en-US Thu, 08 Oct 2020 21:32:23 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 51778153 From the best-selling author of Incognito and Sum comes a revelatory portrait of the human brain based on the most recent scientific discoveries about how it unceasingly adapts, re-creates, and formulates new ways of understanding the world we live in.

The magic of the brain is not found in the parts it's made of but in the way those parts unceasingly reweave themselves in an electric living fabric. And there is no more accomplished and accessible guide than renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman to help us understand the nature and changing texture of that fabric. With his hallmark clarity and enthusiasm he reveals the myriad ways that the brain absorbs experience: developing, redeploying, organizing, and arranging the data it receives from the body's own absorption of external stimuli, which enables us to gain the skills, the facilities, and the practices that make us who we are.
Eagleman covers decades of the most important research into the functioning of the brain and presents new discoveries from his own research as well: about the nature of synesthesia, about dreaming, and about wearable devices that are revolutionizing how we think about the five human senses. Finally, Livewired is as deeply informative as it is accessible and brilliantly engaging.]]> 352 David Eagleman 030790749X David 5 4.17 2014
author: David Eagleman
name: David
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2014
rating: 5
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average rating: 3.97
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The Runaway Species is a deep dive into the creative mind, a celebration of the human spirit, and a vision of how we can improve our future by understanding and embracing our ability to innovate. David Eagleman and Anthony Brandt seek to answer the what lies at the heart of humanity’s ability—and drive—to create?

Our ability to remake our world is unique among all living things. But where does our creativity come from, how does it work, and how can we harness it to improve our lives, schools, businesses, and institutions?

Eagleman and Brandt examine hundreds of examples of human creativity through dramatic storytelling and stunning images in this beautiful, full–color volume. By drawing out what creative acts have in common and viewing them through the lens of cutting–edge neuroscience, they uncover the essential elements of this critical human ability, and encourage a more creative future for all of us.

“ The Runaway Species approach[es] creativity scientifically but sensitively, feeling its roots without pulling them out.” — The Economist]]> 304 David Eagleman 1936787520 David 0 3.79 2017
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average rating: 3.79
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]]> 25776132 224 David Eagleman 1101870532 David 0 4.25 2015
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]]> 4948826 Sum is a dazzling exploration of unexpected afterlives—each presented as a vignette that offers a stunning lens through which to see ourselves in the here and now. In one afterlife, you may find that God is the size of a microbe and unaware of your existence. In another version, you work as a background character in other people’s dreams. Or you may find that God is a married couple, or that the universe is running backward, or that you are forced to live out your afterlife with annoying versions of who you could have been. With a probing imagination and deep understanding of the human condition, acclaimed neuroscientist David Eagleman offers wonderfully imagined tales that shine a brilliant light on the here and now.]]> 110 David Eagleman 0307377342 David 0 4.13 2009
author: David Eagleman
name: David
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2009
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]]> 9827912 290 David Eagleman 0307377334 David 0 4.10 2011
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average rating: 4.10
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]]> 11558438 130 David Eagleman David 5 4.10 2009
author: David Eagleman
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average rating: 4.10
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]]> 9912886 Na je dood beleef je je hele leven opnieuw, maar nu spelen de gebeurtenissen zich in een andere volgorde af: alle momenten die een bepaalde eigenschap gemeen hebben zijn achter elkaar geplakt.
Twee maanden lang rijd je door de straat voor je huis, je hebt zeven maanden seks. Je slaapt dertig jaar zonder Ă©Ă©n keer je ogen open te doen. Vijf hele maanden zit je op de wc tijdschriften te lezen.

Op een ingenieuze en grappige manier beschrijft neuroloog David Eagleman veertig mogelijke opzetten van het hiernamaals. Hij doet allerlei suggesties omtrent de zin van ons bestaan: we zijn mobiele robotten van kosmische kaartenmakers, we zijn een reĂĽnie van verspreid geraakte atomen, we zijn proefkonijnen van goden die willen weten waarom sommige echtparen bij elkaar blijven en andere niet.

David Eagleman is in New Mexico geboren. Hij is neuroloog en wetenschapper bij Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. Dit is zijn eerste filosofische boek voor een breed publiek.]]> 126 David Eagleman 902957156X David 5 3.64 2009
author: David Eagleman
name: David
average rating: 3.64
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]]> 11347199 0 David Eagleman 359338793X David 5 4.50 2009
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]]> 6392241
How does our sense of morality arise from the structure of the brain?

What does the latest research in language acquisition tells us about the role of culture in the way we think?

What does current neurological research tell us about the nature of time?

