Proust Was A Neuroscientist
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Proust Was A Neuroscientist
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Author : Jonah Lehrer
language : en
Publisher: Canongate Books
Release Date : 2011-02-03
Proust Was A Neuroscientist written by Jonah Lehrer and has been published by Canongate Books this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011-02-03 with Science categories.
Is science the only path to knowledge? In this sparkling and provocative book Jonah Lehrer, author of The Decisive Moment, explains that when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first. Taking a group of celebrated writers, painters and composers, Lehrer shows us how artists have discovered truths about the human mind - real, tangible truths - that science is only now rediscovering. We learn, for example, how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George Eliot understood the brain's malleable nature; how the French chef Escoffier intuited umami (the fifth taste); how Cézanne worked out the subtleties of vision; and how Virginia Woolf pierced the mysteries of consciousness. It's a riveting tale of art trumping science, again and again.
Proust Was A Neuroscientist
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Author : Jonah Lehrer
language : en
Publisher: HMH
Release Date : 2008-09-01
Proust Was A Neuroscientist written by Jonah Lehrer and has been published by HMH this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2008-09-01 with Science categories.
The New York Times–bestselling author provides an “entertaining” look at how artists enlighten us about the workings of the brain (New York magazine). In this book, the author of How We Decide and Imagine: How Creativity Works “writes skillfully and coherently about both art and science”—and about the connections between the two (Entertainment Weekly). In this technology-driven age, it’s tempting to believe that science can solve every mystery. After all, it’s cured countless diseases and sent humans into space. But as Jonah Lehrer explains, science is not the only path to knowledge. In fact, when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first. Taking a group of artists—a painter, a poet, a chef, a composer, and a handful of novelists—Lehrer shows how each one discovered an essential truth about the mind that science is only now rediscovering. We learn, for example, how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George Eliot discovered the brain’s malleability; how the French chef Escoffier discovered umami (the fifth taste); how Cézanne worked out the subtleties of vision; and how Gertrude Stein exposed the deep structure of language—a full half-century before the work of Noam Chomsky and other linguists. More broadly, Lehrer shows that there’s a cost to reducing everything to atoms and acronyms and genes. Measurement is not the same as understanding, and art knows this better than science does. An ingenious blend of biography, criticism, and first-rate science writing, Proust Was a Neuroscientist urges science and art to listen more closely to each other, for willing minds can combine the best of both to brilliant effect. “His book marks the arrival of an important new thinker . . . Wise and fresh.” —Los Angeles Times
How We Decide
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Author : Jonah Lehrer
language : en
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Release Date : 2009
How We Decide written by Jonah Lehrer and has been published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2009 with Education categories.
The first book to use the unexpected discoveries of neuroscience to help us make the best decisions Since Plato, philosophers have described the decision-making process as either rational or emotional: we carefully deliberate, or we "blink" and go with our gut. But as scientists break open the mind's black box with the latest tools of neuroscience, they're discovering that this is not how the mind works. Our best decisions are a finely tuned blend of both feeling and reason--and the precise mix depends on the situation. When buying a house, for example, it's best to let our unconscious mull over the many variables. But when we're picking a stock, intuition often leads us astray. The trick is to determine when to use the different parts of the brain, and to do this, we need to think harder (and smarter) about how we think. Jonah Lehrer arms us with the tools we need, drawing on cutting-edge research as well as the real-world experiences of a wide range of "deciders"--from airplane pilots and hedge fund investors to serial killers and poker players. Lehrer shows how people are taking advantage of the new science to make better television shows, win more football games, and improve military intelligence. His goal is to answer two questions that are of interest to just about anyone, from CEOs to firefighters: How does the human mind make decisions? And how can we make those decisions better?
Proust And The Squid
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Author : Maryanne Wolf
language : en
Publisher: Harper Collins
Release Date : 2008-08-26
Proust And The Squid written by Maryanne Wolf and has been published by Harper Collins this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2008-08-26 with Science categories.
"Human beings were never born to read," writes Tufts University cognitive neuroscientist and child development expert Maryanne Wolf. Reading is a human invention that reflects how the brain rearranges itself to learn something new. In this ambitious, provocative book, Wolf chronicles the remarkable journey of the reading brain not only over the past five thousand years, since writing began, but also over the course of a single child's life, showing in the process why children with dyslexia have reading difficulties and singular gifts. Lively, erudite, and rich with examples, Proust and the Squid asserts that the brain that examined the tiny clay tablets of the Sumerians was a very different brain from the one that is immersed in today's technology-driven literacy. The potential transformations in this changed reading brain, Wolf argues, have profound implications for every child and for the intellectual development of our species.
A Book About Love
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Author : Jonah Lehrer
language : en
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Release Date : 2016-07-12
A Book About Love written by Jonah Lehrer and has been published by Simon and Schuster this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2016-07-12 with Psychology categories.
