A review by saralynnburnett
Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman
4.0
I adore these neurology books - they never fail to fascinate me and make me want to spend the rest of my life wearing a helmet. The brain is such a unique thing! David Eagleman spoke to the faculty at my school over the summer, mostly about things that were not covered in this book (synesthesia and dyslexia).
Incognito takes a look at how our brain constructs vision, how thoughts are generated by parts of the brain that we have no conscious access to and how useful routines are burned into neural circuitry how and once they're there we no longer have access to them (this explains why when people ask me how to swim, I really can't figure out how to tell them, I can just do it). He also looks at how minds contain multitudes, and this was one of the most fascinating parts of the book- how simple changes in your brain, or drastic ones, completely alter who you are... and this led to the best part of the book: neural rights, and how not all brains are created equally. Eagleman presents a convincing case on how criminal sentences should be based on neural plasticity because when it comes to actions, motives, and other such things, free will doesn't really exist.
Incognito takes a look at how our brain constructs vision, how thoughts are generated by parts of the brain that we have no conscious access to and how useful routines are burned into neural circuitry how and once they're there we no longer have access to them (this explains why when people ask me how to swim, I really can't figure out how to tell them, I can just do it). He also looks at how minds contain multitudes, and this was one of the most fascinating parts of the book- how simple changes in your brain, or drastic ones, completely alter who you are... and this led to the best part of the book: neural rights, and how not all brains are created equally. Eagleman presents a convincing case on how criminal sentences should be based on neural plasticity because when it comes to actions, motives, and other such things, free will doesn't really exist.