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.]]>
Carter and her scientific editor, neuropsychologist Christopher Frith, cover the state of the mind in a reasonably accurate, accessible way. They emphasize topics that are likely to be of some practical interest--such as Alzheimer's or attention deficit disorder--but not so much as to give a distorted picture of the field.
Perhaps the most interesting parts of the book are the sidebars written by a variety of leading names in mind-brain science. Roger Penrose writes on computer minds, Francis Crick on consciousness, Steven Rose on memory, John Maynard Smith on social evolution, William Calvin on mosaic minds, Kay Redfield Jamison on creativity and bipolar disorders, and more. It's a stellar assortment, more than worth the price of admission--and there's a map of the mind on the cover, in case you misplace yours. --Mary Ellen Curtin
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The 
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. ]]>
Despite a massive assault by its critics, Engines of Creation is a truly revolutionary work, and Eric Drexler should be commended for launching a worldwide discussion on the topic of molecular manufacturing, or molecular nanotechnology (MNT), as some refer to it. First of all, this is a book that needs to be updated (the opening chapters deal in-depth with protein design and a later chapter tries to paint a picture of a future network of information known as "the Internet"). But the remainder of the book is timeless.
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.]]>
What Kuzweil means by computers someday becoming 'spiritual' is that they may become conscious, and 'strong 
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.]]>
Although researchers have long been aware that the species-typical architecture of the human mind is the product of our evolutionary history, it has only been in the last three decades that advances in such fields as evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, and paleoanthropology have made the fact of our evolution illuminating. Converging findings from a variety of disciplines are leading to the emergence of a fundamentally new view of the human mind, and with it a new framework for the behavioral and social sciences. First, with the advent of the cognitive revolution, human nature can finally be defined precisely as the set of universal, species-typical information-processing programs that operate beneath the surface of expressed cultural variability. Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors--problems such as mate selection, language acquisition, cooperation, and sexual infidelity. Consequently, the traditional view of the mind as a general-purpose computer, tabula rasa, or passive recipient of culture is being replaced by the view that the mind resembles an intricate network of functionally specialized computers, each of which imposes contentful structure on human mental organization and culture. The Adapted Mind explores this new approach--evolutionary psychology--and its implications for a new view of culture.]]>
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.]]>
Composed of cutting-edge research and featuring an engaging writing style, the author offers compelling scientific answers to the profound human questions regarding love and work. Beginning with a historial introduction, the text logically progresses by discussing adaptive problems humans face and ends with a chapter showing how the new field of evolutionary psychology encompasses all branches of psychology. Each chapter is alive with the subjects that most occupy our minds: sex, mating, getting along, getting ahead, friends, enemies, and social hierarchies. Why is child abuse 40 times more prevalent among step-families than biologically intact families? Why, according to one study, did 75% of men but 0% of women consent to have sex with a complete stranger? Buss explores these intriguing quandaries with his vision of psychology in the new millenium as a new science of the mind. Anyone with an interest in the biological facets of human psychology will find this a fascinating read. ]]>
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.]]>
This is simply the best and most beautiful book ever written by the human species. This was the book that launched me on my career in artificial intelligence and cognitive science. I don't mean to imply that those are the only topics covered; Gödel, Escher, Bach also deals with mathematics, music, art, programming, Zen, philosophy, self-reference, and everything in the world that is bright and beautiful. This is the most intelligent, the deepest, the most beautiful book in the world. Period. End of story.
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.]]>
When Mulhall sees the future, he pictures every home having a virtually cost-free desktop fabricator, not unlike an ink jet printer, that is able to create any three-dimensional object desired; he envisions being able to change the color of a car, or clothes, simply by speaking. Mulhall, who heads an environmental software consultancy, believes that nanotechnology, the ability to rearrange individual atoms, will lead to technological advances that will change every aspect of our world, including our own species. Mulhall' s exuberance, however, does not fully compensate for his repetitiveness and lack of specificity when he postulates that nanotechnology will lead to such leaps forward in computing power that we will soon create robots capable of independent thought, emotional response and reproduction. We will, he argues, soon be faced with a new species, Robo sapiens, and be forced to deal with the issue of "robot rights." Mulhall urges readers to foster this technology because he believes that it is the only way humans will be able to combat what he claims are the most pressing threats facing our species: massive earthquakes, immense tsunamis capable of inundating the entire east coast of North America and asteroid collisions of the sort that wiped out the dinosaurs. In the end, Mulhall's musings seem more science fiction than science; they are entertaining, but not particularly thought provoking.
