The Brain: The Story of You

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New York Observer "Eagleman has a talent for testing the untestable, for taking seemingly sophomoric notions and using them to nail down the slippery stuff of consciousness." Our perception of reality has less to do with what’s happening out there, and more to do with what’s happening inside our brain."

The Brain: The Story of You by David Eagleman The Brain: The Story of You by David Eagleman

Full of interesting facts spruced throughout the book. “As many as two million new connections, or synapses, are formed every second in an infant’s brain. By age two, a child has over one hundred trillion synapses, double the number an adult has.” 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. All the experiences in your life- from single conversations to your broader culture- shape the microscopic details of your brain. Neurally speaking, who you are depends on where you've been. Your brain is a relentless shape-shifter, constantly rewriting its own circuitry- and because your experiences are unique, so are the vast detailed patterns in your neural networks. Because they continue to change your whole life, your identity is a moving target; it never reaches an endpoint.” A clever little book by a neuroscientist translates lofty concepts of infinity and death into accessible human terms. What happens after we die? Eagleman wonders in each of these brief, evocative Continue reading »

Writing a popular science book (I won't use the abhorrent term "pop science") is a dicey affair. If it becomes too scientific, it is not likely to be popular; but if it dumbs the science down too much, it tends not to be taken seriously by discerning readers. So the writer of such a tome has a tough time, striking exactly the right note - that is why very few people succeed in this field. David Eagleman is one such, and this book is gem.

The Brain The Story Of You ( PDFDrive ) - Archive.org The Brain The Story Of You ( PDFDrive ) - Archive.org

One thing in conclusion - my review contains only the bare bones of the book. I have left out the various real-world examples Eagleman uses to bolster his arguments, for fear of bloating it up. These examples are actually the most endearing part of the book. The enemy of memory isn’t time; it’s other memories. Each new event needs to establish new relationships among a finite number of neurons. The surprise is that a faded memory doesn’t seem faded to you. You feel, or at least assume, that the full picture is there.” In the fine tradition of Carl Sagan, Eagleman shows that science is captivating without hyped embellishment, and, if you pay attention, you’ll find yourself immersed in it.” – ForbesSunday Herald "David Eagleman offers startling lessons.... His method is to ask us to cast off our lazy commonplace assumptions. So not only was it possible to implant false new memories in the brain, but people embraced and embellished them, unknowingly weaving fantasy into the fabric of their identity.” I understand the need to write a book for a lay audience, I really do. The unfortunate part is that much of what Eagleman presents in the book is just simply wrong and not supported by any real science. Early in the "book" he talks about how memories are stored as function connections between neurons. He alludes that the reason our memories are not entirely accurate is that the neurons have a limited number of connections and have to be adaptable. This is pure speculative fiction. Sure, this could be the truth, but there is no actual research that says this. It is unknown how memories are stored in the brain or why they are so labile. To present this interpretation as a FACT is not responsible. We think of color as a fundamental quality of the world around us. But in the outside world, color doesn’t actually exist. When electromagnetic radiation hits an object, some of it bounces off and is captured by our eyes. We can distinguish between millions of combinations of wavelengths – but it is only inside our heads that any of this becomes color. Color is an interpretation of wavelengths, one that only exists internally.”