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The mind within the brain : how we make decisions and how those decisions go wrong / A. David Redish.

by Redish, A. David.

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Oxford University Press, c2013.

Decision making.

9780199891887 (hc.)

0199891885 (hc.)

xiii, 377 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-363) and index.

What is a decision? -- The tale of the thermostat -- The definition of value -- Value, euphoria, and the do-it-again signal -- Risk and reward -- Multiple decision-making systems -- Reflexes -- Emotion and the Pavlovian action-selection system -- Deliberation -- The habits of our lives -- Integrating Information -- The stories we tell -- Motivation -- The tradeoff between exploration and exploitation -- Self-control -- The physical mind -- Imagination -- Addiction -- Gambling and behavioral addictions -- Post-traumatic stress disorder -- Computational psychiatry -- What makes us human? -- The science of morality -- The conundrum of robotics.

If our brain is a decision-making machine, then that machine can break down; it can have a "failure" or "vulnerabilities." And it is possible to understand that machinery (even to understand that it is a machinery), without losing the potential to appreciate all the things that make us human (including our decision-making ability). Here the author brings together research in psychology, robotics, economics, neuroscience, and the new fields of neuroeconomics and computational psychiatry, to offer a unified theory of human decision-making. Most importantly, he shows how vulnerabilities, or "failure-modes," in the decision-making system can lead to serious dysfunctions, such as irrational behavior, addictions, problem gambling, and PTSD. Ranging widely from the surprising roles of emotion, habit, and narrative in decision-making, to the larger philosophical questions of how mind and brain are related, what makes us human, the nature of morality, free will, and the conundrum of robotics and consciousness, this work offers insight into one of the most complex aspects of human behavior.

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