Nicholas Humphrey

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Nicholas Humphrey

For Nicholas Humphrey, the Australian author see Nicholas Humphrey (Author)
Nicholas Humphrey (author)

Nicholas Humphrey is an Australian author and lawyer.He has a Bachelor of Commerce degree and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of New South Wales....

Professor Nicholas Keynes Humphrey (born 27 March,1943) is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
psychologist

Psychologist

"Psychologist" is an academic, occupational or professional title describing individuals who are either: * social scientists conducting research and/or teaching psychology in a college or university;...
who until 2008 held a School Professorship at the London School of Economics

London School of Economics

The London School of Economics and Political Science, more commonly referred to as The London School of Economics or LSE, is a specialist college of the University of London in London, England....
(LSE) and a half-time Professorship at the New School for Social Research in New York

New York

The State of New York is a U.S. state in the Mid-Atlantic States and Northeastern United States regions of the United States and is the nation's List of U.S....
. His work has tackled issues such as consciousness

Consciousness

Consciousness is a difficult term to define, because the word is used and understood in a wide variety of ways, so that it frequently happens that what one person sees as a definition of consciousness is seen by others as about something else altogether....
and belief in the supernatural from a Darwinian

Darwinism

Darwinism is a term used for various movements or concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or evolution, including ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....
perspective. His primatological research formed the basis of Machiavellian intelligence

Machiavellian intelligence

In cognitive science and evolutionary psychology, Machiavellian intelligence is the capacity of an entity to be in a successful political science engagement with social groups....
theory.

As of 2004, Professor Humphrey had published seven books and made a Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a UK Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom television broadcaster which began transmissions on 2 November 1982. Although commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the #Channel Four Television...
television series called "The Inner Eye" in 1986.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Nicholas Humphrey'

Start a new discussion about 'Nicholas Humphrey'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

Professor Nicholas Keynes Humphrey (born 27 March,1943) is a British

United Kingdom

Psychologist

London School of Economics

New York

Consciousness

Darwinism

Machiavellian intelligence

Channel 4

Jacob Bronowski

Jacob Bronowski was a United Kingdom mathematician and biologist of history of the Jews in Poland origin. He is best remembered as the presenter and writer of the 1973 BBC television documentary film series, The Ascent of Man....
memorial lecture titled "Four Minutes to Midnight" in 1981. He edited a book of writings on war and peace with Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an United States pastor, activist and prominent leader in the African-American African-American Civil Rights Movement ....
Memorial Prize in 1985 for this work.

Early career

Nicholas Humphrey went to Westminster School

Westminster School

The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxbridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college....
between 1956-61 finishing with honors. Both his undergraduate degree and doctorate in psychology were undertaken at Trinity College

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is one of the 31 Colleges of the University of Cambridge of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or University of Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduate students, and over 160 Fellows; however, counting only the student body it has somewhat fewer than Homert...
, Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge , located in Cambridge, England, is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation university in the Anglosphere....
. For his doctorate, he demonstrated the existence of a specific impairment in visual size constancy after lesions of the inferotemporal cortex, made the first single cell recordings from the superior colliculus

Superior colliculus

The optic tectum or simply tectum is a paired structure that forms a major component of the vertebrate midbrain. In mammals this structure is more commonly called the superior colliculus , but even in mammals, the adjective tectal is commonly used....
of monkeys and discovered the existence of a previously unsuspected capacity for vision after total lesions of the striate cortex (a capacity which, when it was later confirmed in human beings, came to be called "blindsight

Blindsight

Blindsight is a phenomenon in which people who are perceptually blindness in a certain area of their visual field demonstrate some response to visual stimuli....
").

Dr Humphrey continued his work into the sensory perceptions of primates in the next five years after 1967. This was based on an interest in evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary psychology attempts to explain Mind and psychology Trait theorys?such as memory, perception, or language?as adaptations, that is, as the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection....
of aesthetics

Aesthetics

Aesthetics or esthetics is commonly known as the study of senses or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste ....
.This developed into a theory on the function of the appreciation of beauty which turned into a radio broadcast which won the Glaxo Science Writers Prize in 1980.

