Stephanie Romer

Everyone needs to read this

Revisado: 05-31-22

What a successful civilization does is to provide a constructive place for every personality type. That is genius. A cell has mitochondria. Your gut has a myriad of microbes, your body has a brain and a heart. We are walking examples of how it is done.
Every successful civilization revolves around great truths. Meaning is a great, objective storehouse of life. You can’t fake it. It is not optional. And a hallmark of the most important truth is universality. We can get through things by the things we personally love, there is a temporary small power there, even though it feels enormous. But universal love, the highest universal truth, ultimately sustains us all.
I cried several times reading this book. I was born seeing these things and I remember as a child thinking that the idea of Santa Claus was training for all the things we are supposed to believe in as adults. I was searingly objective. I never found solace in self-deception either. But I never even questioned the existence of god. Even though in my own emotional makeup I saw the horror and drama of a thousand generations of pain and loss in my ancestors as the mirror image of my emotions.
And yet now more than ever in history we have a chance to change things. Search for and find truth. Real objective truth. Never stop half way and think you know what things are. Our ancestors did not —and we are living in their emotional cruel world. Tell them NO. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for the emotions which will be the foundation of why I build a world of love and truth every time I hear them speaking. I will choose life. I will choose meaning. Logo therapy for the world. A beautiful book.

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Informative and interesting but mispronunciation

Revisado: 05-16-22

This is an extremely important and interesting book tracing the epistemological history of conceptions of the brain from antiquity to the present. However, be prepared to be thrown out of deep listening repeatedly by unbelievably egregious mispronunciation of basic words. For example, the word “synapse” as you can imagine is used extremely frequently later in the book. The narrator hired to read this liberally self-styles the word to sound like perhaps the artist formerly known as “Prince” might take license with a word or symbol. However, this is not pop music, it’s an important science book. As a neuroscientist it was like fingernails on a blackboard to hear even the names of important scientists mispronounced. The absolute worst was “sine-aps” like he was referring to an application on your phone for sine-waves. It’s not spelled like that and grammar is important. It’s positively “syn” ful. Imagine that happening Over and over again like the increase in the rate of firing of the chalkboard ganglion detected by a friggin needle stuck in your brain. And that’s just one of the mispronunciations. Ya… Definitely an hours-long argument for getting the print book.

I wanted to point this out so you can make the right decision about it. An informed decision. Because the content is amazing and I highly recommend this book. I have noticed mispronunciation before but never wrote about it because of course it will happen from time to time—like with names. But not for central words in a book about brain science. There should be sound editing for audio books like there are print editors for print books.

I am especially incensed because I love this book and it’s so important. It deserves better.

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At some point in life

Revisado: 10-26-21

Destiny is inherent in the structure of the universe. At some point in life you understand these words on another level.

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Awesome content, heavily mispronounced

Revisado: 10-21-21

This was a comprehensive overview of the state of the art: that’s what I love about Scientific American stuff. Not an overview of the field by an “expert” skewed to their own views but a true overview. Each of the articles had a bias, but these were dealt with well.

However there were so many cringe-worthy mispronounced words it was unreal. Like Tononi’s “Phi” was pronounced like a “fee” instead of like the Greek letter. Another one was “ketamine”. This is the problem when you get someone who is not familiar with the field to read. However her reading in other respects was awesome. Some readers may be more accurate but they can sound robotic. She was much less so. But in audiobooks the equivalent of proof-reading is pronunciations at the most basic level. So those stood out like misspelling.

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Wow, so comprehensive and eclectic. Perfect!

Revisado: 10-21-21

Loved this. Detail enough to say something and diverse angles enough to have what it says actually mean something. Thank you so much. One of my favorite things ever!

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Separation and focus

Revisado: 10-19-21

This was very nice and interesting. He talks about religion vs science a lot. Says science can’t answer the big questions about religion. He quotes and speaks about high-cultural things. He seems to separate meaning from the discoveries of science.

From this, I can see the gap in his education. People tend to focus and assume a pattern of thought of the focus-group they belong to. The divisions of science are like that. So he mentions a few philosophers but draws a line between them and science. So no epistemology. Standard views of the arts—even though he talks about a group that meets to discuss art and science, he doesn’t make the connection.

