Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Advanced
Title details for The Happiness of Pursuit by Shimon Edelman - Available

The Happiness of Pursuit

by Shimon Edelman
ebook
Read a sample Read a sample
When fishing for happiness, catch and release. Remember these seven words — they are the keys to being happy. So says Shimon Edelman, an expert on psychology and the mind.
In The Happiness of Pursuit, Edelman offers a fundamental understanding of pleasure and joy via the brain. Using the concept of the mind as a computing device, he unpacks how the human brain is highly active, involved in patterned networks, and constantly learning from experience. As our brains predict the future through pursuit of experience, we are rewarded both in real time and in the long run. Essentially, as Edelman discovers, it's the journey, rather than the destination, that matters.
The idea that cognition is computation — the brain is a machine — is nothing new of course. But, as Edelman argues, the mind is actually a bundle of ongoing computations, essentially, the brain being one of many possible substrates that can support them. Edelman makes the case for these claims by constructing a conceptual toolbox that offers readers a glimpse of the computations underlying the mind's faculties: perception, motivation and emotions, action, memory, thinking, social cognition, learning and language. It is this collection of tools that enables us to discover how and why happiness happens.
An informative, accessible, and witty tour of the mind, The Happiness of Pursuit offers insights to a thorough understanding of what minds are, how they relate to each other and to the world, and how we can make the best of it all.
Expand title description text
Publisher: Basic Books

Kindle Book

  • Release date: January 31, 2012

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9780465029204
  • Release date: January 31, 2012

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9780465029204
  • File size: 364 KB
  • Release date: January 31, 2012
Loading
Loading

Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Psychology Nonfiction

Languages

English

When fishing for happiness, catch and release. Remember these seven words — they are the keys to being happy. So says Shimon Edelman, an expert on psychology and the mind.
In The Happiness of Pursuit, Edelman offers a fundamental understanding of pleasure and joy via the brain. Using the concept of the mind as a computing device, he unpacks how the human brain is highly active, involved in patterned networks, and constantly learning from experience. As our brains predict the future through pursuit of experience, we are rewarded both in real time and in the long run. Essentially, as Edelman discovers, it's the journey, rather than the destination, that matters.
The idea that cognition is computation — the brain is a machine — is nothing new of course. But, as Edelman argues, the mind is actually a bundle of ongoing computations, essentially, the brain being one of many possible substrates that can support them. Edelman makes the case for these claims by constructing a conceptual toolbox that offers readers a glimpse of the computations underlying the mind's faculties: perception, motivation and emotions, action, memory, thinking, social cognition, learning and language. It is this collection of tools that enables us to discover how and why happiness happens.
An informative, accessible, and witty tour of the mind, The Happiness of Pursuit offers insights to a thorough understanding of what minds are, how they relate to each other and to the world, and how we can make the best of it all.
Expand title description text
Psychology Nonfiction