Work on evolution of cognitive facilities

After spending three months with Dian Fossey

Dian Fossey

Dian Fossey was an American Ethology who completed an extended study of gorilla groups over a period of 18 years. She observed them daily for years in the mountain forests of Rwanda, initially encouraged to work there by famous paleontology Louis Leakey....
and her gorillas in Rwanda followed by time with Richard Leakey

Richard Leakey

Richard Erskine Frere Leakey , is a Kenyan politician, paleoanthropologist and conservationist. He is second of the three sons of the archaeologists Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey, and is the younger brother of Colin Leakey....
at Lake Turkana

Lake Turkana

Lake Turkana , formerly known as Lake Rudolf, is a lake in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, with its far northern end crossing into Ethiopia....
, Dr Humphrey developed an interest in the evolution of human cognitive facilities. He wrote a review essay in 1975 titled on the evolution of cognitive skills. This paper was reprinted a number of times and formed the basis of his book Consciousness Regained: Chapters in the Development of Mind.

Humphrey left his research fellow position at Cambridge to work on his Channel 4 television series "The Inner Eye" on the development of the human mind. This series was finished in 1986 with the release of a book of the same name in the same year.

In 1987, Daniel Dennett

Daniel Dennett

Daniel Clement Dennett is a prominent United States Philosophy whose research centers on philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science....
invited Dr Humphrey to work with him at his Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University

Tufts University

Tufts University is a private research university in Medford, Massachusetts/Somerville, Massachusetts, near Boston, Massachusetts, United States....
. They worked on developing an empirically based theory of consciousness and undertook a study on Multiple Personality Disorder

Dissociative identity disorder

Dissociative identity disorder , as defined by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , is a psychiatric Medical diagnosis that describes a condition in which a single person displays multiple distinct identity or Personality psychology , each with its own pattern of perceiving and inter...
.

His next book A History of the Mind published in 1992 put forward a theory on how consciousness as feeling rather than thinking may have evolved. This book won the inaugural British Psychological Society's

British Psychological Society

The British Psychological Society is the professional body for psychologists and psychology in the United Kingdom. The BPS is a Charitable organization and, along with advantages, this also imposes certain constraints on what the society can and cannot do....
annual Book of the Year Award in 1993. Professor Humphrey's writings on the subject continued in The Mind Made Flesh: Essays from the Frontiers of Evolution and Psychology (2002) and Seeing Red: A Study in Consciousness (2006).

Other work

Dr Humphrey became active in the anti-nuclear movement in the late 1970s. This led to an invitation to deliver the Bronowski lecture on the BBC in 1981. He titled his lecture, on the dangers of the arms race, "Four Minutes to Midnight". With Robert Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton is an United States psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of war and political violence and for his theory of thought reform....
he edited an anthology of writings on war and peace titled In a Dark Time, which was released in 1984 and resulted in him winning the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize.

In 1992, Dr Humphrey was appointed to a Senior Research Fellowship at Darwin College, Cambridge funded by the Perrott-Warwick Fellowship in parapsychology. He undertook a skeptical study of parapsychological

Parapsychology

Parapsychology is a discipline that seeks to investigate the existence and causes of psychic abilities and Survivalism using the scientific method....
phenomena such as extra-sensory perception

Extra-sensory perception

Extrasensory perception is the apparent ability to acquire information by paranormal means independent of any known physical senses or deduction from previous experience....
and psychokinesis

Psychokinesis

The term psychokinesis , also known as telekinesis , sometimes abbreviated PK and TK respectively, is a term coined by Henry Holt to refer to the direct influence of mind on a physical system that cannot be entirely accounted for by the mediation of any known physical energy....
, resulting in his 1995 book Soul Searching: Human Nature and Supernatural Belief (in America this book was published under the title Leaps of Faith).

Professor Humphrey has also worked on a number of TV and radio documentaries apart from "The Inner Eye". The topics range from the psychology of paranormal belief to the psycho-history of mediaeval animal trials

Animal trial

In legal history, an animal trial was the crime trial of a non-human. Such trials are recorded as having taken place in Europe from the thirteenth century until the eighteenth....
. In 2005, he visited the Ulas family

Ulas family

The Ulas family is a large family of 19 from rural southern Turkey, five of whom walk on all fours with their foot and the palms of their hands in what is called a "bear crawl"....
of human quadrupeds and published with John Skoyles and Roger Keynes, a report on them. A documentary The Family That Walks On All Fours
The Family That Walks On All Fours

The Family That Walks On All Fours is a BBC2 documentary that explored the science and the story of five individuals in the Ulas family in Turkey that walk with a previously unreported quadruped gait....
based on this visit was broadcast on BBC2 in March 2006 , and on NOVA
Nova

A nova is a cataclysmic nuclear explosion caused by the Accretion of hydrogen onto the surface of a white dwarf star. Novae are not to be confused with Type Ia supernovae, or another form of stellar explosion first announced by Caltech in May 2007, Luminous Red Novae....
in November 2006. He has also proposed a theory of placebos based upon the effects of misinformation upon a process he calls the "health management system

Health management system

The health management system is an evolutionary medicine regulative process proposed by Nicholas Humphrey in which actuarial assessment of Biological fitness and economic-type cost-benefit analysis determines the body?s regulation of its physiology and health....
" through which the brain has top down control over the body.