This wide-ranging collection of never-before-published essays offers the very latest insights into the daunting scientific questions of our time. Its contributors—some of the most brilliant young scientists working today—provide not only an introduction to their cutting-edge research, but discuss the social, ethical, and philosophical ramifications of their work. With essays covering fields as diverse as astrophysics, paleoanthropology, climatology, and neuroscience, What's Next? is a lucid and informed guide to the new frontiers of science.]]> 237 Max Brockman 0307389316 David 5 3.74 2009
author: Max Brockman
name: David
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2009
rating: 5
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]]> 2706211
Today, nine out of ten Americans live in places at significant risk of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, terrorism, or other disasters. Tomorrow, some of us will have to make split-second choices to save ourselves and our families. How will we react? What will it feel like? Will we be heroes or victims? Will our upbringing, our gender, our personality–anything we’ve ever learned, thought, or dreamed of–ultimately matter?
ĚýĚýĚýĚý
Amanda Ripley, an award-winning journalist for Time magazine who has covered some of the most devastating disasters of our age, set out to discover what lies beyond fear and speculation. In this magnificent work of investigative journalism, Ripley retraces the human response to some of history’s epic disasters, from the explosion of the Mont Blanc munitions ship in 1917–one of the biggest explosions before the invention of the atomic bomb–to a plane crash in England in 1985 that mystified investigators for years, to the journeys of the 15,000 people who found their way out of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Then, to understand the science behind the stories, Ripley turns to leading brain scientists, trauma psychologists, and other disaster experts, formal and informal, from a Holocaust survivor who studies heroism to a master gunfighter who learned to overcome the effects of extreme fear.

Finally, Ripley steps into the dark corners of her own imagination, having her brain examined by military researchers and experiencing through realistic simulations what it might be like to survive a plane crash into the ocean or to escape a raging fire.
ĚýĚýĚýĚý
Ripley comes back with precious wisdom about the surprising humanity of crowds, the elegance of the brain’s fear circuits, and the stunning inadequacy of many of our evolutionary responses. Most unexpectedly, she discovers the brain’s ability to do much, much better, with just a little help.

The Unthinkable escorts us into the bleakest regions of our nightmares, flicks on a flashlight, and takes a steady look around. Then it leads us home, smarter and stronger than we were before.]]> 266 Amanda Ripley 0307352897 David 4 4.16 2008
author: Amanda Ripley
name: David
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2008
rating: 4
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]]> 2284206 228 Ara 13 David 0 currently-reading 4.12 2007
author: Ara 13
name: David
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2007
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]]> 38261 In the spirit of Borges and Calvino, Dasgupta's writing combines an energetically modern landscape with a timeless, beguiling fairy-tale ethos, while bringing to life a cast of extraordinary individuals-some lost, some confused, some happy-in a world that remains ineffable, inexplicable, and wonderful.
A Ukrainian merchant is led by a wingless bird back to a lost lover; Robert De Niro's son masters the transubstantiation of matter and turns it against his enemies; a man who manipulates other people's memories has to confront his own past; a Japanese entrepreneur risks losing everything in his obsession with a doll; a mute Turkish girl is left alone in the house of a German man who is mapping the world.
Told by people on a journey, these are stories about lives in transit, stories that grow into an epic cycle about the hopes and dreams and disappointments that connect people everywhere.]]> 383 Rana Dasgupta 0802170099 David 4 3.28 2005
author: Rana Dasgupta
name: David
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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Terrifically creative. Every turn will surprise you.
]]> 816345 232 Michael Chorost 0618378294 David 5 3.67 2005
author: Michael Chorost
name: David
average rating: 3.67
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rating: 5
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]]> 8884400
Named for computer pioneer Alan Turing, the Tur­ing Test convenes a panel of judges who pose questions—ranging anywhere from celebrity gossip to moral conundrums—to hidden contestants in an attempt to discern which is human and which is a computer. The machine that most often fools the panel wins the Most Human Computer Award. But there is also a prize, bizarre and intriguing, for the Most Human Human.

In 2008, the top AI program came short of passing the Turing Test by just one astonishing vote. In 2009, Brian Christian was chosen to participate, and he set out to make sure Homo sapiens would prevail.

The author’s quest to be deemed more human than a com­puter opens a window onto our own nature. Interweaving modern phenomena like customer service “chatbots” and men using programmed dialogue to pick up women in bars with insights from fields as diverse as chess, psychiatry, and the law, Brian Christian examines the philosophical, bio­logical, and moral issues raised by the Turing Test.

One central definition of human has been “a being that could reason.” If computers can reason, what does that mean for the special place we reserve for humanity?]]> 303 Brian Christian 0385533063 David 5 3.94 2011
author: Brian Christian
name: David
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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A book exploring the wild frontiers of chat-bots is appealing enough; I never expected to discover in its pages such an eye-opening inquest into human imagination, thought, conversation, love and deception. Who would have guessed that the best way to understand humanity was to study its imitators?
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In Wednesday Is Indigo Blue, pioneering researcher Richard Cytowic and distinguished neuroscientist David Eagleman explain the neuroscience and genetics behind synesthesia’s multisensory experiences. Because synesthesia contradicted existing theory, Cytowic spent twenty years persuading colleagues that it was a real—and important—brain phenomenon rather than a mere curiosity. Today scientists in fifteen countries are exploring synesthesia and how it is changing the traditional view of how the brain works.

Cytowic and Eagleman argue that perception is already multisensory, though for most of us its multiple dimensions exist beyond the reach of consciousness. Reality, they point out, is more subjective than most people realize. No mere curiosity, synesthesia is a window on the mind and brain, highlighting the amazing differences in the way people see the world.]]> 309 Richard E. Cytowic 0262012790 David 5 3.89 2009
author: Richard E. Cytowic
name: David
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2009
rating: 5
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