Splendors and Miseries of the Brain: Love, Creativity, and the Quest for Human Happiness

Front Cover
Wiley, 2009 - Medical - 234 pages
Splendors and Miseries of the Brain examines the elegant and efficient machinery of the brain, showing that by studying music, art, literature, and love, we can reach important conclusions about how the brain functions.
  • discusses creativity and the search for perfection in the brain
  • examines the power of the unfinished and why it has such a powerful hold on the imagination
  • discusses Platonic concepts in light of the brain
  • shows that aesthetic theories are best understood in terms of the brain
  • discusses the inherited concept of unity-in-love using evidence derived from the world literature of love
  • addresses the role of the synthetic concept in the brain (the synthesis of many experiences) in relation to art, using examples taken from the work of Michelangelo, Cézanne, Balzac, Dante, and others

From inside the book

 

Contents

Abstraction
9
The Brain and its Concepts
21
The Distributed KnowledgeAcquiring System
35
Copyright

17 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

Splendors and Miseries of the Brain: Love, Creativity, and the Quest for ...
Semir Zeki
Limited preview - 2008
Splendors and Miseries of the Brain: Love, Creativity, and the Quest for ...
Semir Zeki
Limited preview - 2011

Common terms and phrases

abstract achieve acquired concept ambiguity anatomical artist Aschenbach attributes Beatrice beauty become biological Brain activity brain areas canvas cells cerebral cortex Cézanne Cézanne's Chapter concept of love conscious constitute cortical areas cultures Dante Dante's Death in Venice desire divine essential node evidence example experience face fact Figure Frenhofer Freud frontal lobes fronto-parietal cortex given Hamilton E hence human ideal imagination individual inherited brain concept inherited concept interpretation involved Kanizsa Konstantinos Kavafis La Vita Nuova Leila literature of love lover Majnun Michelangelo motion mystics neural correlates neurobiological organizing oxytocin painting passion Paul Cézanne perceived perception perfection perhaps Plato profane reward centers romantic love Rondanini Pietà Rubin vase sculpture sense sexual specific stimulus surface synthetic brain concept synthetic concept Thomas Mann thought process tion Translated Tristan and Isolde Tristan und Isolde unfinished unity unity-in-love vasopressin viewer visual areas visual brain visual cortex Wagner wavelength woman Zeki

About the author (2009)

Semir Zeki is a visual neurobiologist in the Department of Cognitive Neurology at University College London. Zeki has pioneered the study of the primate visual brain and furthered research on how affective states are generated by visual inputs. He has published extensively in his field, including the books Inner Vision: an Exploration of Art and the Brain (1999) and A Vision of the Brain (Wiley-Blackwell, 1993), and has also co-authored a book with the late French painter Balthus, entitled La Quête de l’essentiel (1995).

Bibliographic information

TitleSplendors and Miseries of the Brain: Love, Creativity, and the Quest for Human Happiness
AuthorSemir Zeki
Editionillustrated
PublisherWiley, 2009
ISBN1405185589, 9781405185585
Length234 pages
Subjects › 

Medical / Neuroscience
Psychology / Cognitive Psychology & Cognition
Psychology / General
  
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