External links

by Andrew Brown. July 29, 2006, The Guardian
The Guardian

Sorry, no overview for this topic
. Newspaper interview.
Interview on EDGE
Edge Foundation, Inc.

The Edge Foundation, Inc. is an organization of science and technology intellectuals created in 1988 as an outgrowth of The Reality Club. Its motto is 'to seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together and have themselves ask each other the questions they are asking themselves.' Currently, its main activity is...
6.30.03

Bibliography

Consciousness Regained: Chapters in the Development of Mind, Oxford University Press, 1983. ISBN 978-0192860521 [Spanish translation 1989.]
In a Dark Time, (ed. with R.J.Lifton), Faber & Faber 1984, Harvard University Press 1984.ISBN 978-0674445383
The Inner Eye, Faber & Faber 1986, Faber Inc 1987, Vintage 1993, Oxford University Press 2002. ISBN 978-0192802446 [Italian and Spanish translations 1992, Japanese translation 1993, Korean translation forthcoming.]
A History of the Mind, Chatto & Windus 1992, Simon & Schuster 1992, ISBN 978-0387987194 Vintage 1993, Copernicus 1999. [Portuguese translation 1995; German translation 1996; Italian translation 1998; Spanish 2002 Korean translations forthcoming.]
Soul Searching: Human Nature and Supernatural Belief, Chatto & Windus 1995, ISBN 978-0099273417 Vintage 1996, Basic Books 1996, Copernicus 1999. [Italian translation forthcoming.] (In the United States, retitled Leaps of Faith: Science, Miracles, and the Search for Supernatural Consolation.)
The Mind Made Flesh: Essays from the Frontiers of Evolution and Psychology, Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 978-0192802279 [Japanese translation forthcoming.]
Seeing Red: A Study in Consciousness, Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0674030541

Journal articles

‘‘Varieties of colour anomia’‘. Brain, 92, 847-860, 1969. (With J.M. and S.M.Oxbury).
‘‘. Nature, 232, 91- 93, 1971.
‘‘Seeing and nothingness’‘. New Scientist
New Scientist

New Scientist is a liberal weekly international science magazine and website covering recent developments in science and technology for a general English language-speaking audience....
’’, 53, 682-684, 1972.
‘‘Les illusions visuelles’‘. La Recherche, 3, 631-638, 1972.
‘‘’‘. New Scientist, 59, 437-439. 1973.
‘‘’‘. Nature, 250, 164-165, 1974. (With E.Pinkerton).
‘‘’‘. Nature, 253, 346-347, 1975. (With G.R.Keeble).
‘‘’’, Science, 196 , 755-756, 1977.
‘‘’’. Perception 7:343-348 1978.
‘‘’’. Human Nature 44-47 1979.
‘‘’’. ; In Josephson, B. D
Brian David Josephson

Brian David Josephson is a Welsh physics. He became a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973 at the age of 33 with Leo Esaki and Ivar Giaever, and he predicted the Josephson effect....
. and Ramachandran, V. S
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

Vilayanur S. "Rama" Ramachandran is a neurology best known for his work in the fields of behavioral neurology and psychophysics. He is currently the Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition, Professor in the Psychology Department and Neurosciences Program at the University of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor of Biology at th...
., Eds. Consciousness and the Physical World , chapter 4, 57-80. Oxford: Pergamon Press 1980.
‘‘’’. The BBC Bronowski Lecture, 1981.
‘‘’’, New Scientist , 95 473-477, 1982.
‘‘’’. Fifteenth James Arthur Memorial Lecture, 1-25, American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History

The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York, USA, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world....
, New York 1987.
‘‘’’. Chronicle of Higher Education (Washington), July 1993.
‘‘The private world of consciousness’‘. New Scientist, pp. 23-25, 8 January 1994.
‘‘Reflections on consciousness’‘. The Psychologist, 7, 259, 1994.
‘‘Kinds of Minds’‘. Journal of Philosophy
Journal of Philosophy

