself and the world? In this volume in the Essential Knowledge series, Zoltan Torey offers an accessible ...Show more
The Future by Nick Montfort
Category: Reference | Series: The\MIT Press Essential Knowledge Ser.
How the future has been imagined and made, through the work of writers, artists, inventors, and designers.The future is like an unwritten book. It is not something we see in a crystal ball, or can only hope to predict, like the weather. In this volume of the MIT Press's Essential Knowledge series, Nick ...Show more
The Technological Singularity by Murray Shanahan
Category: Health and Wellbeing | Series: The MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series
The idea that human history is approaching a "singularity" -- that ordinary humans will someday be overtaken by artificially intelligent machines or cognitively enhanced biological intelligence, or both -- has moved from the realm of science fiction to serious debate. Some singularity theorists predict ...Show more
Understanding Beliefs by Nils J. Nilsson
Category: Health and Wellbeing | Series: MIT Press Essential Knowledge
Our beliefs constitute a large part of our knowledge of the world. We have beliefs about objects, about culture, about the past, and about the future. We have beliefs about other people, and we believe that they have beliefs as well. We use beliefs to predict, to explain, to create, to console, to enter ...Show more
Visual Culture by Alexis L. Boylan
Category: Art and Design | Series: The\MIT Press Essential Knowledge Ser.
How to think about what it means to look and see: a guide for navigating the complexities of visual culture. The visual surrounds us, some of it invited, most of it not. In this visual environment, everything we see--color, the moon, a skyscraper, a stop sign, a political poster, rising sea levels, a p ...Show more
Waves by Fredric Raichlen
Category: Health and Wellbeing | Series: MIT Press Essential Knowledge
Sitting on the beach on a sunny summer day, we enjoy the steady advance and retreat of the waves. In the water, enthusiastic waders jump and shriek with pleasure when a wave hits them. But where do these waves come from? How are they formed and why do they break on the shore? In Waves, Fredric Raichlen ...Show more