Mapping the Mind by Rita Carter. Every bit of the brain does something in particular, and surprisingly specific abilities, memories, and responses are in localized areas. Journalist Rita Carter has drawn a map of what is known (and speculated) about the mind in a heavily illustrated field guide to the human brain.
Recommended Reading
Mapping the Mind
The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences (MITECS)
The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences by Robert A. Wilson, Frank C. Keil, eds. While not a casual entry into the field, MITECS is an essential addition to the reference shelf for anyone seriously interested in AI, consciousness, or other aspects of natural and artificial brains.
Engines of Creation
Engines of Creation by Eric Drexler. Nanotechnology, or molecular technology, involves the manipulation of individual atoms and molecules, something the human body already does. In Engines of Creation, Drexler attempts to predict, justify, quantify, and caution us about this important new field in engineering.
Are We Spiritual Machines?
Are We Spiritual Machines? by Ray Kurzweil. Computers are becoming more powerful at an ever-increasing rate, but will they ever become conscious? Artificial intelligence guru Ray Kurzweil thinks so and explains how we will "download" our software (our minds) and "upgrade" our hardware (our bodies) to become immortal.
The Adapted Mind
The Adapted Mind by Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby. This collection of essays is centred on the complex, evolved psychological mechanisms that generate human behaviour and culture.
Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind
Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind by David Buss. Providing an overview of the field, this textbook highlights the adaptive problems that humans face and uses this discussion to examine topics like sex and mating, parenting and kinship, conflict and war, and status and dominance.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this book applies Godel's seminal contribution to modern mathematics to the study of the human mind and the development of artificial intelligence.
Our Molecular Future
Our Molecular Future by Douglas Mulhall. Nanotechnology, the ability to rearrange individual atoms, will lead to technological advances that will change every aspect of our world, including our own species.
The Origins of Virtue
The Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley. Human life, scientific journalist Matt Ridley suggests, is a complex balancing act: we behave with self-interest foremost in mind, but also in ways that do not harm, and sometimes even benefit, others. This behavior, in a strange way, makes us good.
The Spike
The Spike by Damien Broderick. The acceleration of change is increasing so sharply that the future is not just unknowable but unrecognizable.
The Blank Slate
The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker. Attacks the notion that an infant's mind is a blank slate, arguing instead that human beings have an inherited universal structure shaped by the demands made upon the species for survival, albeit with plenty of room for cultural and individual variation.
How the Mind Works
How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker. One of the world's leading cognitive scientists rehabilitates some unfashionable ideas, such as that the mind is a computer and that human nature was shaped by natural selection.
The Moral Animal
The Moral Animal by Robert Wright. An accessible introduction to the science of evolutionary psychology and how it explains many aspects of human nature.
The Age of Spiritual Machines
The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil. A history of the future, particularly in regards to computers and technology. Filled with timelines for how the author guesses our technology will evolve over the next century.
I, Robot
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. In this collection of short stories, a classic of science fiction, Asimov set out the principles of robot behavior that we know as the Three Laws of Robotics.