The Journal of Philosophy is a well-known philosophical journal published monthly from Columbia University. Its stated purpose is "To publish philosophical articles of current interest and encourage the interchange of ideas, especially the exploration of the borderline between philosophy and other disciplines."...
’’, 94, 97-103, 1997.
‘‘Carl Sagan: a tribute’‘. Skeptical Inquirer
Skeptical Inquirer

The Skeptical Inquirer is a bimonthly, United States magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry with the subtitle: The magazine for science and reason....
’’, 21, no. 2, 14, 1997.
‘‘’’. Social Research 64:199-209, 1997.
‘‘’’. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 8, 165-191, 1998; reprinted in Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, 116-143, 1999.
‘‘’’ In Williams, Wes, Ed. The Values of Science (The 1997 Oxford Amnesty Lectures)’’ , 58-79. Westview Press, 1998.
‘‘’’. Psycoloquy
Psycoloquy

Psycoloquy is a peer review international, interdisciplinary open access journal sponsored from 1990-2002 by the American Psychological Association and indexed by APA's PsycINFO and the Institute for Scientific Information....
10(024), 1999.
‘‘. Skeptical Inquirer
Skeptical Inquirer

The Skeptical Inquirer is a bimonthly, United States magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry with the subtitle: The magazine for science and reason....
, 24 (3), 61, 2000.
‘‘’’, In Heyes, Celia and Huber, Ludwig, Eds. The Evolution of Cognition , 241-252. MIT, Cambridge, Ma, 2000.
‘‘’’. Journal of Consciousness Studies 7(4):5-20 2000.
‘‘’’. Journal of Consciousness Studies 7(4):98-112, 2000.
‘‘’’. Social Research 67(4):32-39 2000.
‘‘ In Humphrey, Nicholas The Mind Made Flesh: Essays from the Frontiers of Evolution and Psychology , chapter24, 330-339. Oxford University Press, 2002.
‘‘’’, In Humphrey, Nicholas The Mind Made Flesh: Essays from the Frontiers of Psychology and Evolution ,chapter 14, 165-199. Oxford University Press 2002.
‘‘, The Mind Made Flesh: Essays from the Frontiers of Psychology and Evolution ,chapter 19, 255-85, Oxford University Press, 2002. u
‘‘’’ The Mind Made Flesh: Essays from the Frontiers of Psychology and Evolution ,chapter 18, 235-254, Oxford University Press 2002.
‘‘’’, In Humphrey, Nicholas The Mind Made Flesh: Essays from the Frontiers of Psychology and Evolution ,chapter 16, 206-231, Oxford University Press, 2002.
‘‘’’. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 12, 91-3, 2002
‘‘’’, In Curious Minds: How a Child Becomes a Scientist , ed. John Brockman
John Brockman (literary agent)

John Brockman is a literary agent and author specializing in scientific literature. He founded the Edge Foundation, Inc., an organization aimed to bring together people working at the edge of a broad range of scientific and technical fields....
, p.3-12, New York: Pantheon Books, 2004.
‘‘’’, In Gregory, Richard L
Richard Gregory

Richard Langton Gregory, Order of the British Empire, MA, D.Sc., Royal Society of Edinburgh, Fellow of the Royal Society is a United Kingdom psychology and Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Bristol....
., Ed. Oxford Companion to the Mind. Second Edition . Oxford University Press, 2004.
‘‘’’, In Gregory, Richard L
Richard Gregory

Richard Langton Gregory, Order of the British Empire, MA, D.Sc., Royal Society of Edinburgh, Fellow of the Royal Society is a United Kingdom psychology and Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Bristol....
., Ed. Oxford Companion to the Mind. Second Edition . Oxford University Press, 2004.
‘‘’‘. In Susan Hurley and Nick Chater (Eds.), Perspectives on Imitation: From Cognitive Neuroscience to Social Science. Cambridge: MIT Press
MIT Press

The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts ....
. (2005)
‘‘’’, Prospect, September 2006
‘‘’’,In Intelligent Thought: Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement, ed. John Brockman, pp. 50-64, New York: Vintage, 2006.
‘‘’’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 362, 745-754, 2007.
‘‘’’, Progress of Theoretical Physics Supplement , 2008.
‘‘’’, Seed Magazine , January/February,30-32, 2008.

External links

by John Searle
John Searle

John Rogers Searle is an American philosopher and the Slusser Professor of Philosophy and Mills Professor of Philosophy of Mind and Language at the University of California, Berkeley ....
in the New York Review of Books