How the Brain Thinks

Book excerpt: How does the brain think? An alternative way of looking at how matter produces mind. Calling on new research in neuroscience and a new interpretation of old ideas, this book tackles the age-old questions of how thinking, consciousness and emotion happen. We can be irrational and unpredictable but we are completely understandable, the author explains in this fascinating introduction to our complex inner world. At a fundamental level, he suggests, thinking happens when areas within the frontal cortex use the components of attention, emotion and memory to produce higher order functions such as consciousness and perception. These thought processes are similar in most of us. We are uniquely unpredictable simply because we all have a mix of different genes and experience. The value of story, why you should drive with your lights on, confusion around definitions of consciousness and our voice within, and new ways of thinking about feelings and emotion, are some of the topics on which this book offers fresh insights. Chapters include explanations and key insights into: Attention, Consciousness and Our Internal Narrative Emotion - At the Core of Thinking Memory - Stored Experience Perception Biology of the Brain