It's a Jungle in There: How Competition and Cooperation in the Brain Shape the Mind

by David A. Rosenbaum

The saying "It's a jungle out there" refers to a competitive environment in which you'd better hone your skills if you hope to survive. And you'd better do what you can to keep a roof over your head, food in your belly, a leaf on your loins, and a mate who'll help pass on your genes to the next generation of jungle Jims and Janes.Distinguished professor and cognitive psychologist David Rosenbaum takes this metaphor of surviving in the wild and applies it to the competitive arena within the brain. He argues that the overarching theory of biology, Darwin's theory, should be the overarching theory of cognitive psychology, the science of mental functioning. He explores this new and intriguing idea by showing how neural elements compete and cooperate in a kind of inner jungle, where only the fittest survive. Competition within your brain does as much to shape who you are as the physical and figurative competition you face externally. Just as the jungle night seethes with noisy creatures beckoning their mates, issuing their warnings, and settling their arguments, you might have trouble falling asleep at night because the thoughts in your head are fighting for their chance at survival. Rosenbaum's pursuit of this bold idea explains why we are shaped into who we are, for better or worse, because we are the hosts of inner battlefields.Written in a light-hearted tone and with reference to hypothetical neural "creatures" making their way in a tough environment, Rosenbaum makes cognitive psychology and his theory easy to understand and exciting to ponder. Rather than rely on the series of disconnected phenomena and collection of curiosities that often constitute cognitive psychology, It's a Jungle in There provides a fascinating way to place all cognitive phenomena under one flourishing tree.

Genres: Psychology

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 3 out of 5]

An attempt to "apply Darwin's theory of evolution and competition to cognitive psychology." To do this the author had to populate the mind with various species (gnomes, elves, etc) and have imagined competition/cooperation (coordination = competition + cooperation) between them to explain brain functioning. The whole metaphor falls pretty flat in my opinion, and the author uses up most of the book talking about known experiments about brain functioning. The ties to the original metaphor are weak and usually limited to a breezy statement or two at the beginning of each chapter.

Now, I am perfectly okay with the "coordination = competition + cooperation" model for how the brain functions. But to link it to Darwin's theory of evolution and Natural Selection is a bit of a stretch. If the author had been more consistent in his approach, it would have been fun, at the very least.

This book was provided by Oxford University Press as an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Irwan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have mix feelings about this book. I appreciate the effort of using Darwin's theory in explaining the mind. But as a non academic, I didn't see the direct values. Maybe it will help academics to interpret their data which lead to practical insights for us. But it is not here and now in this book.

[Yanick Punter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Needs a reread

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

The basic premise of this book is that a person's mind is much like Grand Central Station: Every thought process is something of a separate entity from every other one, and they all compete for attention. Like your mind has dozens of little people in there, each one demanding what they want. The same way the press corps shouts questions at the president: No one can handle them all at the same time.

The mechanics of the mind, with neurons and other things constantly exchanging information, lies behind all this and it is, by all means, an extraordinarily complex process. Thoughts take time, with 2 or 3 seconds required for completion. What we call "now" is more of a zone than an instant, something like the way a car tire has a small flat area that meets the pavement without sliding. Theory would say the tire has contact along one line of a cylinder, but that is not the case.

This has me wondering about the concept that time is not a fundamental factor in the universe, and what we base this on is the rotation of the sun through the sky. What we refer to as time is really more of a parameter than a physical quantity. So if there is not actually any such thing as a true second, is there also no true such thing as the number pi? Or volume, area, force, or anything else humans have developed? Maybe not.

[Velvetink]

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