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Free Textbook

Understanding Human Minds and Their Limits

by David Cycleback
215
Language:  English
This book shows how minds work, including how they make judgments and perceptions. It shows how the physiological and psychological methods used to function put limits on knowledge and understanding.
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Content

This book is an introduction to how minds work, including how they make judgments and perceptions, and processes sensory information. It looks at the physiological and psychological methods humans use to function and survive as a species, but that put limits on their knowledge and understanding of the universe, their immediate environment and themselves. Topics include information processing, cognitive biases, visual and audio illusions, perception and misperception of moving and still objects, art perception, limits of symbolic language, and social and evolutionary psychology.  

About the author

David Cycleback is Director of Center for Artifact Studies ( centerforartifactstudies.org ), an internationally known scholar working in cognitive science, philosophy and artifacts history, and a best-selling author. He was runner-up for the International Book Award for Philosophy for Noise Music: Cognitive Psychology, Aesthetics and Epistemology and a four-time Eric Hoffer Award Finalist. In their second printing by China's National Photographic Art Publishing House, his guides Judging the Authenticity of Prints by the Masters and Judging the Authenticity of Photographs were the first comprehensive books on the subjects published in Asia, and Art Perception is one of four books students are recommended to study in preparation for India's Common Entrance Exam for Design (CEED) for postgraduate studies in technical design. He has been a practicum coordinator for the University of Washington, and an authenticity researcher for Arizona State University's Society for American Baseball Research. His other books include Cognitive Science of Religion and Belief Systems, Understanding Human Minds and Their Limits, Limits of Science, Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, and Authenticating Art and Artifacts: An Introduction to Methods and Issues.
  1. About the author
  2. Introduction 
  3. A brief overview of this book
  4. Conceits: An introductory look at how humans think and perceive
  5. The human mind as a computer?
    1. The Computation Theory of Mind
    2. Ambiguity
    3. Remember the importance of speed 
    4. Questions
  6. Internal methods for making perceptions: introduction
  7. Shape, form and pattern biases
    1. Overview 
    2. The Face on Mars
    3. Is it a vase or two faces
    4. Questions
  8. Perceptions via comparison
    1. Questions 
  9. Perception via comparison: the shepard scale
    1. Overview 
    2. How the Shepard Scale Works 
    3. Question   
  10. Imagination 
    1. Overview 
    2. Ames card trick 
    3. Captchas: How computers use cognitive psychology to identify users as human 
    4. Hidden information and identification
    5. Questions
  11. Attribution substitution 
  12. Vision: What you see is different than what you look at
    1. Introduction
    2. A quick look at the physiology of seeing 
    3. The blind spot
    4. Detecting your blind spot
    5. Afterimages
    6. Binocular vision
    7. Triangularism and calculating depth
    8. The hole in the hand illusion
    9. Night versus day vision
    10. Final thoughts on human vision
  13. Summary of internal methods to process information 
    1. Questions/study topics
  14. Perception of movement 
    1. Introduction 
    2. Stroboscopic movement illusions 
    3. All movies as stroboscopic-like illusions 
    4. Ambiguity 
    5. Ambiguous movement: the barber pole illusion 
  15. Narrative and the perception of still information 
    1. Narrative or storytelling
    2. Aleatory narrative in art
    3. Assignment
  16. Attention 
    1. Attention in perception 
    2. Questions 
  17. Humans use false information and made up beliefs to function and achieve   Introduction
    1. The rituals of baseball 
    2. Faith
    3. Positive achievement is regularly based on false beliefs
    4. Olympic psychology
    5. Depicting Jesus Christ in art
  18. The unique subjective experience
    1. Subjectivit
    2. Simplicity 
    3. Question 
  19. Automatic perceptions and uncorrectable illusions 
    1. Automatic perceptions 
    2. Uncorrectable Illusions
    3. Question
  20. Language and its limitations: introduction 
  21. Examples of ambiguity, arbitrariness and limits in language 
  22. Subjective categorization, grouping and prioritizing of information 
    1. Overview 
    2. So, if a tree falls when no one is around does it make a sound or doesn’t it? Discussion question 
  23. When does 1 + 1 not equal 2?: the subjectivity of identification 
  24. Language: numeration systems and psychology 
    1. Introduction 
    2. Our base-10 numeral system 
    3. Quick comparison: counting with base-10 versus base-8 
    4. Another example of counting with different bases 
    5. A kid’s counting system: eeny meeny miny moe 
    6. Numerals and human psychology 
    7. Changing numeral systems, changing history 
  25. Language and models: the fiction in science 
  26. Summary of language
  27. Basic qualities that evoke emotional and aesthetic reactions
    1. Introduction
    2. Symmetry and balanc
    3. Out of place 
    4. Mysteries nnd solving mysteries 
    5. Meaning and Identification 
    6. Contrast 
    7. Unrealistic exaggerations 
    8. Identifying objects through basic qualities 
    9. The strange and new 
    10. Colors 
    11. Final thoughts 
    12. Questions 
  28. Learning 
  29. Learning and perception: mirages 
  30. Learning: values, culture and aesthetics in visual perception
  31. Art perception: connecting to the unreal 
    1. Introduction 
    2. Art perception is irrational 
    3. We interpret art using many of the cognitive methods we use in the real world Symbols 
    4. Humans mentally adapt to and accept new and artificial worlds 
    5. Each art medium is limited in what it can show literally 
    6. Speculation, play acting, day and night dreams 
    7. Humans know and feel there is more than what they see and can comprehend, more than what they experience in their day to day lives   =Conceits and the limitations of art 
  32. Art perception: presenting old art ‘authentically’ 
  33. Trying to make 3D into 2D: The illusion of depth in art 
    1. Overview 
    2. Overlapping objects 
    3. Diminishing sale 
    4. Diagonal lines and diminishing scale 
    5. Colors 
    6. Bottom to top placement 
    7. Focus 
    8. Final notes 
    9. Picasso and cubism
  34. Trying to define and label art
    1. Trying to define and label art 
    2. Assignments 
  35. Logic versus art, facts versus fiction in explaining higher ideas 
  36. Humans aren’t totally or even primarily about finding truth and factual accuracy
  37. Judging the reliability of your mind
  38. The human as social animal: group psychology, social intelligence, etc.
  39.  Inborn survival drives
  40. Summary and final notes 
  41. Book encompassing questions 
  42. Part II Other Minds 
  43. Thinking about other minds 
  44. Non-human animal minds 
  45. Creating other minds: artificial intelligence 
  46. Intelligence
  47. Final food for thought 
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