The wayward mind : an intimate history of the unconscious

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Title:

The wayward mind : an intimate history of the unconscious

Author:

Claxton, Guy.

ISBN:

9780349116549

Personal Author:

Claxton, Guy.

Publication Information:

London : Abacus, 2006.

Physical Description:

xi, 401 p. : ill. ; 20 cm.

General Note:

Originally published: London: Little Brown, 2005.

Contents:

On making up your mind: what the unconscious is for -- The supernatural: magical landscapes and invisible puppeteers -- The invention of the soul: glimmerings of the unconscious -- The dumb menial: the unconscious refined, banished and bouncing back -- The "inner Africa": romanticism, mysticism and dreams -- the beast in the basement -- The intelligent incubator: cognition and creativity -- Putting Humpty together again: neural networks to the rescue -- The Devil incarnate: madness and the frontal lobes -- The sublime and the subliminal -- Turning the mind on its head.

Subject Term:

Subconsciousness.

Copies:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168025409232	154.2 C622W 2006	1	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

The unconscious has had a long and chequered history. For at least the last 4,000 years, societies have concocted comforting fables in the face of the recurrent puzzles of human existence - death, dreaming, madness, possession, inspiration - that invariably rely on some notion of the unconscious. Supernatural 'fairy stories' need some internal proxy or contact point through which the influence of demons and spirits can flow. And without such gods and forces, some psychological machinery is needed to take over their work. But what IS the unconscious? Is it 'God's viceroy', the soul? Is it the locked ward of Freudian desire? Is the subliminal mind the source of the sublime emotions of the Romantics? Is is the mental microchip of cognitive science? Or is it simply the brain?