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CONSCIOUSNESS

YOU DIE EVERY NIGHT

A superbly comprehensive breakdown of the brain and its functions.

Awards & Accolades

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Van Goethem, a professor of medical imaging and neuroimaging at Antwerp University, offers a general-interest overview of the phenomenon of human consciousness.

The author takes readers on a “speculative journey” into the nature of consciousness and the contours of what he calls “neural correlate,” which refers to areas of the human brain where distinct mental processes occur: “While some may contend that consciousness is merely a mirage in a universe composed solely of matter and energy,” the author writes, “the question persists: From where does this sophisticated illusion arise?” The book goes through various correlates, detailing the nature, location, and functions of each, noting that “there is no single region in the brain’s cortex that is the anatomical seat of consciousness.” Each chapter is broken into conveniently smaller sections, complete with bullet points, and Van Goethem doesn’t forget the question of the “sophisticated illusion”; he devotes some time to an attempt at determining whether consciousness is, in fact, a figment of the imagination—a weird ghost in the machine of evolutionary biology. Along the way, the author clearly lays out his dissection of the workings of the brain, and each section reaches toward the central mystery of what consciousness is, how it functions, and how it changes over time and under specific physical conditions. Van Goethem’s book has clear black-and-white figures and diagrams, but, in this instance, they’re secondary to the author’s own fantastic talent for explanation; he provides sharp, accessible instruction on complicated material. “Consciousness must have an evolutionary advantage,” he notes at one point, “and that means that, in the end, it makes the chances for survival of the species, of the DNA, better.” This demystifying tone pervades the book and elevates it above others of its ilk.

A superbly comprehensive breakdown of the brain and its functions.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2024

ISBN: 9798335484466

Page Count: 260

Publisher: Self

Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024

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THINKING, FAST AND SLOW

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...

A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.

The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011

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THE ART OF THINKING CLEARLY

Hiccups aside, a mostly valuable compendium of irrational thinking, with a handful of blanket corrective maneuvers.

A waggish, cautionary compilation of pitfalls associated with systematic cognitive errors, from novelist Dobelli.

To be human is to err, routinely and with bias. We exercise deviation from logic, writes the author, as much as, and possibly more than, we display optimal reasoning. In an effort to bring awareness to this sorry state of affairs, he has gathered here—in three-page, anecdotally saturated squibs—nearly 100 examples of muddied thinking. Many will ring familiar to readers (Dobelli’s illustrations are not startlingly original, but observant)—e.g., herd instinct and groupthink, hindsight, overconfidence, the lack of an intuitive grasp of probability or statistical reality. Others, if not new, are smartly encapsulated: social loafing, the hourly rate trap, decision fatigue, carrying on with a lost cause (the sunk-cost fallacy). Most of his points stick home: the deformation of professional thinking, of which Mark Twain said, “If your only tool is a hammer, all your problems will be nails”; multitasking is the illusion of attention with potentially dire results if you are eating a sloppy sandwich while driving on a busy street. In his quest for clarity, Dobelli mostly brings shrewdness, skepticism and wariness to bear, but he can also be opaque—e.g., shaping the details of history “into a consistent story...we speak about ‘understanding,’ but these things cannot be understood in the traditional sense. We simply build the meaning into them afterward.” Well, yes. And if we are to be wary of stories, what are we to make of his many telling anecdotes when he counsels, “Anecdotes are a particularly tricky sort of cherry picking....To rebuff an anecdote is difficult because it is a mini-story, and we know how vulnerable our brains are to those”?

Hiccups aside, a mostly valuable compendium of irrational thinking, with a handful of blanket corrective maneuvers.

Pub Date: May 14, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-06-221968-8

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: March 5, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013

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