The Secret Life of the Mind: How Our Brain Thinks, Feels and Decides
In this provocative, mind-bending international bestseller, prize-winning neuroscientist Mariano Sigman reveals his life’s work exploring the inner workings of the human brain.Sigman's ambition is to explain the mind so that we can understand ourselves and others more deeply. He shows how we form ideas during our first days of life, how we give shape to our fundamental decisions, how we dream and imagine, why we feel certain emotions, how the brain transforms and how who we are changes with it. Sigman looks at the development of language, how bilingualism helps us to think and our notions of what is good and fair develop far earlier than we think.Building on his awe-inspiring TED talk and spanning biology, physics, philosophy and medicine as well as gastronomy, magic, music, chess, literature and art, The Secret Life of the Mind revolutionizes how neuroscience serves us in our lives, revealing how the infinity of neurons inside our brains manufacture how we perceive, reason, feel, dream and communicate.
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William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017
Copyright © 2015 Mariano Sigman
Copyright © 2015, Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, S. A. Buenos Aires
Copyright © 2015, Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial,
S. A. U. Travessera de Gracia, 47–49. 08021 Barcelona
English translation © Mariano Sigman 2017
Text on p.84 from The Simpsons, Season 2 Episode 12, ‘The Way We Was’, written by Al Jean & Mike Reiss and Sam Simon, originally aired January 31, 1991.
© Fox Broadcasting Company. All rights reserved.
Mariano Sigman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins
Source ISBN: 9780008210922
Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9780008210939
Version: 2018-05-30
‘To read minds nowadays, one doesn’t need to be a magician or clairvoyant. As science takes leaps and bounds towards understanding the mysteries of consciousness, Mariano Sigman, one of the most notable neuroscientists of today, has written a book on just this subject’
Revista Nueva
‘The brain is the star of this book, with chapters focusing on its characteristics throughout childhood and youth, identity, decision-making, consciousness, education and its capacity to transform itself. In exploring the psychological element of neuroscience, Mariano Sigman tells the story of the human mind as a journey through some of the least travelled paths of mankind … A wonderful read’
La Nacion
‘Sigman confirms that although we are capable of detecting and manipulating consciousness, science is still not able to physically break it down. The idea of the mind as a tabula rasa is only one of many erroneous notions that Sigman’s brilliant book helps to correct’
El Cultural, El Mundo
‘What makes The Secret Life of the Mind a great read is Sigman’s solid capacity as a scientific storyteller’
Clarin
‘In his latest publication, Sigman takes readers on a new journey into their own minds. This introspective journey attempts to access the deepest parts of our brain, where maybe even the secret of human essence lies’
RTVE
‘What differentiates The Secret Life of the Mind from other books about the mind is that it takes on neuroscience from a psychological point of view, as well as taking into account psychoanalysis, behavioural economics and philosophy’
Nosotras
‘Sigman takes us on an entertaining journey through the brain to show us how we make decisions, how we feel and how we think’
El Confidencial
‘The Secret Life of the Mind proposes a journey similar to that undertaken by Carl Sagan in Cosmos aboard his vessel of knowledge, but in this case through our inner universe’
Federico Kukso, Le Monde diplomatique
To Milo and Noah
Contents
How do babies think and communicate, and how can we understand them better?
Atrophied and persistent synaesthesias
The mirror between perception and action
The good, the bad and the ugly
The colour of a jersey, strawberry or chocolate
I, me, mine and other permutations by George
Transactions in the playground, or the origin of commerce and theft
Jacques, innatism, genes, biology, culture and an image
2: The fuzzy borders of identity
What defines our choices and allows us to trust other people and our own decisions?
Churchill, Turing and his labyrinth
The body in the casino and at the chessboard
Rational deliberation or hunches?
Confidence: flaws and signatures
Odysseus and the consortium we belong to
The inner battles that make us who we are
The chemistry and culture of confidence
The persistence of social trust
3: The machine that constructs reality
How does consciousness emerge in the brain and how are we governed by our unconscious?
Lavoisier, the heat of consciousness
