The Brain: The Story of You

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The Brain: The Story of You

The Brain: The Story of You

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An interesting look at willpower. “…willpower isn’t something that we just exercise – it’s something we deplete.” Considers important philosophical questions. Does the idea of an immaterial soul reconcile with neuroscientific evidence? Find out. Bu kitab düşüncələrimi dəyişdi. Artıq öz atdığım addımlara, düşüncələrimə, duyğularıma, hər bir kiçicik bədən hərəkətlərimə diqqət yetirməyə və əslində beynimizin necə mürəkkəb və möhtəşəm bir üzvümüz olduğunu anlamağa başlayıram.

Now coming to the ghost in the machine - what is the self? Is it only the electrical impulses generated in the hardware of the brain? But even the brain is not unchanging: As we grow, our social challenges become more subtle and complex. Beyond words and actions, we have to interpret inflection, facial expressions, body language. While we are consciously concentrating on what we are discussing, our brain machinery is busy processing complex information. These operations are so instinctive, they’re essentially invisible. But in every moment of our lives, our brain circuitry is decoding the emotions of others based on extremely subtle facial cues. The London cab drivers test; “Knowledge of London,” or "The Knowledge." Plasticity; hippocampal change.The Brain was an exceptional short presentation. I will most definitely be reading more from this author in the future. The book is the perfect example of science effectively communicated. Couples married for a long time begin to resemble each other. The longer they’ve been married, the stronger the effect Brains have traditionally been studied in isolation but that approach overlooks the fact that an enormous amount of brain circuitry has to do with other brains. We are deeply social creatures. From our families, friends, co-workers and business partners, our societies are built on layers of complex social interactions. All around us we see relationships forming and breaking, familial bonds and the compulsive building of alliances. All this social glue is generated by specific circuitry in the brain: sprawling networks that monitor other people, communicate with them, feel their pain, judge their intentions, and read their emotions. Our social skills are deeply rooted in our neural circuitry — and understanding this circuitry is the basis of a young field of study called social neuroscience.

The human brain undergoes substantial development throughout our lives, particularly from birth through adolescence. Indeed, it must undergo more development after birth than does the brain of nearly any other species. Our brains are shaped substantially by the context in which they develop. They need all kinds of stimulation and social support to develop optimally. We are very social creatures. For example, we see social relationships even in inanimate objects; babies can demonstrate a preference for characters who are nice as compared to ones who are mean; and we act like the people around us. After the Holocaust, Europe got into the habit of vowing “never again”. But between 1992 and 1995, during the Yugoslav war, more than 100,000 Muslims were slaughtered by Serbians. One of the worst events of the war was in Srebrenica in July 1995 when, over the course of 10 days, 8,000 Bosnian Muslims — known as Bosniaks — were shot and killed. They had taken refuge inside a United Nations compound after the town was surrounded by siege forces. But on July 11, the UN commanders expelled the refugees from the compound, delivering them into the hands of their enemies. Women were raped, men were executed, and children were killed. Eagleman’s writing style is easy on the “brain”. His goal is to educate the general public and he succeeds. What is Reality? - Once we have decided that the self is transitory, the next big question is the nature of reality; what lies out there. Because there is no way we can see this objectively. Reality to us is what we experience; and with our snowflake-unique brain, each experience is bound to be different. There are also many pictures, illustrations, charts, and other supplemental visual aids interspliced within the writing here. Points awarded, as this provides some great additional context to the material covered. I've shared just a few of them here.To empathize with another person is to literally feel their pain. You run a compelling simulation of what it would be like if you were in that situation. Our capacity for this is why stories – like movies and novels – are so absorbing and so pervasive across human culture. Whether it’s about total strangers or made-up characters, you experience their agony and their ecstasy. You fluidly become them, live their lives, and stand in their vantage points. When you see another person suffer, you can try to tell yourself that it’s their issue, not yours – but neurons deep in your brain can’t tell the difference.

An intellectual thrill-ride. Plus, Eagleman isn’t merely a brilliant guide, he can turn a phrase, too.” – NewsdayWhat does your brain need to function normally? Beyond the nutrients from the food you eat, beyond the oxygen you breathe, beyond the water you drink, there’s something else, something equally as important: it needs other people. Normal brain function depends on the social web around us. Our neurons require other people’s neurons to thrive and survive. This area is so highly speculative that there is almost no research that sheds light on it, but I can understand how the producers of the program thought this would be a good hook for people who wonder about the Singularity. No one is having an experience of the objective reality that really exists; each creature perceives only what it has evolved to perceive. Although humans are competitive and individualistic much of the time, we spend quite a bit of our lives co-operating for the good of the group. This has allowed human populations to thrive across the planet and to build civilisations — feats that individuals, no matter how fit, could never pull off in isolation.

In summary, this book exemplifies my love for science. Eagleman is a master of his craft and a skilled writer. He covers complex topics on the neuroscience with ease and provides the general public with an appetizer of knowledge. Neuroscience is a fascinating field in it is infancy and Eagleman successfully whets the public’s interest. I highly recommend it! Actually, grouping together is advantageous from the evolutionary point of view. But the flip side is that the "ingroups" creates "outgroups" out of necessity (a fact that Desmond Morris has also touched upon, in The Human Zoo: A Zoologist's Study of the Urban Animal) and this is the beginning of conflict. And outgroups can be objectified and dehumanised through propaganda - in the worst case, leading to genocide. Traditionally we examine warfare and killings in the context of history, economics, politics; but for a complete picture, we need also to understand this as a neural phenomenon. It would normally feel unconscionable to murder your neighbour. So what suddenly allows hundreds or thousands of people to do exactly that? What is it about certain situations that short-circuits the normal social functioning of the brain? To understand something like violence or genocide, we need to drill down one step further, to dehumanisation. The writing in the book proper consists of scientific info combined with historical case studies. This is also a format that I feel really works in books, and it worked in this presentation, as well.Eagleman’s infectious optimism and enthusiasm do much to make up for the reservations I’ve just expressed. They also let him get away with a certain amount of bold exaggeration. Early on in the book for instance, he tells us that instead of experiencing the outside world directly ourselves, we only experience a fabricated model of reality, one seamlessly and instantly assembled by the brain for our sensory benefit. The real world, he says, is ‘colourless, odourless, tasteless and silent’ and the brain must work overtime to compensate for this barren environment by interpreting the various photons, air compression waves, molecular concentrations, pressure, texture and temperature signals it receives into a meaningful representation of external reality. So far, so good, but Eagleman gives insufficient credit to the brain for the superb job it does. All the incoming signals just mentioned are also an integral part of reality and, far from being somewhat of an illusion or a mere ‘show’, the impression of reality the brain puts together is a remarkably, accurate, dependable and consistent one – indeed, it cannot be otherwise because were this the case we would have utterly failed to successfully manage our environment and evolve as a species. It’s certainly no accident that six expert water colourists, for instance, painting exactly the same scene simultaneously from the same position, will record almost exactly the same visual impression – so much for the notion they individually make much of it up in their heads! Who Will We Be? - Now it's time for speculation - plug and play devices into the brain to take care of handicaps; sensory augmentation; keeping the brain in suspended animation; uploading one's consciousness into a computer; artificial intelligence... science fiction? Maybe. Like space travel was science fiction once upon a time. Research is ongoing in all these areas, with exciting possibilities opening up every day.



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