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shilohstone's review
5.0
Absolutely fascinating. A perfect read for anyone who wants to understand more about the most incredible organ in our bodies but doesn’t want to wrestle with the scientific jargon of typical neuroscience texts.
slichto3's review
4.0
Wowza, this book about the brain really bends the brain. I was pretty fascinated by it - I only wish it had gone into more detail and length about most of the topics.
The Brain is about the human brain. There, I'm done!
The book tries to elucidate, in a very relatable format, the most up-to-date scientific information about how the brain functions. It is stunning, informative, and a bit disturbing.
This may be tedious, but here are some of the coolest things I learned:
* When we're first born, the neurons in our brain aren't connected, and we don't really know anything. At the age of about two, though, we have a hyper-connected brain, with more connections than we'll have at any point in our lives! At this point, we start to prune connections, and that's a lot of what happens as we grow up to be adults!
* Memories are just connections of neurons in the brain
* Memories and our imagination can very often get confused! Even imagining something can set up a connection of neurons that can make us think that that's a memory! Which is how we can misremember and have false memories
* Our eyes, all by themselves, don't allow us to see! We need a big chunk of our brain, properly programmed, in order to see the world. When babies interact with the world by grabbing at stuff and moving around, part of what they're doing is allowing their brain to align their different senses with their bodily movements and with each other. If a baby is not allowed to do this, it won't be able to truly learn how to see or use other senses!
* Your brain has an internal model of what's in the world. When you look around, your brain compares what it's sensing with what it's actually seeing, and pays special attention to big differences - where the internal model is wrong. But the internal model is running even when we're not sensing things. The brain is attempting to construct a reality without data, which results in dreams
* When super dangerous things happen in our lives, we often remember the event as if it's going in slow motion. Do we actually perceive, in real time, the event going in slow motion? No. When something dangerous is going on, it triggers the brain to record memory in a different, much more detailed way. Because the brain is not used to having memories in such detail, it seems, in retrospect, as if the memory is in slow motion. Like adding extra frames to a cartoon - it's gets smoother and slower
* The unconscious brain is doing A LOT. In ways that we don't always appreciate. The operations of the unconscious brain can end up affecting our conscious decision making in a way that we can't always perceive. For example, we all know that when we're hungry, we're more likely to get angry. That's your unconscious brain intruding on your conscious thoughts. But there are even more ways the this happens. Some "coincidences" that result because of this: there are more dentists named Dennis or Denise than statistically makes sense, there are more lawyers named Laura or Laurence, we're more likely to marry people who's first acmes start with the same letter as our first names, men are more likely to find women with dilated eyes more attractive (without consciously realizing that their eyes are more dilated)
* So much of our brain is unconscious that it makes you question whether free will truly exists. There are experiments that show that manipulate our unconscious minds into making a decision for our conscious minds. When you ask people after this - did you consciously make this decision? They think that they consciously did make this decision. There may be more of an illusion of free will than we think. Instead of independently making decisions, we are relying on a lot of preprogrammed unconscious thinking
* When we try to make a decision, the different options are different sections of the brain activating and competing with each other. Whichever is strongest, wins. The more a section wins, the stronger it gets. This is how habits get formed! Different chunks of the brain specialize in different types of arguments - when we're trying to make a decision, they all compete with each other. To make decisions about the future, your brain tries to simulate the future, then compare it with other options. However, because it's only a simulation, the simulated future often loses out to more immediate concerns
* The brain is making predictions about how good or bad activities are going to be. If a situations goes better than we expect, the brain adjusts future predictions with that new information: we now think that activity will be a little better in the future
* Brains need social contact
* When we experience empathy, our brains are truly feeling the pain of someone else. However, we are more likely to feel that pain when the person is in our in-group. When people are in certain out groups, we experience less, or maybe no, empathy. Scary. Way to combat this: simulate how it feels to be the out group. Also, realize the arbitrary nature of the in and out groups
It's a good book, and makes me want to read and take notes on more like it.
The Brain is about the human brain. There, I'm done!
The book tries to elucidate, in a very relatable format, the most up-to-date scientific information about how the brain functions. It is stunning, informative, and a bit disturbing.
This may be tedious, but here are some of the coolest things I learned:
* When we're first born, the neurons in our brain aren't connected, and we don't really know anything. At the age of about two, though, we have a hyper-connected brain, with more connections than we'll have at any point in our lives! At this point, we start to prune connections, and that's a lot of what happens as we grow up to be adults!
* Memories are just connections of neurons in the brain
* Memories and our imagination can very often get confused! Even imagining something can set up a connection of neurons that can make us think that that's a memory! Which is how we can misremember and have false memories
* Our eyes, all by themselves, don't allow us to see! We need a big chunk of our brain, properly programmed, in order to see the world. When babies interact with the world by grabbing at stuff and moving around, part of what they're doing is allowing their brain to align their different senses with their bodily movements and with each other. If a baby is not allowed to do this, it won't be able to truly learn how to see or use other senses!
* Your brain has an internal model of what's in the world. When you look around, your brain compares what it's sensing with what it's actually seeing, and pays special attention to big differences - where the internal model is wrong. But the internal model is running even when we're not sensing things. The brain is attempting to construct a reality without data, which results in dreams
* When super dangerous things happen in our lives, we often remember the event as if it's going in slow motion. Do we actually perceive, in real time, the event going in slow motion? No. When something dangerous is going on, it triggers the brain to record memory in a different, much more detailed way. Because the brain is not used to having memories in such detail, it seems, in retrospect, as if the memory is in slow motion. Like adding extra frames to a cartoon - it's gets smoother and slower
* The unconscious brain is doing A LOT. In ways that we don't always appreciate. The operations of the unconscious brain can end up affecting our conscious decision making in a way that we can't always perceive. For example, we all know that when we're hungry, we're more likely to get angry. That's your unconscious brain intruding on your conscious thoughts. But there are even more ways the this happens. Some "coincidences" that result because of this: there are more dentists named Dennis or Denise than statistically makes sense, there are more lawyers named Laura or Laurence, we're more likely to marry people who's first acmes start with the same letter as our first names, men are more likely to find women with dilated eyes more attractive (without consciously realizing that their eyes are more dilated)
* So much of our brain is unconscious that it makes you question whether free will truly exists. There are experiments that show that manipulate our unconscious minds into making a decision for our conscious minds. When you ask people after this - did you consciously make this decision? They think that they consciously did make this decision. There may be more of an illusion of free will than we think. Instead of independently making decisions, we are relying on a lot of preprogrammed unconscious thinking
* When we try to make a decision, the different options are different sections of the brain activating and competing with each other. Whichever is strongest, wins. The more a section wins, the stronger it gets. This is how habits get formed! Different chunks of the brain specialize in different types of arguments - when we're trying to make a decision, they all compete with each other. To make decisions about the future, your brain tries to simulate the future, then compare it with other options. However, because it's only a simulation, the simulated future often loses out to more immediate concerns
* The brain is making predictions about how good or bad activities are going to be. If a situations goes better than we expect, the brain adjusts future predictions with that new information: we now think that activity will be a little better in the future
* Brains need social contact
* When we experience empathy, our brains are truly feeling the pain of someone else. However, we are more likely to feel that pain when the person is in our in-group. When people are in certain out groups, we experience less, or maybe no, empathy. Scary. Way to combat this: simulate how it feels to be the out group. Also, realize the arbitrary nature of the in and out groups
It's a good book, and makes me want to read and take notes on more like it.