Book: Dynamic Patterns by Scott Kelso
By Taivo Lints on Sunday 24 June 2007, 20:52 - Permalink
The book is about applying the concepts of self-organization and the mathematical tools of nonlinear dynamics to studying human perception, behavior, learning and thinking. The general idea is that the working of most biological things, including brains, can be explained as dynamic chaotic patterns, that there is a general tendency toward (self-organizational) phase and frequency synchronization (but not phase locking) of components in complex living systems, and that most patterns (including the maps of brain areas responsible for specific actions) are more flexible than generally believed by most people.
The book was interesting enough for me to read through, but I occasionally felt that the point could have been conveyed with a considerably thinner book... Basically, while I did have some "AHA!" moments, they were outnumbered by "Sure, but so what?" moments. Then again, this may be due to the book being published on 1995 and me reading it on 2007. Also, occasionally I had "Er... why are you so sure about that?" moments, but in general the book was well supported with the results of various scientific experiments.
More information at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262611317/
Comments
you might want to have a look at his most recent book, that I liked better: The Complementary Nature written with David Angstron
http://www.amazon.com/Complementary...
Thanks for the suggestion! I'll take a closer look at it if I happen to see it somewhere (I currently don't feel like ordering it right away :).
As much as I understand from the reviews and the (somewhat obscure :) website http://www.thecomplementarynature.c... , the book first discusses how the interpretations of oppositions / contraries have affected philosophy and science, and then goes on to apply Kelso & Co.'s nonlinear dynamics models to show how opposing tendencies may coexist at the same time and that the brain is likely to work that way...