'The Brain: The story of you' by David Eagleman

The latest discoveries enable neurology to enter the preserves of psychology and philosophy. Eagleman’s descriptions of the behaviour of neurones tell us much about how we generate our idea of reality, our feelings and thoughts, our ideas about ourselves and our capacities. What makes humans so interesting neurologically is that we are born ‘soft-wired’, which means that the function of our brain is formed and reformed by experience. Of the many fascinating things that have been revealed by recent neurology is the fact that we do not attempt to make an idea of the world around us from sensual stimulation but rather that we form an idea of the world around us and only then test it against stimulation, showing our idea of the world to be primarily a creative act, the work of an author (which just happens to be subsequently fact-checked) rather than a piece of reportage. Discoveries like these have profound implications.

    Nov 2015