Incognito (Enhanced Edition)
The Secret Lives of the Brain
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The enhanced eBook of David Eagleman's INCOGNITO includes the full text of the book plus 8 videos* in which the author discusses key elements of the book and his research. Topics covered include: How much of the inner-workings of the brain is beyond our conscious control; How reality can be so different inside different people's heads; Time perception; Synesthesia; Neuroscience and the legal system; What research is currently going on in Eagleman's lab; And what drew Eagleman to studying how the brain works.
If the conscious mind—the part you consider to be you—is just the tip of the iceberg, what is the rest doing?
In this sparkling and provocative new book, the renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman navigates the depths of the subconscious brain to illuminate surprising mysteries: Why can your foot move halfway to the brake pedal before you become consciously aware of danger ahead? Why do you hear your name being mentioned in a conversation that you didn’t think you were listening to? What do Ulysses and the credit crunch have in common? Why did Thomas Edison electrocute an elephant in 1916? Why are people whose names begin with J more likely to marry other people whose names begin with J? Why is it so difficult to keep a secret? And how is it possible to get angry at yourself—who, exactly, is mad at whom?
Taking in brain damage, plane spotting, dating, drugs, beauty, infidelity, synesthesia, criminal law, artificial intelligence, and visual illusions, Incognito is a thrilling subsurface exploration of the mind and all its contradictions.
*Video may not play on all readers. Check your user manual for details.
Customer Reviews
Informative but almost too much so.
This book explains many new ideas and concepts in an extremely clear fashion. Metaphors, examples, and based research are endless. As an informative tool, I think this book is on the level of college undergraduate books. It unassumingly opens a new world to readers.
My hang-up is that it caters too much to the fresh crowd. As someone who has been interested in neurology and the human body for a few years, I find there is a large amount of redundancy in this book. I don't need a detailed definition of peripheral vision, and an example to test my own. Having to read through a paragraph dedicated to defining peripheral vision alone discourages me from finishing the paragraph, and motivates me to skip through passages of the book to find what actually interests me. This is a feeling that I have throughout most of the book. ...There is too much hand holding, or enough that I begin to feel a bit insulted in the way that Eagleman assumes I, the reader, know so little. But where this is a hang-up for me, this could be very educational for another reader. So it's a personal gripe of mine, but I don't hold it against him.
All in all, I enjoy this book and do not regret the purchase.
What a discovery, and journey through We
David accomplished a rare feat. He wrote a compelling and highly entertaining book with a theme of neuroscience. As an IT guy, I don't carry any innate desire to know neuroscience; nevertheless, found myself drawn hypnotically to read on. This book felt like a fascinating conversation with geniuses from present and past, all who cared what you think. David Eagleman did a frighteningly efficient job of predicting how I would rebut his outrageous claims before I could manifest my challenge. He simultaneously found an enticing way to entertain me while teaching me compacted nuggets of wisdom that have been derived from recent neuroscience exploration... All directly identifying with the "me" that I find myself wondering about every day.
He tackled some big obstacles while distilling it down to the common man's question's of "self": Why do we do what we do? How can we make it to work and forget driving there? Why do we sometimes blurt out dumb and sometimes erroneous reasons for doing things when challenged why we did them? How does religion tie to our scientific experience today? What influences our prejudices?
I have recommended this book to chief's of companies, my 12 year old son, my confidants with children of mental misfortune, my rivals at work and anyone else who would listen. What a wonderful discovery. The content is rich. The author entertains and identifies with you, but most of all, he teaches in the way reminiscent of that professor of long ago, who's wisdom and instruction burned into your brain, where others vanished into the purge bucket of the unimportant. Don't pass this book up. It will change the way you think... For the better.
Blowing your mind
Eaglemen delivers a compelling and detailed narrative on the human brain.
By the end of this book you'll question (in a healthy way) your very sense of self. It will have you realize that you are a part of something greater, the evolution of the human species.