An Anthropology of Puzzles argues that the human brain is a 'puzzling organ' which allows humans to literally solve their own problems of existence through puzzle format. Noting the presence of puzzles everywhere in everyday life, Marcel Danesi looks at puzzles in society since the dawn of history, showing how their presence has guided large sections of human history, from discoveries in mathematics to disquisitions in philosophy. Danesi examines the cognitive processes that are involved in puzzle making and solving, and connects them to the actual physical manifestations of classic puzzles. Building on a concept of puzzles as based on Jungian archetypes, such as the river crossing image, the path metaphor, and the journey, Danesi suggests this could be one way to understand the public fascination with puzzles. As well as drawing on underlying mental archetypes, the act of solving puzzles also provides an outlet to move beyond biological evolution, and Danesi shows that puzzles could be the product of the same basic neural mechanism that produces language and culture. Finally, Danesi explores how understanding puzzles can be a new way of understanding our human culture.
Author(s): Marcel Danesi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: 231
Tags: Anthropology Of Puzzles, Mind, Culture
Cover page
......Page 1
Halftitle page
......Page 2
Series page
......Page 3
Title page
......Page 4
Copyright page
......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
Figures......Page 8
Tables......Page 10
Preface......Page 11
Acknowledgments......Page 13
1 Puzzles in Mind and History......Page 14
Riddles, puzzles, and games......Page 15
Historical sketch......Page 24
Main puzzle types......Page 34
Solving puzzles......Page 35
Puzzle archetypes......Page 39
Puzzles and human intelligence......Page 44
2 Riddles......Page 46
Riddles as oral tradition......Page 48
Solving riddles......Page 54
Riddles and metaphor......Page 57
Riddles and the origins of culture......Page 61
3 Word Games......Page 66
Anagrams and acrostics......Page 67
Cryptograms......Page 73
Word squares, word searches, crosswords, and doublets......Page 84
The ludic nature of language......Page 93
4 Visual Puzzles......Page 96
Optical illusions......Page 97
Vanishing tricks......Page 105
Rebuses......Page 110
Geometric puzzles......Page 112
The tangram, the jigsaw, and the golden ratio......Page 116
Mazes......Page 120
Visual imaging......Page 123
5 Puzzles in Mathematics......Page 128
The Ahmes papyrus......Page 130
The magic square......Page 132
Alcuin’s propositiones......Page 140
Fibonacci’s Liber Abaci......Page 143
Recreational mathematics......Page 146
Mathematical method......Page 154
Puzzle memes......Page 157
6 Puzzles and Logic......Page 164
The nature of logic......Page 166
The Monty Hall problem......Page 173
Paradoxes and cognition......Page 175
Logic deconstructed......Page 179
Sudoku......Page 184
Logic and imagination......Page 186
7 Puzzles and Human Intelligence......Page 188
Homo ludens......Page 189
Games of chance......Page 195
Human intelligence......Page 197
Mind and culture......Page 202
Concluding remarks......Page 207
References......Page 212
Index......Page 226
