Mark Twain

this is essentially the second half of The Fifth Risk

Revisado: 10-14-18

this is essentially the second half of The Fifth Risk but read by the author

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if audible subscriber

Revisado: 10-14-18

the second half of this is the same as the 'exclusive' audible original piece read by the author and released as a freebie in september. book is great, just too short.

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High yield

Revisado: 01-21-16

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I am an academic brain scientist. I got into neuroscience because of teenage interest in exactly the philosophical questions addressed in this book, in short, the mind-body problem. Most books on consciousness, however, are failures. This book succeeds where others fail because it does not (poorly) attempt to solve the problem. Rather, it is an historical account of the idea of physical substance for mentality, and all its entailments. This is not light reading. It commands attention but, it also delivers.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Buy it.

Revisado: 06-09-08

Once you get beyond the pretense of the title, this is a solid little book.

Foremost, it is an attempt to interpret cultural themes with a neuroscientific lens (c.f. Margaret Livingstone's Vison and Art for a similar undertaking with respect to art history and trends in painting). For instance, in the chapter on Proust and memory, Proust is interpreted as foreshadowing current thinking in cognitive neuroscience on the mutability of memories. The discourse covers literary and biographic history as much as, or more than, it does contemporary neuroscience. Other treatments include the intersection of French gastronomy and recent developments in perceptual neuroscience and the intersection of Gertrude Stein's writing and Chomskyian linguistics--Chomsky being a father of cognitive science with theoretical claims on neuroscience, if not actually a neuroscientist. Each section is well delivered, informative, and fascinating.

Limitations of the book are mainly a function of scale. The book is brief and neuroscience is technical. Where a more conventional book of science writing attempts to fully develop the scientific content, this book only attempts to outline current states of thinking. As such, upon conclusion, readers hitherto unacquainted with these scientific areas may find themselves aware of current positions and developments in neuroscience without, perhaps, having found a clear understanding the evidence and theory supporting the views examined by the author. Accepting that, the snapshots provided are very current. This is both a blessing and, perhaps, something that will necessitate revisions in later editions.

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