Being Human

Why is it that a mother or nursemaid, with no education or even with mental retardation, can teach a baby to talk, but it typically requires greater effort from a more professionally educated person to teach a child to read? Why is it that a person profoundly deaf from birth usually finds it harder to get a college or graduate education than a person who is blind since birth? Why is it that one can be in an environment of loud sounds, noise, or shouting, yet be able to attend to and understand a soft, quiet, continuing voice in the midst of the cacophony? "WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HUMAN?" If it is true that much of being human evolves from what happens during the first one thousand milliseconds after an event impinges upon us, our fate may be greatly determined by events within that first second. Rue Cromwell, Ph.D., provides alternative viewpoints that vary from mainstream ways of thinking about the infrastructure of human functioning-aspects of which most of us are typically unaware. As Dr. Cromwell discards current and past dictums he feels have impeded progress of knowledge in psychology-such as mind/body distinctions, cognitive systems, and behavior analysis-he also rejects the notion that biological events cause higher order phenomena. While providing his theories on the philosophy and construct of psychological issues, Dr. Cromwell examines how we communicate, why it is important to ask the right scientific questions, and how to apply verbal tags to our own lives. "Being Human: Human Being" shares Dr. Cromwell's contention that the level of human functioning is capable of reaching heights never seen before. By opening our thinking to his unique theories, he encourages all of us to embrace a new way of viewing ourselves and a new idea of what it really means to be human.