Stranger in the Mirror
The Scientific Search for the Self
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- 3,99 €
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- 3,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
Who are we? Where is the boundary between us and everything else? Are we all multiple personalities? And how can we control who we become?
From distinguished psychologist Robert Levine comes this provocative and entertaining scientific exploration of the most personal and important of all landscapes: the physical and psychological entity we call our self.
Using a combination of case studies and cutting-edge research in psychology, biology, neuroscience, virtual reality and many other fields, Levine challenges cherished beliefs about the unity and stability of the self - but also suggests that we are more capable of change than we know.
Transformation, Levine shows, is the human condition at virtually every level. Physically, our cells are unrecognizable from one moment to the next. Cognitively, our self-perceptions are equally changeable: A single glitch can make us lose track of a body part or our entire body, or to confuse our very self with that of another person. Psychologically, we switch back and forth like quicksilver between incongruent, sometimes adversarial sub-selves. Socially, we appear to be little more than an ever-changing troupe of actors. And, culturally, the boundaries of the self vary wildly around the world - from the confines of one's body to an entire village.
The self, in short, is a fiction: vague, arbitrary, and utterly intangible. But it is also interminably fluid. And this unleashes a world of potential.
Engaging, informative, and ultimately liberating, Stranger in the Mirror will change forever how you think about your self - and what you might become.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Who are we? What does it mean to have a self'? Where is the line between ourselves and everything else?" Levine (A Geography of Time) asks in this fascinating book, which draws on a variety of research in brain science, neurology, social psychology, and evolutionary biology. Levine illustrates that there is not one self but many, and he examines the many facets of those selves. What if you could cut and paste various elements of the brain, such as memories? Would you still be yourself if you received a brain transplant from another person, even if you had the same body? What happens when parts of your body act as if they're not your own, or not controlled by your brain, as in alien hand syndrome, in which one hand moves involuntarily? Levine explores cases of human chimeras, in which individuals are composed of multiple human genomes, and dissociative identity disorder, in which various selves compete for attention in one individual. In his quest to understand the nature of the self, he explores schizophrenia, artistic creativity, and the relationships between identical twins. Levine concludes that the real self continually changes at many levels more akin to a "republic than an individual."
