The Body Has a Mind of Its Own [Paperback]

This book presents the fascinating story of body maps in the brain: What they are, what they tell us about ourselves, and how an understanding of them can affect our lives. The neurobiology of body maps is also the neurobiology of cyberspace. The unparalleled flexibility of the human body schema, which originally evolved to make us into tool-wielding savants during the stone age, allows us to extend our embodied selves and the personal space-bubble we carry around ourselves just as readily into virtual realms. This flexibility can clearly be exploited in the design of more fully immersive computer-user interfaces, but so far researchers have barely begun to scratch the surface. The science of body maps is diverse and exciting. If you want to know more about what makes you what you are, would like to improve your skills, your health and your emotional attitudes, or are curious what the future holds in store for the mind's relationship to the body, this book is for you.