A magical mystery tour made comprehensible and exhilarating by McCrone’s erudition and impressive expository gifts. (8 pages...
A science-writer reviews the theories and research that have produced the current view of the brain as a dynamic structure with only superficial resemblances to a digital computer.
McCrone (The Myth of Irrationality: The Science of the Mind from Plato to Star Trek, 1994, etc.) first identifies what have been the two principal camps in the consciousness debate: first, those who view the brain as a vast and wondrous computer whose structures and strategies can be pinpointed; second, those who have a more dynamic view of the brain and employ new insights from chaos and complexity theory to understand its operations. In language often fresh and lively, McCrone meticulously moves around the brain, describing advances made possible by PET technology, by MRI and MEG (magnetoencephalography) scanning; summarizing the discoveries of researchers all over the world; correcting common misconceptions (e.g., that right- and left-brain functions are discrete)—all the while creating a comprehensive view of consciousness that reaffirms the brain’s preeminence as nature’s most remarkable achievement. Among the most interesting of his revelations is that the brain is in a constant state of anticipation: even when nothing is really happening, neurons are firing, keeping circuits ready, checking to see what’s new. The latest research demonstrates, too, that the brain’s feedback structure has created its vast capacities: “The history of the brain has its impact on the processing of the moment,” he writes, “but then the processing of the moment has its impact on the history of the brain.” Near the end is a fascinating chapter arguing that the development of tools and language were necessary for the emergence of consciousness. Recognizing that much of the earliest fundamental research on brain function involved the damaging of animals (holes burned in cats’ eyeballs, entire portions of monkeys’ brains suctioned away), McCrone is insistent that most of the newest research uses scanners and dyes that hurt no one.
A magical mystery tour made comprehensible and exhilarating by McCrone’s erudition and impressive expository gifts. (8 pages color photographs)Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-88064-262-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
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IN THE NEWS
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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