Then he says we have and need big questions to ponder. All very frustrating because it seems like a rationalization and a description of where he is now, maybe where we are now. With a bent toward making science and religion not fight —but remain separate.

So yeah full disclosure—these are not my views. It’s like coming to a new world and seeing haunted echoes of familiar patterns in their structures and rituals but also being horrified at how primitive and barbaric. And how far from understanding they are. And the patterns they do have serve ingrained psychological needs, so you won’t be teaching them any fully new ways of learning anytime soon.

I may seem like I am being mean, but I actually loved this book. At least he brought together a lot of interesting things. It is stimulating in many ways. Different ways for me, maybe. But well worth the listen or read.

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Some Very High Points... too much “nano-nano”

Revisado: 05-13-21

Some absolutely great coverage of many ideas. I especially like how he talks about how we have been working all this time to get to the “singularity” because I wrote a book about that back in 2001–so I admit that I am biased. But I took a wholly different approach.
The one thing that got really tedious is the Nanotechnology stuff. He goes on and on about it, but there’s no evidence that any of the extreme logistical hurdles can be surmounted. We already have nano-stuff. It’s called microbes. So I think small buglike things maybe...? But not micro. — but I am skeptical about nanotechnology in general, so I was put off by nano, nano. Also, you could make the case that 50% of the book is about that. I kept thinking about that old show “Mork and Mindy” he said “Nano-nano” so much, Lol!!!
Cant ding him too much though. Clearly he loves imagining and extrapolation of concepts to anticipate things —and I do love that. A lot. ❤️

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Doesn’t really Understand but good

Revisado: 05-04-21

This was interesting but the personality of the writer was evident in his philosophy of being against intellectual property. He takes a communist view of that when it is not like that. You have to encourage people who are inscrutable and difficult to understand and not able to negotiate the social world very well. These are the creators. Like it or not, the pioneer spirit and high intelligence and motivation for truth are extremely rare, and if you give authority to those who simply want to make a living, then they drag us all down. We need these people who do these things and we need to support them. I know people who predicted the intellectual history of the west 30 years ago but no one listened to them because of the “lowest common denominator” cacophony of voices which TRANSMIT interesting ideas and therefore stimulate the creative thinkers.

The problem is that people don’t know what they don’t know... and so they actually locked up Marconi in an insane asylum after he began talking about his idea for radio. In a more current sense, we ignore people who don’t have degrees when getting a higher degree REQUIRES conformity to the current view.

I think this book is excuse making for the proliferation of people who decide that they know what “thinking” is because they have a degree. It’s like the same old social patterns of religion declaring that it knows truth. He cites Kuhn, without really understanding what Kuhn is saying about social forces.

So if you know that going in, it’s a stimulating read—ironically by accident in just the way he touts in the book, which supports that part of the ideas which is really good. That’s the best part of this—how ideas are found by accident. I know why this happens so there is much more to the story and I wrote a critical review because this book was worth it.

I highly recommend this book even with the “everybody wins” or “everyone gets the creativity out of the blue because that feels good” assertion, Lol. MUCH better than most but not always for the reasons that the author intended. Much love.

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A great portal into human psychology

Revisado: 02-13-21

I loved this book, even though I fundamentally was shocked and alienated by it. The motives he describes, the self-domestication of the human mind, are what has been the primary alienating factor in my life. I hardly expected the book to go so deep into the unspoken motivation which has dogged me my whole life. I have taken many psychological tests over the years and went to graduate school in behavioral neuroscience and evolutionary psychology but never finished because I never automatically developed the control function he speaks of so eloquently. My main motivation is truth, and it has set me at odds with the social world, and with most humans eventually. This was the first book I have ever read out of thousands that truly changed my view of writing forever and so to me it has instantly become my most favorite and influential writing book. Just know that there are people who do not have a need to control in some instances for whatever reason. I am in a 1% psychological group on many measurements including openness, agreeableness, and IQ. So I have trouble seeing from the perspective of the majority and their needs and motives. This book was the lens and light which showed me how humans think and how to reach them more than any other. I can honestly say that this was one of the best books I have ever read in any subject because of this. It’s value to me as a writer is incalculable. Thank you for writing this book and changing my life forever.

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One of the best Audiobooks ever

Revisado: 02-12-21

I loved everything about this. It greatly exceeded my expectations. Highly recommended. Both the narration and the content were excellent.

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