 Macmillan Audio presents The Disordered Mind What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves by Eric R. Kandel Read for you by David Stifle Please refer to the supplemental PDF to view tables and figures. This document should have been included with your audiobook purchase. Introduction I spent my entire career trying to understand the inner workings of the brain and the motivation for human behavior. Having escaped from Vienna as a young boy soon after Hitler occupied it, I was preoccupied with one of the great mysteries of human existence. How can one of the most advanced and cultured societies on earth turn its efforts so rapidly toward evil? How do individuals, when faced with a moral dilemma, make choices? Can the splintered self be healed through skilled human interaction? I became a psychiatrist in hopes of understanding and acting on these difficult problems. As I began to appreciate the elusiveness of the problems of the mind, however, I turned to questions that could be answered more definitively through scientific research. I focused on small collections of neurons in a very simple animal and eventually discovered some of the fundamental processes underlying elementary forms of learning and memory. While I have enjoyed my work a great deal, and it has been amply appreciated by others, I realized that my findings represent but a small advance in the quest to understand the most complex entity in the universe, the human mind. This pursuit has animated philosophers, poets, and physicians since the dawn of humankind. Engraved on the entrance of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi was the maxim, Know Thyself. Ever since Socrates and Plato first reflected on the nature of the human mind, serious thinkers of every generation have sought to understand the thoughts, feelings, behavior, memories, and creative powers that make us who we are. For earlier generations, this quest was restricted to the intellectual framework of philosophy. As embodied in the 17th century French philosopher René Descartes' pronouncement, I think therefore I am. Descartes' guiding idea was that our... Sample complete. Ready to continue?