'A stunning exploration of the we behind the I. Eagleman reveals, with his typical grace and eloquence, all the neural magic tricks behind the cognitive illusion we call reality.' Jonah Lehrer If the conscious mind - the part you consider you - is just the tip of the iceberg, what is the rest doing? In this sparkling and provocative new book, renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman navigates the depths of the subconscious brain to illuminate surprising mysteries: Why can your foot move halfway to the brake pedal before you become consciously aware of danger ahead? Why do you notice when your name is mentioned in a conversation that you didn't think you were listening to? What do Ulysses and the credit crunch have in common? Why did Thomas Edison electrocute an elephant in 1916? Why are people whose name begins with J more likely to marry other people whose name begins with J? Why is it so difficult to keep a secret? And how is it possible to get angry at yourself ? who, exactly, is mad at whom? Taking in brain damage, plane spotting, dating, drugs, beauty, infidelity, synaesthesia, criminal law, artificial intelligence and visual illusions, Incognito is a thrilling subsurface exploration of the mind and all its contradictions.
Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain
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Review
You will not read a more dazzling book this year --Stephen Fry
Witty, bright, sharp and unexpected...as surprising a book as I've read for years. Every story is a new Heaven. --Brian Eno
Readers may discover much to appreciate - not least the lives they are living now. . . quirky, occasionally unsettling . . . never short of new new ideas, all of them rolled out with style. --Nicholas Tucker, Independent
Stunningly original... You can get through it in an hour, but you'd be mad to hurry, and you will certainly want to return to it many times...Sum has the unaccountable, jaw-dropping quality of genius. It seems exquisitely adapted to fill the contemporary longing for a kind of secular holy book. --Geoff Dyer, The Observer
A stunning exploration of the 'we'behind the 'I'. Eagleman reveals, with his typical grace and eloquence, all the neural magic tricks behind the cognitive illusion we call reality. --Jonah Lehrer
Brilliantly realised, blazingly original, Sum isn't so much about the next life as this one. --Colin Waters, Sunday Herald
A dream to read... I couldn't resist telling people about a couple of things I read here. --Brian Clegg, Popular Science
I was completely immersed. Eagleman writes well and has brought together great stories from the wild shores of neuroresearch, taking a field that is enormously complex and creating a clear path through it. ... A book that will stay with you. --Michael Mosley, BBC Focus
Eagleman provides an excellent overview of the workings of our most vital organ. --Ian Critchley, Sunday Times
A shining example of lucid and easy-to-grasp science writing. --Laurence Phelan, Independent on Sunday
David Eagleman's lobe-spangling new study of how thoroughly our genetic make-up, deep-lying subroutines and chemical changes can affect the submerged mind gives dizzying up-to-the-minute insight as to just whose hand is really on the tiller...Incognito is a fascinating book that will not so much turn your mind upside down as flip it right-side up. You'll never hear the phase "You don't know what you're doing!" in the same way again. --Time Out
Contains startling revelations. . . beginning with the awesome and shadowy power of the subconscious. --The Times
You will learn a great deal that is fascinating from Incognito. --Peter Forbes, Guardian
[An] entertaining and truly brainy front-line report from the neuroscience labs...I guarantee it'll change the way you think of yourself. --Harry Ritchie, Mail on Sunday
A fascinating and engaging look at the nature of consciousness... Eagleman brings a concise prose style, historical research and the latest scientific thinking to a book that will have you re-examining the nature of personality and identity. --Big Issue
Eagleman explains scientific ideas with exemplary clarity.
