The Human Mind [Paperback]

Robert Winston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 23, 2004

Where does personality come from? Do we all have the potential to be a Tolstoy, an Einstein or a Mozart? Written by a Professor of Fertility Studies, this accessible book takes us inside our own heads to see what really makes us tick.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Where does personality come from? Do we all have the potential to be a Tolstoy, an Einstein or a Mozart? Written by a Professor of Fertility Studies, this accessible book takes us inside our own heads to see what really makes us tick.


From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Robert Winston is a professor of fertility studies at the University of London. His previous book was Human Instinct.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 339 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (November 23, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553816195
• ISBN-13: 978-0553816198
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.1 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #472,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The porridge for pondering, November 23, 2005

By 

Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Human Mind (Paperback)

A journey of exploration means maps must be made - they aren't provided. Exploring the mind, which philosophers once claimed to do, requires maps of the brain. These are only now being created. And the mappers aren't philosophers, but cognitive scientists and medical scholars. Many maps have been made available to us in recent years. Enough maps that Robert Winston could produce a guidebook on the human mind. In this highly entertaining and informative book, Winston describes what has been learned about the brain and what it means for the mind. If anybody still thought those two elements were separate, this book should dispel that misconception.

Winston is candid about the relationship of this book to a BBC-TV series, but a media link doesn't render the information less useful. He spends the first chapters outlining the way in which measurement of brain activity has improved in recent years. This must be one of the few accounts that doesn't open with Phineas Gage and the tamping iron that pierced his skull yet left him alive, if changed in personality. Instead, Winston credits Paul Broca with finding the first "module" of brain activity [speech]. The author builds from that mid-19th Century revelation with explanations of where processing areas are located and how they operate. Brain functions were located by identifying damaged areas of afflicted patients through autopsy. Building an image of which areas of the brain performed or controlled which tasks was a painfully slow process. Not until new, non-intrusive technologies were developed did the pace of research quicken.

Winston covers a number of topics with this book, citing the work of many scholars and medical professionals. They all contributed something of interest, even if their ideas proved false. The segment on lobotomies isn't for the squeamish, and it's chastening to learn how long that procedure was sustained and how widely accepted. On a more positive note, Winston is able to show how various brain-damaging illnesses and mishaps have demonstrated the brain's power of recovery. With the billions of neurons exchanging singles around the brain, damage there or to body organs may lead to the brain shifting signal paths. While the brain can't "heal" itself, it can move emphasis from one area to another. This is part of the reason why someone blinded can achieve enhanced hearing capacity. The neuronal areas processing visual information are shifted in duties to deal with sound.

This isn't only a guidebook to what is going on in the brain. It's also a user's manual in maintenance and upkeep. He explains the evolutionary roots of many of our habits. Why, for example, do we sleep? Our helpless condition during sleeping made us vulnerable to predators. Did sleep make us more alert when awake? Winston spends a good deal of time in explaining how necessary sleep and rest are to the brain. He notes the importance of dreams as a means of rearranging and prioritising our memory cargo. The recovery enabled by sleep makes us more receptive to new information.

However, some new practices overturn the benefits of sleep. There are impairments to the regular operations of the brain resulting from the use of various chemicals. Winston's long list and analysis of what damages brain cells and their processes would make a Puritan smile. From nicotine to alcohol, he presents a gloomy picture of how easy it is to reduce your brain's capacity to process information or retrieve memories needed. The processing and use of information is what the brain does to establish what we call the "mind". Even though surgeons can probe the brain without your feeling anything, this "lump of porridge" inside your skull is vulnerable.

Winston has a great store of information to provide us in this topic. The amount of research that's gone into how the brain works is vast, and growing. He describes clearly the various instruments that now measure brain activity while we're talking, reading, or even answering the investigator's questions. We can be shown pleasant scenes, horrifying events or simply add a column of figures while our brains tell the machine which areas are active in each circumstance. With diagrams, some photographs and a working bibliography, this is a fine book to use as a starting point for understanding what is going on in there. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great guide to how our brain works, August 16, 2009

By 

Wilmington - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Human Mind (Paperback)

This is the clearest, most interesting and most complete popular science book I have read about the way the human brain works. I had already seen Robert Winston's BBC documentaries, but the book goes much further. Highly recommended.

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Read, January 22, 2011

By 

Spider Monkey (UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Human Mind (Paperback)

I found this to be both an entertaining and informative read. The writing style is immensely easy to read and the knowledge contained within the book is truly eye opening. It covers all aspects of the brain from addiction to emotion, and memory to relationships, and more besides. I agree that Winston strays from the narrative at times, but it generally seems to be done to make a point, and I found it added to the overall entertainment of the book (after all, it's good to enjoy a book whilst you learn as well!). This is a good first book to read if you're interested in the human brain and how it works and if the interest grabs you there's plenty more out there to explore. Well worth a go, you shouldn't be disappointed.

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