A User's Guide to Thought and Meaning presents a profound and arresting integrat
ion of the faculties of the mind - of how we think, speak, and see the world.
Ray Jackendoff starts out by looking at languages and what the meanings of words
and sentences actually do. He shows that meanings are more adaptive and complic
ated than they're commonly given credit for, and he is led to some basic questio
ns: How do we perceive and act in the world? How do we talk about it? And how ca
n the collection of neurons in the brain give rise to conscious experience? As i
t turns out, the organization of language, thought, and perception does not look
much like the way we experience things, and only a small part of what the brain
does is conscious.
