Interested in learning about the brain

[bobhikes]

I am not interested in the firing of neurons or the chemical reactions. I am looking for any studies or information concerning the process of logical thought. I call it the program that runs the brain for lack of knowledge. Anything even in simple animals would be a help.

 

I am also interested in learning about how imprinting works with the brain, sensors, and hormones if at all.

 

Any and all help welcome.

[tomgwyther]

A book I've recently read called

A users guide to the brain, by John Ratey (ISBN 978-0-349-11296-1)

Would be a great place to start.

It looks into how we think the way we do and what processes make these thing happen. It does mention the firing of neurons and chemical reactions a bit, but that is necessary to explain how we think about things.

Give it a shot, it's well worth a read.

[bobhikes]

Two book stores later and I got a book on psychology Demystified. Its a good basis of what I need.

 

In case your a Psychologist or in training my one question so far is why they keep implying that animals do not have intelligence. It is only a human trait. Yet they talk about animals learning as in Pavlo's dogs and skinners rats. Do they not consider this intelligence.

[tomgwyther]

I'm not sure who's been implying that animals do not have intelligence, period.

As far as I'm aware, any animal has some degree of intelligence. The key word though being degree

Humans could arguably be at the top. We have a large brain in relation to our body size and a very large cerebral cortex, especially the frontal cortex.

Chimps can understand a number of different symbols and use them to communicate to humans. Even generating their own language. In one such case, A chimp pointed to the symbol for 'Water' then the symbol to 'Bird'. It was realised that the chimp only did this when he saw a swan.

Dogs also show a great deal of intelligence. They can look at an object and then retrieve a similar one, or they can look at a 2D picture of an object and retrieve the real 3D object. They can demonstrate abilities which small human children cannot in some cases.

 

here is an interesting dog from a recent documentary.

This one can understand language, process it and apply it to a real-world objective task

 

 

 

[bobhikes]

Does point this out about chimps and other animals. It is my understanding that it is refering to this as behavioral learning. Intelligence and more specificly thought is only in the realm of humans.

 

I believe it may be a semantic thing. He is using intelligence as something I don't

 

The sentence he uses for thought is "The mind is presumably what people have that allows us to do what animals, vegetables, and minerals can't do. And what we can do that those other things can't do is think."

 

This is the current chapter I am is the Cognitive Psychology: The Study of Thinking.

[bascule]

I'd suggest On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins. He originally invented the Palm Pilot, then returned to studying biology and neurology in hopes of one day creating AI which is strongly rooted in the same principles as the brain.

[Mudbird]

"How The Mind Works" by Stephen Pinker is a good read too.

[Genecks]

I am not interested in the firing of neurons or the chemical reactions. I am looking for any studies or information concerning the process of logical thought. I call it the program that runs the brain for lack of knowledge. Anything even in simple animals would be a help.

 

I am also interested in learning about how imprinting works with the brain, sensors, and hormones if at all.

 

Any and all help welcome.

 

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science

-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science#Levels_of_analysis

 

If you're interested in become a serious cognitive scientist, you will go through varying levels of schooling, research, and article reading.

I suggest you start looking around on university websites (perhaps nearby universities), start looking at the professors whom do cognitive science research, and then reading their research.

 

If you don't have a background in understanding statistics, you're going to have some difficulty.

[Silivros]

I am not interested in the firing of neurons or the chemical reactions. I am looking for any studies or information concerning the process of logical thought. I call it the program that runs the brain for lack of knowledge. Anything even in simple animals would be a help.

 

I am also interested in learning about how imprinting works with the brain, sensors, and hormones if at all.

 

Any and all help welcome.

 

You can find any number of books on the physiological processes of the brain, but learning how it functions logically, you might have to scrounge around a bit.

 

Evolve your Brain, J. Dispenza and Genie in your Genes, Dawson Church, might get you thinking.

 

You mentioned not being interested in the chemistry, but also being interested in hormones, hormones are all about chemistry. It is rather an important part of brain function, one that would be worth becoming acquainted with.

All cognitive processes involve or produce chemical reactions. If you were to examine any thought in the brain you would find chemistry. The electrical impulses in the brain are all chemical based, and every thought you have produces an accompanying chemical/hormonal/emotional reaction within the body.

 

When inquiring about how logic works in the brain you would need to understand how the brain operates, both from the intellectual side and emotional side of the brain, and what importance does this have with the experiential aspects of life.

 

Conscious processes are another thing altogether, separate from cognitive thought, but vitally important as conscious perception initiates cognitive function.

[Darkpassenger]

Does point this out about chimps and other animals. It is my understanding that it is refering to this as behavioral learning. Intelligence and more specificly thought is only in the realm of humans.

 

I believe it may be a semantic thing. He is using intelligence as something I don't

 

The sentence he uses for thought is "The mind is presumably what people have that allows us to do what animals, vegetables, and minerals can't do. And what we can do that those other things can't do is think."

 

This is the current chapter I am is the Cognitive Psychology: The Study of Thinking.

 

 

 

I am not sure if the author who wrote That sentence was thinking clearly enough. We are all descendants of primitive animals and long distance cousins to vegetables that were formed form minerals. Some where in the evolutionary chain we evolved a larger brain as previously stated and formed universal languages that we could understand, depending on our origin of birth. In some remote tribes of the amazon they use whistles and make noises to communicate precisely with one another while they hunt so that don't draw attention to themselves. But when they are in their camps they use a formal language to communicate to one another. Birds, chimps, dolphins, whales, etc. All have some form of universal language that they use to communicate to one another,hence they have intelligence. My point is All of theses creatures can think and have thoughts they don't need to be as intelligent as us to have the ability to preform theses actions. I fell that the author has an ego problem with human intelligence and or he truly beliefs Homo sapiens are the only being that have thoughts and can think for themselves.