Author: David Eagleman
Edition: Pantheon Books hardcover edition, 2011
Edition: Pantheon Books hardcover edition, 2011
Online Resources
In The War on Reason, an article in the March 2014 issue of The Atlantic, Paul Bloom presents an opposing viewpoint to "human beings are little more than puppets of their biochemistry". Definitely worth reading for a fuller discussion of the essence of this book.
In the April 28, 2014 issue of the New Yorker, Michael Kingsley writes an article on his diagnosis of Parkinson's disease with a humorous slant that explores our reactions to measuring and understanding what is going on in our heads.
National Geographic has a number of recent articles on the brain available online. National Geographic may require registration to view some of their articles:
In the April 28, 2014 issue of the New Yorker, Michael Kingsley writes an article on his diagnosis of Parkinson's disease with a humorous slant that explores our reactions to measuring and understanding what is going on in our heads.
National Geographic has a number of recent articles on the brain available online. National Geographic may require registration to view some of their articles:
Your Brain
The following topics are just a beginning to form a conversation around Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. Let your group channel the discussion in ways meaningful to your members.
Your Brain in Action
Many experiments and brain functioning scenarios are presented in the book. Which of the brain functions could you most identify with? Do you see a calendar floating in front of you? (Page 81) Do you have a wider spectrum of color recognition than most? Do you drive home from work and not remember taking the exit off the highway? Do you ever play the observation game and try to remember what a particular person or place looks like? Have you ever been hit by another car and the other driver said, “He wasn’t there”?
Analogies
As part of his writing style to help the book appeal to the lay reader, Eagleman offers many analogies between the brain and areas of life including the following:
- a comparison to a newspaper (page 6)
- an analogy comparing the consciousnesses to the brain as earth compares to the Milky Way or the universe (page 19)
- a comparison to a young monarch giving no credit to the workers running the kingdom (page 99)
- an analogy relating the brain functions to a government with rivalries (page 107)
Which of these analogies worked best for you? Which opened up new ways to think about the brain—its vastness, its multiple and overlapping subroutines? Is there another that is more effective for your understanding?
Future Self / Present Self
Eagleman writes about the time shifting of the brain in several ways. One is the comparison of an individual in the present to the same individual in the future facing different inputs. When have you made a Ulysses contract (page 122) with yourself to keep your future self from going down the wrong track?
Secrets
When is it hardest for you to keep a secret? How did Eagleman’s presentation of a secret as a struggle between competing parts of the brain (page 147) help you understand secrets—yours or ones that have been shared with you?
The February 2014 issue of the Atlantic summarizes 6 studies on secret keeping. Maybe J.K Rowling tapped into the essence of our brains and secrets as she created Secret-Keepers in her Harry Potter series.
The February 2014 issue of the Atlantic summarizes 6 studies on secret keeping. Maybe J.K Rowling tapped into the essence of our brains and secrets as she created Secret-Keepers in her Harry Potter series.
Chicken Sexers
On page 57 Eagleman describes the ability of individuals to separate male and female chickens and how this seems to be done entirely by the subconscious. Is there anything that you find yourself doing more in the subconscious than the conscious? Would you call that a hunch? (Page 66) Have you ever known the answer but been unable to explain how you came to it?
Magic
Eagleman recounts the story of Arthur Alberts recording voices in Africa and the natives finding the tape recorder counterintuitive (page 3). Throughout time the currently unknowable has appeared magical.
What moments in history are the most vivid to you of times when humans were unable to comprehend what we now understand?
Eagleman also discusses the umwelt (page 78), the environment, and the umgebung, the bigger reality.
What do you want to know a lot about, but feel is unknowable? If you could accelerate the learning in just one area of science so you could find ‘answers’ in your lifetime, which area would you chose? Why? What do you think about that you wish you could comprehend – a 5th dimension? An infinite universe? An infinite time scale?
Speed and Energy Efficiency and Evolution
On page 72 Eagleman writes that the advantage of having an activity hardwired in the brain are speed and energy efficiency.
How does this balance with your view of evolution and the brain? What about with our ability to create artificial intelligence?
Religion and Emotion
Religion and emotion, both of which many consider stuff of the human brain, aren’t explored in great detail beyond emotion of criminal acts. How do you integrate religion and emotion into the physical stuff of the brain?
Criminal Justice System
Eagleman devotes an entire chapter to what all this means to the criminal justice system. Some readers have reacted negatively to this analysis. Here are two quotes from Goodreads:
"Eagleman uses a "slight of hand" writing style. Just as he describes how magic tricks deceive the brain, Eagleman uses this entertaining little book to advocate for a social and justice system that disregards civil rights…Our criminal justice system, in fact our whole legal framework, is based on the underlying assumption that individuals have the right to control their own bodies. Even when they have forfeited the right to be physically free and are imprisoned, our government does not have the right to force medical treatment and that includes psychological treatment. Eagleton is advocating for "treating" criminals. This should send a chill up his readers' spines. Our sordid history of "treating" criminals includes institutionalizing gays and lesbians and "treating" them for their "disorder", medical experiments with African American prisoners, and institutionalizing people with developmental disabilities for the minor offenses."
"I found, though, that the chapter on culpability in relation to crime rubbed me the wrong way, somehow. He built his theories up to the point where it seemed as though he wanted to take any responsibility for anything we do away from us, attributing every bad action to neurological irregularities. He even seemed to discount any sociological outside factors, landing firmly on the nature side of the nature vs. nurture argument, virtually reducing human beings down to a series of electrical impulses in the brain."
Whether his use of the term ‘warehouse’ or his seemingly slippery slope of a criminal not being responsible for acts his brain controls, these readers have difficulty calmly reflecting on what Eagleman is putting forth. In addition, Eagleman focuses on the accused in the criminal justice system, but what about the witnesses?
How did you react to his view of the criminal justice system with respect to the human brain? If the witnesses are recounting what they saw, heard or sensed, how reliable is their testimony in light of what Eagleman presents about the human brain and perception?
Consciousness
Eagleman presents that the value of consciousness from an evolutionary perspective is to allow us to be cognitively flexible (page 142). What is consciousness to you? What do you see as the value of consciousness? Do other animals have consciousness? Eagleman offers his perspective on page 144.
Freewill
On page 167 Eagleman states “however, at this point, no one can see a clear way around the problem of a nonphysical entity (free will) interacting with a physical entity (the stuff of the brain).” He does admit that this is “predicated on what we know at this moment in history, which will certainly look crude a millennium from now.”
How does lack of freewill sit with you? Do you agree that at this point in time the essence of free will makes no sense? Do you believe we will gain understanding that will show free will as scientifically existing? Is free will a scientific question to you?
True Self
Eagleman presents many studies that have shown conflict between what one consciously does and what one unconsciously does. For instance, consider the experiment on page 60 for subjects to note what they like and dislike. Or chapter 5, The Brain is a Team of Rivals. In the end he comes back to this question (page 203) discussing the you and soul and finally on page 224 that there is so much we don’t know about our brains that indeed it seems like magic.
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