The Mind Within the Brain

In The Mind within the Brain, David Redish brings together cutting edge 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, Redish 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.

Told with verve and humor in an easily readable style, Redish makes these difficult concepts understandable. 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, The Mind within the Brain offers fresh insight into one of the most complex aspects of human behavior.


The Mind Within the Brain is a very valuable introduction to the neuroscientific paradigm and to understanding how we make choices. It is an enjoyable read, easy to relate to and very educational... is ambitious in its scope and style; not only does he want to explain how action-selection systems work in the brain, but also how they malfunction whilst delving into the philosophical and ethical consequences of analysing the mind in such a manner. --Jodie Russell (University of Edinburgh), British Society for Literature and Science