By the end of the book I emerged feeling astonished not that people believe in crazy things, but that they believe anything at all. That online conversations often degenerate into insulting some stranger's questionable parentage is nowhere near as impressive as the fact that we're even able to hold self-consistent conversations without constantly collapsing into a dribbling wreck and pooping everywhere.
Really, if you're interested in rational thinking, you should probably buy this quite soon.
Review : The Idiot Brain
Too long didn't read version : " So that's the brain. Impressive, isn't it ? But, also, a bit stupid." That's the afterword and essentially the short version of Dr Dean Burnett's hugely impressive book, The Idiot Brain.
the apparent split between the rational/emotional minds is one of my favorite topics and it seems to be at the center of the book if I understand well. I put it in my reading list. Thanks for the tip!
ReplyDeleteI wrote some code for a neurobiologist who was doing work on the turtle brain. Two separate regions for sight, to account for vision above and below the water. Nothing significant mind you. Anyway, it's her assertion that what we recognise as human error / stupidity is the rational mind trying to prod the rest of the brain along. It's only been a few thousand years that we've had societies large enough to be called city-states. Most of our existence as a species was in small nomadic groups. We're quite good at some things. With others - always being the hero of our own story, our forgetfulness, our prejudices, the fact that we recognise these awful aspects of ourselves ought to give us some hope, that we ponder our frailties and wish we were better people.
ReplyDeleteHmmmmm. I don't think the book will be necessary...
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/h44QBRA5iNXczU4zxutR_24e5kxqO4c5Z2bfWDGLwSSQ_cnExHYyQnMkjngtihusjmfPtvClYDMSqlA=s0
What guarantee do we have that the author didn't use his "idiot brain" (i.e., his irrational mind) to write the book?
ReplyDeleteHow do we know that his conclusions weren't influenced by his cognitive biases, or that he or others whose work he has referenced in his book didn't cherry picked their results to support his theory, or that they designed (either intentionally or subconsciously) their experiments or their observational studies to reach such conclusions?
How do we know that the fault is in the human brain rather than in the experimenter's work (which presumably would have been affected by the experimenter's brain)?
Perhaps has their work been reviewed by non-human referees, free from those faults that they have allegedly identified in the human brain?
Chris Blackmore Well... maybe you can avoid the book then. But I bet none of the others make jokes about erotic Care Bears fan fiction.
ReplyDeleteRhys Taylor Steven Pinker may have...
ReplyDeleteOK Rhys Taylor you got me. I'm buying it, then reading it.
ReplyDeleteChris Blackmore I saw your Wm Calvin. ;-)
ReplyDeleteChris Blackmore extra points for having the Hofstadter.
ReplyDeleteFred Beckhusen Which one? There are 2.5 there.
ReplyDeleteRhys Taylor I knew I should not Google "erotic Care Bears fan fiction". Eeek. How many jokes about it are there in the book I might buy after all?
ReplyDeleteChris Blackmore ... and now your mind is scarred forever. It's as I always say about kink: first it's horrid, then it's fascinatingly horrid, then degrades into mere fascination. Might as well purchase the book now, eh?
ReplyDeleteChris Blackmore Only one as far as I can recall, but the phrase does tend to stick in one's memory. However, the author is also a stand-up comic, so it's very funny throughout. Can't imagine there's anything her that isn't somewhere in all those other books though.
ReplyDeleteRhys Taylor I gave in and ordered it from the Grauniad Bookshop, because Amazon don't pay their bloody tax.
ReplyDeleteHad a bookmark/tab open to look into this book. Just ordered it.
ReplyDelete