From the Jaws of Victory

Charles m.fair

Simon&Schuster

<p>This is, as its title says, a book about nonsense-in particular the kinds which most appeal to us today.  UFOs; ESP or psi phenomena generally; and the perennially popular ideas of Dr. Velikovsky.  Do UFOs exist?  Are the Russians about to revolutionize modern warfare with their psi machines?  Can we project our thoughts alone a fifth dimension and foresee the market crash coming next week?  Was there really an explosion of psychic energy in a nearby bookcase one day when Drs. Freud and Jung were having a heated discussion?  Is it safe to assume, with Velikovsky, that a good deal of our petroleum fell down recently from the sky?  Some of these ideas have established quite a following-and there is always a possibility, of course, that not all of them are rubbish.  Our government seems to be discreetly funding research in ESP on the chance that it may have some military potential.  The sightings of UFOs go on and on.  And now a few scientists are beginning to have second thoughts about Velikovsky.  So I felt I should try to show why these items of the New Nonsense may actually be that.  In fact, if some of what I have called nonsense proves to be, neither my main argument nor the attitude of the believing public will be much affected.  It is important to understand why millions of supposedly educated  people have not done so.  The real question is what the resurgence of nonsense in our era means.  What connection, if any, does it have with the revolutionary spirit of the age?  And what, therefore, may it prophesy?</p>

New Nonsense

This means that many neuroanatomists may balk at the functional interpretation I have given their sort of data, whereas many neuroscien­ tists in other fields may balk at references to neuroanatomy they cannot confirm from memory and begrudge the time to look up. Members of both groups may consequently decline to read the book on the ground that it is too risky or too difficult to follow, or both. Let me say, in my own defence, that although the argument presented here draws upon data from a number of different fields, they fit together in ways that are often quite striking; that the problem of memory is in itself an important one; and that theory in neuroscience, if it is to fulfill its function of unifying our understanding by way of testable propositions, has got, at some point, to become interdisciplinary. I submit that the present theory meets those requirements and may therefore justify the effort it asks of the reader. To the extent that it passes the critical test of experiment, it will also give research in the fields related to memory a clearer rationale, thereby, perhaps, saving time. Introduction What follows is an outline of the theory of memory functions developed in this monograph. It will not include the supporting data and references used throughout in the text, but will simply present the essentials of the argument.

Critical Memory Functions

Medical Books

Birkhauser

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Charles m.fair. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Charles m.fair

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Charles m.fair. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

From the Jaws of Victory

New Nonsense

Critical Memory Functions