The four authors of this book recognize that no one on the common human journey to the 21st century can pick the best route without consulting a map―that is to say, an interconnected set of understandings about what in a given situation is important, what demands action and attention, and what does not. The problem, they contend, is that the picture of the world we each carry in our mind may not be a true mapping of the reality that surrounds us. This picture, the cognitive map, could always be sharper. The authors prompt us to become more conscious of our own cognitive map, and explain how it can be adapted to the exigencies of our changing world so that it can be better-used to guide our steps toward the 21st century.
We all carry a picture of the world in our mind, but is that map an assuredly true layout of the reality that surrounds us? If not, how can we use it to guide our steps toward the 21st century and beyond without creating shocks and surprises that impair our well-being and threaten our survival?
We shall not survive, either as individuals or as a species, if our maps fail to reflect accurately the nature of the world that surrounds us. The authors attempt, through reviewing the origins, development, and current changes in individual and social cognitive maps, to prompt readers to become more conscious of their own map, and hence be better able to adapt it to the exigencies of our changing world. The book ends with a vision of the global bio- and socio-sphere: the unified cognitive map which is emerging in laboratories and workshops of the new physics, the new biology, the new ecology, and the avant-garde branches of the social and historical sciences. But Changing Visions recognizes that these sciences alone cannot promote the formation of faithful maps of lived reality, and that religion, common sense, and even art can fill in and sharpen one's world-picture.

Changing Visions: Human Cognitive Maps: Past, Present, and Future (Praeger Studies on the 21st Century)

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Lásźló, Érvíń

Csányi, Vilmos

Combs, Allan

Artigiani, Robert

Psychology & Counseling

Praeger

The four authors of this book recognize that no one on the common human journey to the 21st century can pick the best route without consulting a map―that is to say, an interconnected set of understandings about what in a given situation is important, what demands action and attention, and what does not. The problem, they contend, is that the picture of the world we each carry in our mind may not be a true mapping of the reality that surrounds us. This picture, the cognitive map, could always be sharper. The authors prompt us to become more conscious of our own cognitive map, and explain how it can be adapted to the exigencies of our changing world so that it can be better-used to guide our steps toward the 21st century.
We all carry a picture of the world in our mind, but is that map an assuredly true layout of the reality that surrounds us? If not, how can we use it to guide our steps toward the 21st century and beyond without creating shocks and surprises that impair our well-being and threaten our survival?
We shall not survive, either as individuals or as a species, if our maps fail to reflect accurately the nature of the world that surrounds us. The authors attempt, through reviewing the origins, development, and current changes in individual and social cognitive maps, to prompt readers to become more conscious of their own map, and hence be better able to adapt it to the exigencies of our changing world. The book ends with a vision of the global bio- and socio-sphere: the unified cognitive map which is emerging in laboratories and workshops of the new physics, the new biology, the new ecology, and the avant-garde branches of the social and historical sciences. But Changing Visions recognizes that these sciences alone cannot promote the formation of faithful maps of lived reality, and that religion, common sense, and even art can fill in and sharpen one's world-picture.

Changing Visions

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

This work is a bold new effort to embrace all aspects of life—molecular, cellular, behavioral, and cultural—within the formulation of a general theory of evolution that extends classical Darwinian theory to include human society.

Evolutionary Systems and Society: A General Theory

Duke University Press Books

If Dogs Could Talk: Exploring the Canine Mind

Every dog owner knows intuitively that there's something special about the high degree of mutual understanding and empathy that exists between humans and their proverbial best friends. Now, an internationally renowned Hungarian ethologist (a specialist in the scientific study of animal behavior) traces the roots of this unique relationship back to the unusual circumstances in which the two species co-evolved over many millennia. Drawing in part on close observations of his own two pet dogs, Flip and Jerry, the author argues that the longstanding alliance of dogs and humans arose from behavioral traits present in the original wolves from which all modern dogs are descended. Wolves, like humans, are highly intelligent social predators, with well-developed cooperative problem-solving and communications skills, giving them distinct advantages in their developing relations with humans. These basic intellectual skills were refined and enhanced over tens of thousands of years, resulting in the enormously varied "artificial animals" we see today. Although the book's specific focus is on dogs, it ranges far afield to discuss in an easy-going, accessible style recent experimental and theoretical work on the behavior of other animals, and especially on their interactions with humans. A highly personal work, If Dogs Could Talk makes the case that the social and emotional bonds between dogs and humans are indeed special, and that they ought to form the basis for our treatment of dogs. Moreover, the author concludes, by closely observing the cognitive behavior of dogs, we can also learn a good deal about how the human mind works.

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Pets & Animal Care

NORTH POINT PRESS

"This book is endlessly enlightening and entertaining . . . will appeal to all dog owners." ―Ann LaFarge, Taconic News
How do dogs think? Short of breeding a talking dog (not as impossible as it sounds), the best we can do is to carefully observe and record their behavior. And after a decade of research, the internationally renowned ethologist Vilmos Csányi has brilliantly captured the high degree of mutual understanding and empathy that exists between humans and their proverbial best friends.
Drawing in part on close observations of his own dogs, Flip and Jerry, Csányi argues that the long-standing alliance of dogs and humans arose from the problem-solving and communications skills evident in wolves, from which all modern dogs are descended. These basic intellectual skills were refined and enhanced as dogs and humans evolved together over tens of thousands of years. And because dogs were bred to be mankind's helpmates, the dog owner who knows what to look for can interpret their thoughts, desires, and motivations.

History

Military

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Books by Csányi, Vilmos