Customer Reviews

Maps of the Mind: Charts and Concepts of the Mind and Its Labyrinths

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Maps of the Mind is an excellent review volume that integrates and condenses many different perspectives concerning the nature of the human mind. Using the metaphor of a map, the author organizes the work of several prestigious authors and theorists into 9 different levels, from the mechanistic and physiological to the paradigmatic and mythological. Probing, entertaining, and thought provoking, Maps of the Mind will provide you with a sophisticated and breathtaking vista on the intricacies of the human psyche.

This book, essentially collates, combines, and compares theories of how the human mind works, finding parallels, offering interpretations, and finding intersections of ideas. Beginning with historical and religious ideas, it differentiates among more than 50 main concepts including those of Freud, Jung, Fromm, Marx, Erikson, Piaget, Maslow, Russell, Buber, Chomsky, and Marcuse. It's an amazing trip through explanations of "us," and serves as an introduction to concepts of cybernetics and feedback in mental and information systems.

This book is the best example of a fine mind at work that I know of. Although I first read it in the 1980s, it still is current and continues to convey complex and timeless knowledge about the mind in an understandable, non-polemic, yet in an eclectic and fresh way.

The volume is dense but segmented into bite-sized frames with diagrams and pictures that intentionally take the content out into the third dimension and makes it less formidable. And although it is segmented into bite-sized frames, the reader's appetite for learning about the concepts of psychology -- from Gregory Bateson, Freud, Rollo May to Ernest Becker and Otto Rank -- will be more than satisfied.

The leitmotif of the volume is the idea of connectedness. There are three messages: Humanity is about wholeness; survival of the planet is about wholeness; and living a rich and full life is about self-knowledge and wholeness.

It covers the waterfront of what we knew about human psychology and the mind up to the 1980s. And although the frontiers of psychology have moved ahead somewhat, the book was so far ahead of its times that even 25 years later it remains fresh and current.

It is an academic tour de force that leaves a deep impression on the reader and is a book that has been an invaluable companion to me in my writings. Ten stars.

I began reading "Maps of the Mind" in the mid-eighties, and have found this to be the most important, inspiring and influential books I've ever read. The authors' suggestions of possible appliations of hemispheric specialization upon biblical, historical and mythological events are facinating and insightful. This book makes a geunine attempt at reassemling "humpty dumpty". No other publication (that I've read) even dares to attempt to "make sense of" and "unify" practically every religions, philosophical, political, mythological and acedemic "ideas", "concepts" and "phenomena". This is my #1 choice of books, and I've both recommended it to others, and given several copies away to friend. Read this book!

I encountered this book in the late 80's, and it became one of the most influential books in my life.

This book, essentially collates, combines, and compares theories of how the human mind works, finding parallels, offering interpretations, and finding intersections of ideas. From Frued to Marx, Jung to Blake, it's an amazing trip through explanations of "us," and served as my first introduction to concepts of cybernetics and feedback in mental and information systems.

If you're involved in psychology, social work, programming, writing, anything that touches on the mind and information, get it and read it. You'll be a much richer person for it.

I bought this book years ago, and now need to replace it. With a brilliant layout of a cartoon, an abstract, and then a one or two page essay, Charles describes how people have thought about mind from very early times. His summaries are absolutely brilliant, and the insights from Freud to de Bono to ... are illuminating.

Theory of Mind (ToM) has been a lifelong interest, and this book has become one of the most-used books in my library. It is an excellent survey of ToMs: each ToM is represented by an essay with a "map" (symbolic representation) and supporting notations. Cross-referencing is superb and the bibliography is descriptive and thorough for those who wish to investigate further.

What makes this book excellent is not its encyclopedic compilation - that would make is only "great" - but the superior insight of Charles Hampden-Turner's writing and the visual imagery. The maps may seem "flat" upon cursory perusal, but as Mr. Hampden-Turner well knows, the mind is made for visual symbolism and the maps become enlivened the more time is spent with them.

Thanks to Mr. Hampden-Turner for this important gift to humanity!

The strength of this book also contains within it its main weakness. The book lays out a variety of "maps of the mind," views as to how the brain acts. The author notes that (Page 8): "This book brings together in visual form numerous ways in which mind has been conceived." The book looks at different levels of ideas about mind--from narrower to broader concepts. Level 1, for example, examines (Page 10): "Here the human mind is struggling to emancipate itself from servitude to the gods or the laws of Newtonian mechanics. . . ." The highest, Level 9, notes (Page 11): "At its most inclusive mind is seen is inhering in the structure of myth, institutions, and cultures."

Some examples of maps appearing throughout this volume.

Map 21, level 3 represents Paul MacLean's "triune brain," in which three parts of the brain, each building upon older parts of the brain, structure human consciousness and behavior. The reptilian brain is conceived to be characterized by hidebound following of instinctive urges. The limbic system overlays this with emotion. Finally, the cerebral cortex provides new ways of learning and coping.

Map 25, level 3: Karl Pribram's Holographic Mind. Pribram wanted to understand consciousness in terms of new experience with preexisting memories. He used the metaphor of the hologram to explain how new experiences interacted with extant memories.

Map 54, level 8 focuses on the structure of scientific revolution and tries to wed Thomas Kuhn (with his idea of scientific paradigms) with Allan Buss' view of psychological adaptation.

Thus, there are many "maps" discussed. The downside? Only a few pages are devoted to each. Thus, the book gains breadth at the cost of depth. However, if one wants a sense of differing views of the mind at the time of the book's publication, it still serves a useful practice.

I've had this book for years but lost it in a move. Now that I have it again it's like an old friend. Of course, just a page or two on any philosophical issue isn't enough time but I don't don't think that's the purpose. On the other hand I've seen some treatises that dwarf the New York White Pages Directory and that is precicisely what this book is NOT. It touched on so many issues and, almost to a one, sent me packing to the library for more information. This, I think, is the reason for it and it couldn't have accomplished its objective better. Bravo!

Curtis Stotlar