The Self Delusion
The New Neuroscience of How We Invent—and Reinvent—Our Identities
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times–bestselling author reveals how the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, are critical to our lives
We all know we tell stories about ourselves. But as psychiatrist and neuroscientist Gregory Berns argues in The Self Delusion, we don’t just tell stories; we are the stories. Our self-identities are fleeting phenomena, continually reborn as our conscious minds receive, filter, or act on incoming information from the world and our memories.
Drawing on new research in neuroscience, social science, and psychiatry, Berns shows how our stories and our self-identities are temporary and therefore ever changing. Berns shows how we can embrace the delusion of a singular self to make our lives better, offering a plan not centered on what we think will be best for us, but predicated on minimizing regrets. Enlightening, empowering, and surprising, The Self Delusion shows us how to be the protagonist of the stories we want to tell.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Berns (What It's Like to Be a Dog), a psychology professor at Emory University, takes a crack at explaining human identity in this informative if not always persuasive treatise. Citing studies on how the brain stores and retrieves memories, perceives optical and tactile illusions, and experiences emotions, Berns describes identity as "lo-fi" simulation that the brain constructs, leading one to believe they are physically contiguous. Humans can never perceive their own brains, he writes, but one's mind has the potential of creating "multiple potential yous" based on one's mood. His ideas are intriguing, but his explanations are somewhat scattered—he cites out-of-body experiences, multiple-personality disorder, and belief in superstitions are proof of the brain's ability to "trick us in many ways," but doesn't quite connect them to his thesis. As well, his discussion of how various narratives (including Lascaux cave drawings, fairy tales, and superhero stories) serve as templates for self-identifying narratives, since "we cannot help but graft our own experiences onto these ubiquitous narratives," is a bit of a stretch. For the most part, readers willing to follow this winding exploration will be piqued, though perhaps not entirely convinced.
