skinnercolin221's review against another edition
5.0
Excellent book on the brain by a leading neuroscientist who has found a balance for the scientist and the layman to enjoy the same book.
bogdanbalostin's review against another edition
5.0
A short little book about the mysteries of the brain, as we understand (or we don't) at the time of writing. Because progress in neuroscience is fast, many things can change in the future years, so if you're reading this review in 2030, please look for a more up-to-date book on the science of the brain.
While its writing is simplistic and doesn't cover many complications and critics of the whole theories proposed, it's a very good summary of all the philosophical problems that exist at the intersection with neuroscience. I mean that at the latter parts of the brain, every sentence in this book contains an idea discussed in whole other books, so it's not as simple as it seems. By reading this book, you will not even understand what we don't understand about the brain. You will only have a vague idea that your life is not as it seems. It's still worth reading as a mind-blowing overview of so many things we have achieved, things that gave us thousand more questions.
What does this book cover?
1. How your identity is formed and it's continually forming and we don't know what identity is actually. As a matter of fact, you also don't know who you are. You have a feeling you know but the truth is more complicated that than.
2. Speaking of truth, even the reality you think you know is not objectively true. Everything is made up in your brain from electrical signals. We take for granted our senses and our body and we identify with our mind, but the body is a crucial part of the development of the brain.
3. The unconscious and the feeling of free will. Why our conscious experience is just a small part of what's going on in the brain, and if that is so, then it may be possible that we are controlled by the unconscious, without any option to consciously make decisions? Scary thoughts.
4. Decisions, feeling of time, and emotions. All are intrinsically related. Why pure rationality is the mark of the psychopath and can lead to disastrous consequences.
5. The brains are made of networks of neurons, but they continue to be part of a network in social life. Life is a network of brains and other brains (humans) influence my decisions and how my brain behaves, so our brains are not isolated in special containers (heads), even if it looks like that.
6. Mind uploading, cryo-preservation, and future stuff. All these predictions are based on some hypotheses that cannot be tested and thus, they are only speculations. We shouldn't dismiss them but we should try to find a way to test all of them or discover new ways to explain what makes the brain unique. The physical matter, the chemical signals, the complex connections, all of them? Which is the most important and how are scientists investigating these options at the time of writing?
For a more in-depth review and other thoughts, check out https://balostin.com/the-brain-the-story-of-you/
While its writing is simplistic and doesn't cover many complications and critics of the whole theories proposed, it's a very good summary of all the philosophical problems that exist at the intersection with neuroscience. I mean that at the latter parts of the brain, every sentence in this book contains an idea discussed in whole other books, so it's not as simple as it seems. By reading this book, you will not even understand what we don't understand about the brain. You will only have a vague idea that your life is not as it seems. It's still worth reading as a mind-blowing overview of so many things we have achieved, things that gave us thousand more questions.
What does this book cover?
1. How your identity is formed and it's continually forming and we don't know what identity is actually. As a matter of fact, you also don't know who you are. You have a feeling you know but the truth is more complicated that than.
2. Speaking of truth, even the reality you think you know is not objectively true. Everything is made up in your brain from electrical signals. We take for granted our senses and our body and we identify with our mind, but the body is a crucial part of the development of the brain.
3. The unconscious and the feeling of free will. Why our conscious experience is just a small part of what's going on in the brain, and if that is so, then it may be possible that we are controlled by the unconscious, without any option to consciously make decisions? Scary thoughts.
4. Decisions, feeling of time, and emotions. All are intrinsically related. Why pure rationality is the mark of the psychopath and can lead to disastrous consequences.
5. The brains are made of networks of neurons, but they continue to be part of a network in social life. Life is a network of brains and other brains (humans) influence my decisions and how my brain behaves, so our brains are not isolated in special containers (heads), even if it looks like that.
6. Mind uploading, cryo-preservation, and future stuff. All these predictions are based on some hypotheses that cannot be tested and thus, they are only speculations. We shouldn't dismiss them but we should try to find a way to test all of them or discover new ways to explain what makes the brain unique. The physical matter, the chemical signals, the complex connections, all of them? Which is the most important and how are scientists investigating these options at the time of writing?
For a more in-depth review and other thoughts, check out https://balostin.com/the-brain-the-story-of-you/
mildnothing's review against another edition
5.0
Written by a neuroscientist, this books gives an insightful description of what we know about the workings of your brain without being too scientific and complicated. Eagleman has written a fantastic book about the enigmatic cell conglomerate that is our grey matter. As with every science, the amount of knowledge we have seems smaller and smaller with the development of newer measuring techniques and despite already having a quite good understanding (e.g. what reagions of the brains take over what functions) there us still a lot of knowledge to yield (e.g. can we/do we live in a simulation and can we reach immortality (of the mind), when is an organism conscientious, how can we treat or reinstate the loss of certain senses (especially hearing and seeing)), a lot of new findings in this field of science seem to lie in the future.
Would definitely recommend to anyone who is ever so slightly interested in human biology and neuroscience.
Would definitely recommend to anyone who is ever so slightly interested in human biology and neuroscience.