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.]]>
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. It also makes us unique in the animal world, where self-interest is far more pronounced. "The essential virtuousness of human beings is proved not by parallels in the animal kingdom, but by the very lack of convincing animal parallels," Ridley writes. How we got to be so virtuous over millions of years of evolution is the theme of this entertaining book of popular science, which will be of interest to any student of human nature.]]>
The Spike by Damien Broderick. The acceleration of change is increasing so sharply that the future is not just unknowable but unrecognizable.]]>
Dr. Broderick pulls together his vast learning to expand on Vernor Vinge's notion of the technological Singularity and to share with us his necessarily clouded vision of a posthuman future. Writing with a rare enthusiasm unmuted by years of dystopian fiction and news reports, Broderick peels back the layers of jargon enshrouding recent advances in nanotech, biotech, and all the other tech that's daring us to keep up.
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.]]>
In his last outing, How the Mind Works, the author of the well-received The Language Instinct made a case for evolutionary psychology or the view that human beings have a hard-wired nature that evolved over time. This book returns to that still-controversial territory in order to shore it up in the public sphere. Drawing on decades of research in the "sciences of human nature," Pinker, a chaired professor of psychology at 
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.]]>
In this extraordinary bestseller, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading cognitive scientists, does for the rest of the mind what he did for language in his 1994 book, The Language Instinct. He explains what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and ponder the mysteries of life. And he does it with the wit that prompted Mark Ridley to write in the New York Times Book Review, "No other science writer makes me laugh so much. . . . [Pinker] deserves the superlatives that are lavished on him." The arguments in the book are as bold as its title. Pinker rehabilitates some unfashionable ideas, such as that the mind is a computer and that human nature was shaped by natural selection, and challenges fashionable ones, such as that passionate emotions are irrational, that parents socialize their children, and that nature is good and modern society corrupting.]]>
The Moral Animal by Robert Wright. An accessible introduction to the science of evolutionary psychology and how it explains many aspects of human nature.]]>
An accessible introduction to the science of evolutionary psychology and how it explains many aspects of human nature. Unlike many books on the topic,which focus on abstractions like kin selection, this book focuses on Darwinian explanations of why we are the way we are--emotionally and morally. Wright deals particularly well with explaining the reasons for the stereotypical dynamics of the three big "S's:" sex, siblings, and society.]]>
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.]]>
How much do we humans enjoy our current status as the most intelligent beings on earth? Enough to try to stop our own inventions from surpassing us in smarts? If so, we'd better pull the plug right now, because if Ray Kurzweil is right we've only got until about 2020 before computers outpace the human brain in computational power. Kurzweil, artificial intelligence expert and author of The Age of Intelligent Machines, shows that technological evolution moves at an exponential pace. Further, he asserts, in a sort of swirling postulate, time speeds up as order increases, and vice versa. He calls this the "Law of Time and Chaos," and it means that although entropy is slowing the stream of time down for the universe overall, and thus vastly increasing the amount of time between major events, in the eddy of technological evolution the exact opposite is happening, and events will soon be coming faster and more furiously. This means that we'd better figure out how to deal with conscious machines as soon as possible--they'll soon not only be able to beat us at chess, but also likely demand civil rights, and might at last realize the very human dream of immortality.
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.]]>
In I, Robot, Asimov chronicles the development of the robot through a series of interlinked stories: from its primitive origins in the present to its ultimate perfection in the not-so-distant future--a future in which humanity itself may be rendered obsolete.