Number one bestselling science writer Jonah Lehrer explores the “only happiness that lasts”—love—in a book that “is interesting on nearly every page” (David Brooks, The New York Times Book Review). Weaving together scientific studies from clinical psychologists, longitudinal studies of health and happiness, historical accounts and literary depictions, child-rearing manuals, and the language of online dating sites, Jonah Lehrer’s A Book About Love plumbs the most mysterious, most formative, most important impulse governing our lives. Love confuses and compels us—and it can destroy and define us. It has inspired our greatest poetry, defined our societies and our beliefs, and governs our biology. From the way infants attach to their parents, to the way we fall in love with another person, to the way some find a love for God or their pets, to the way we remember and mourn love after it expires, this book focuses on research that attempts, even in glancing ways, to deal with the long-term and the everyday. The most dangerous myth of love is that it’s easy, that we fall into the feeling and then the feeling takes care of itself. While we can easily measure the dopamine that causes the initial feelings of “falling” in love, the partnerships and devotions that last decades or longer remain a mystery. “Lehrer uses scores of detailed vignettes to traverse a complicated intellectual landscape, eventually arriving at modern theories of love…He is a talent” (USA TODAY), and A Book About Love decodes the set of skills necessary to cultivate a lifetime of love. Love, Lehrer argues, is not built solely on overwhelming passion, but, fascinatingly, on a set of skills to be cultivated over a lifetime.
Mystery
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Author : Jonah Lehrer
language : en
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Release Date : 2021-08-17
Mystery written by Jonah Lehrer and has been published by Simon and Schuster this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2021-08-17 with Psychology categories.
New York Times bestselling author Jonah Lehrer “unravels the mystery of mysteries” in this “absolute delight” (Malcolm Gladwell) of a book that blends psychology, neuroscience, and anthropology to shine a new light on everything from the formulas of our favorite detective shows to the tricks of successful advertising campaigns and the calculated risks of the stock market. Why is mystery so compelling? What draws us to the unknown? Jonah Lehrer sets out to answer these questions in a vividly entertaining and surprisingly profound journey through the science of suspense. He finds that nothing can capture a person’s attention as strongly as mystery, and that mystery is the key principle in how humans view and understand the world. Whenever patterns are broken, we are hard-wired to find out why. Without our curiosity driving us to pursue new discoveries and solve stubborn problems, we would never have achieved the breakthroughs that have revolutionized human medicine, technology—and culture. From Shakespeare’s plays to the earliest works of the detective genre, our entertainment and media have continually reinvented successful forms of mystery to hook audiences. Here, Lehrer interviews individuals in unconventional fields—from dedicated small-business owners to innovative schoolteachers—who use mystery to challenge themselves and to motivate others to reach to new heights. He also examines the indelible role of mystery in our culture, revealing how the magical world of Harry Potter triggers the magic of dopamine in our brains, why the baseball season is ten times longer than the football season, and when the suspect is introduced in each episode of Law & Order. Fascinating, illuminating, and fun, Mystery explores the many surprising ways in which embracing a sense of awe and curiosity can enrich our lives.
Mind Wide Open
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Author : Steven Johnson
language : en
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Release Date : 2004-02-27
Mind Wide Open written by Steven Johnson and has been published by Simon and Schuster this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2004-02-27 with Science categories.
BRILLIANTLY EXPLORING TODAY'S CUTTING-EDGE BRAIN RESEARCH, MIND WIDE OPEN IS AN UNPRECEDENTED JOURNEY INTO THE ESSENCE OF HUMAN PERSONALITY, ALLOWING READERS TO UNDERSTAND THEMSELVES AND THE PEOPLE IN THEIR LIVES AS NEVER BEFORE. Using a mix of experiential reportage, personal storytelling, and fresh scientific discovery, Steven Johnson describes how the brain works -- its chemicals, structures, and subroutines -- and how these systems connect to the day-to-day realities of individual lives. For a hundred years, he says, many of us have assumed that the most powerful route to self-knowledge took the form of lying on a couch, talking about our childhoods. The possibility entertained in this book is that you can follow another path, in which learning about the brain's mechanics can widen one's self-awareness as powerfully as any therapy or meditation or drug. In Mind Wide Open, Johnson embarks on this path as his own test subject, participating in a battery of attention tests, learning to control video games by altering his brain waves, scanning his own brain with a $2 million fMRI machine, all in search of a modern answer to the oldest of questions: who am I? Along the way, Johnson explores how we "read" other people, how the brain processes frightening events (and how we might rid ourselves of the scars those memories leave), what the neurochemistry is behind love and sex, what it means that our brains are teeming with powerful chemicals closely related to recreational drugs, why music moves us to tears, and where our breakthrough ideas come from. Johnson's clear, engaging explanation of the physical functions of the brain reveals not only the broad strokes of our aptitudes and fears, our skills and weaknesses and desires, but also the momentary brain phenomena that a whole human life comprises. Why, when hearing a tale of woe, do we sometimes smile inappropriately, even if we don't want to? Why are some of us so bad at remembering phone numbers but brilliant at recognizing faces? Why does depression make us feel stupid? To read Mind Wide Open is to rethink family histories, individual fates, and the very nature of the self, and to see that brain science is now personally transformative -- a valuable tool for better relationships and better living.
