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

Front Cover
John Wiley & Sons, Dec 31, 2008 - Psychology - 256 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
 

Selected pages

Contents

Abstraction
9
The Brain and its Concepts
21
The Distributed KnowledgeAcquiring System
35
The Acquired Synthetic Brain Concepts
42
Creativity and the Source of Perfection in the Brain
50
Ambiguity in the Brain and in Art
61
From Unambiguous to Ambiguous Knowledge
73
Higher Levels of Ambiguity
87
Conte by Arthur Rimbaud
131
The Neural Correlates of Love
137
Brain Concepts of Unity and Annihilation in Love
150
Sacred and Profane
158
The Metamorphosis of the Brain Concept of Love
170
Wagner and Tristan und Isolde
182
Thomas Mann and Death in Venice
193
A neurobiological analysis of Freuds Civilization
203

Introduction
101
Paul Cézanne and the Unfinished
111
Unfinished Art in Literature
120
Notes
213
Index
227
Copyright

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

able abstract achieve acquired activity ambiguity areas artist attributes Beatrice beauty become believed brain concept canvas capacity cells centers Cézanne Chapter color comes common complete concept of love conscious consider constitute cortex cortical course critical Dante death described desire developed difficult divine engaged evidence example experience face fact Figure function give given green hence human ideal imagination important individual influences inherited interesting interpretation involved Isolde kind knowledge later lead light lines literature look lover means Michelangelo mind motion namely nature neural never object organizing painting particular passion perceived perception perfection perhaps person pleasure principle reality referred reflected remains respond result reward romantic love satisfy sense sexual signals single specialized specific stimulus subjects surface synthetic concept things thought tion Translated Tristan unfinished unity University visual woman writes Zeki

About the author (2008)

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 (Blackwell Scientific, Oxford), 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
PublisherJohn Wiley & Sons, 2008
ISBN1405185570, 9781405185578
Length256 pages
Subjects › 

Psychology / Cognitive Psychology & Cognition
Psychology / General
  
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