Vicarious Brain, Creator of Worlds

3.17 (12 ratings by Goodreads)
Regular price €44.99
A01=Alain Berthoz
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Alain Berthoz
automatic-update
B06=Giselle Weiss
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=JMAQ
Category=JMR
Category=PSAN
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
eq_society-politics
Language_English
Mass
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
science
softlaunch

Product details

  • ISBN 9780674088955
  • Dimensions: 140 x 210mm
  • Publication Date: 09 Jan 2017
  • Publisher: Harvard University Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Hardback
  • Language: English
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days

Our Delivery Time Frames Explained
2-4 Working Days: Available in-stock

10-20 Working Days
: On Backorder

Will Deliver When Available
: On Pre-Order or Reprinting

We ship your order once all items have arrived at our warehouse and are processed. Need those 2-4 day shipping items sooner? Just place a separate order for them!

Groping around a familiar room in the dark, or learning to read again after a traumatic brain injury; navigating a virtual landscape through an avatar, or envisioning a scene through the eyes of a character—all of these are expressions of one fundamental property of life, Alain Berthoz argues. They are instances of vicariance, when the brain sidesteps an impasse by substituting one process or function for another. In The Vicarious Brain, Creator of Worlds, Berthoz shows that this capacity is the foundation of the human ability to think creatively and function in a complex world.

Vicariance is often associated with proxies and delegates, but it also refers to a biological process in which a healthy organ takes over for a defective counterpart. Berthoz, a neuroscientist, approaches vicariance through neuronal networks, asking how, for example, a blind person can develop a heightened sense of touch. He also describes how our brains model physical reality and how we use these models to understand things that are foreign to us. Forging across disciplinary boundaries, he explores notions of the vicarious in paleontology, ethology, art, literature, and psychology.

Through an absorbing examination of numerous facets of vicariance, Berthoz reveals its impact on an individual’s daily decision making and, more broadly, on the brain’s creation of worlds. As our personal and social lives are transformed by virtual realities, it is more crucial than ever before that we understand vicariance within our increasingly complex environment, and as an aspect of our own multiplying identities.

Alain Berthoz is Emeritus Professor at the Collège de France and Director of the Laboratory of Physiology of Perception and Action at the CNRS.