Reader Come Home
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Author : Maryanne Wolf
language : en
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date : 2018-08-14
Reader Come Home written by Maryanne Wolf and has been published by HarperCollins this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2018-08-14 with Science categories.
The author of the acclaimed Proust and the Squid follows up with a lively, ambitious, and deeply informative book that considers the future of the reading brain and our capacity for critical thinking, empathy, and reflection as we become increasingly dependent on digital technologies. A decade ago, Maryanne Wolf’s Proust and the Squid revealed what we know about how the brain learns to read and how reading changes the way we think and feel. Since then, the ways we process written language have changed dramatically with many concerned about both their own changes and that of children. New research on the reading brain chronicles these changes in the brains of children and adults as they learn to read while immersed in a digitally dominated medium. Drawing deeply on this research, this book comprises a series of letters Wolf writes to us—her beloved readers—to describe her concerns and her hopes about what is happening to the reading brain as it unavoidably changes to adapt to digital mediums. Wolf raises difficult questions, including: Will children learn to incorporate the full range of "deep reading" processes that are at the core of the expert reading brain? Will the mix of a seemingly infinite set of distractions for children’s attention and their quick access to immediate, voluminous information alter their ability to think for themselves? With information at their fingertips, will the next generation learn to build their own storehouse of knowledge, which could impede the ability to make analogies and draw inferences from what they know? Will all these influences change the formation in children and the use in adults of "slower" cognitive processes like critical thinking, personal reflection, imagination, and empathy that comprise deep reading and that influence both how we think and how we live our lives? How can we preserve deep reading processes in future iterations of the reading brain? Concerns about attention span, critical reasoning, and over-reliance on technology are never just about children—Wolf herself has found that, though she is a reading expert, her ability to read deeply has been impacted as she has become increasingly dependent on screens. Wolf draws on neuroscience, literature, education, and philosophy and blends historical, literary, and scientific facts with down-to-earth examples and warm anecdotes to illuminate complex ideas that culminate in a proposal for a biliterate reading brain. Provocative and intriguing, Reader, Come Home is a roadmap that provides a cautionary but hopeful perspective on the impact of technology on our brains and our most essential intellectual capacities—and what this could mean for our future.
Neurogastronomy
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Author : Gordon M. Shepherd
language : en
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Release Date : 2011-12-02
Neurogastronomy written by Gordon M. Shepherd and has been published by Columbia University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011-12-02 with Science categories.
“A personal yet magisterial account of the new brain-based approach to flavor perception . . . [a] panoramic view of science, culture, and behavior.”—Avery Gilbert, author of What the Nose Knows Leading neuroscientist Gordon M. Shepherd embarks on a paradigm-shifting trip through the “human brain flavor system,” laying the foundations for a new scientific field: neurogastronomy. Challenging the belief that the sense of smell diminished during human evolution, Shepherd argues that this sense, which constitutes the main component of flavor, is far more powerful and essential than previously believed. Shepherd begins Neurogastronomy with the mechanics of smell, particularly the way it stimulates the nose from the back of the mouth. As we eat, the brain conceptualizes smells as spatial patterns, and from these and the other senses it constructs the perception of flavor. Shepherd then considers the impact of the flavor system on contemporary social, behavioral, and medical issues. He analyzes flavor’s engagement with the brain regions that control emotion, food preferences, and cravings, and he even devotes a section to food’s role in drug addiction and, building on Marcel Proust’s iconic tale of the madeleine, its ability to evoke deep memories. Shepherd connects his research to trends in nutrition, dieting, and obesity, especially the challenges that many face in eating healthily. He concludes with human perceptions of smell and flavor and their relationship to the neural basis of consciousness. Everyone from casual diners and ardent foodies to wine critics, chefs, scholars, and researchers will delight in Shepherd’s fascinating, scientific-gastronomic adventures. “Those who make the effort will be rewarded: they’ll never look at eating the same way again.”—Library Journal
Imagine
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Author : Jonah Lehrer
language : en
Publisher: Canongate Books
Release Date : 2012
Imagine written by Jonah Lehrer and has been published by Canongate Books this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012 with Psychology categories.
How do you measure the imagination? How do you quantify an epiphany? In Jonah Lehrer's book, we go in search of the epiphany. Shattering the myth of creative 'types', Lehrer shows how new research is deepening our understanding of the human imagination.