--Anthony Daniels, Spectator
Witty, bright, sharp and unexpected...as surprising a book as I've read for years. Every story is a new Heaven. --Brian Eno
Readers may discover much to appreciate - not least the lives they are living now. . . quirky, occasionally unsettling . . . never short of new new ideas, all of them rolled out with style. --Nicholas Tucker, Independent
Stunningly original... You can get through it in an hour, but you'd be mad to hurry, and you will certainly want to return to it many times...Sum has the unaccountable, jaw-dropping quality of genius. It seems exquisitely adapted to fill the contemporary longing for a kind of secular holy book. --Geoff Dyer, The Observer
A stunning exploration of the 'we'behind the 'I'. Eagleman reveals, with his typical grace and eloquence, all the neural magic tricks behind the cognitive illusion we call reality. --Jonah Lehrer
Brilliantly realised, blazingly original, Sum isn't so much about the next life as this one. --Colin Waters, Sunday Herald
A dream to read... I couldn't resist telling people about a couple of things I read here. --Brian Clegg, Popular Science
I was completely immersed. Eagleman writes well and has brought together great stories from the wild shores of neuroresearch, taking a field that is enormously complex and creating a clear path through it. ... A book that will stay with you. --Michael Mosley, BBC Focus
Eagleman provides an excellent overview of the workings of our most vital organ. --Ian Critchley, Sunday Times
A shining example of lucid and easy-to-grasp science writing. --Laurence Phelan, Independent on Sunday
David Eagleman's lobe-spangling new study of how thoroughly our genetic make-up, deep-lying subroutines and chemical changes can affect the submerged mind gives dizzying up-to-the-minute insight as to just whose hand is really on the tiller...Incognito is a fascinating book that will not so much turn your mind upside down as flip it right-side up. You'll never hear the phase "You don't know what you're doing!" in the same way again. --Time Out
Contains startling revelations. . . beginning with the awesome and shadowy power of the subconscious. --The Times
You will learn a great deal that is fascinating from Incognito. --Peter Forbes, Guardian
[An] entertaining and truly brainy front-line report from the neuroscience labs...I guarantee it'll change the way you think of yourself. --Harry Ritchie, Mail on Sunday
A fascinating and engaging look at the nature of consciousness... Eagleman brings a concise prose style, historical research and the latest scientific thinking to a book that will have you re-examining the nature of personality and identity. --Big Issue
Eagleman explains scientific ideas with exemplary clarity.
--Anthony Daniels, Spectator
About the Author
David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine, where he directs the Laboratory for Perception and Actions as well as the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law. His scientific research is published in journals from Science to Nature, and his neuroscience books include Live-Wired: The Shapeshifting Plasticity of the Brain and Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia. He is also the author if an internationally bestselling book of fiction, Sum: Tales from the Afterlives.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By Malcolm L
Format:Hardcover
This is the kind of book that I really enjoy because so often I wanted to stop and think about the information it gives you. There is something ironic about that, as you will discover if you read 'Incognito,' as you learn how little you do is actually governed by conscious thought!
The book is an easy read for a serious, factual book but impeccably based in a very wide range of research, as the 26-page bibliography demonstrates. In the latter chapters Eagleman focuses heavily on the legal implications of the research which calls into question how meaningful it is to conduct trials and impose punishments operating on the concept of "blameworthiness." This effectively challenges most of us, I suspect, but does mean the discussion moves away from the broader attempt to understand the concepts of self and consciousness we commonly hold.
For anyone not already an expert in neurology, I recommend 'Incognito' without reservation as likely to be an enlightening, challenging and intensely thought-provoking read.
The book is an easy read for a serious, factual book but impeccably based in a very wide range of research, as the 26-page bibliography demonstrates. In the latter chapters Eagleman focuses heavily on the legal implications of the research which calls into question how meaningful it is to conduct trials and impose punishments operating on the concept of "blameworthiness." This effectively challenges most of us, I suspect, but does mean the discussion moves away from the broader attempt to understand the concepts of self and consciousness we commonly hold.
For anyone not already an expert in neurology, I recommend 'Incognito' without reservation as likely to be an enlightening, challenging and intensely thought-provoking read.
51 of 55 people found the following review helpful
By East Ender
Format:Hardcover
I'm wondering whether the last reviewer actually read the same book as me. Eagleman draws on years of experience as a neuroscientist, citing hundreds of experiments, cases and examples. Through these he makes his fascinating topic - the unconscious brain - easily accessible to a lay reader without ever patronising, explaining everything from why you can argue with yourself to the best way to win a game of tennis. Popular science it may be (albeit with credentials aplenty), but pop psychology it definitely is not.
31 of 34 people found the following review helpful
By J. Coulton
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This must be the first time I have actually picked up a science book out of choice, and the first time I have read anything scientific since school, but after hearing neuroscientist David Eagleman interviewed on the radio about his new book I was hooked. And it has not disappointed at all - in fact it is something that I would never have believed could exist, a real science page turner.
Eagleman possesses that rare skill of explaining complex scientific concepts to non scientists, in a way that makes them fascinating, and weaves in references to literature, philosophy and history, to create a fabulously rich book. And his subject is one which should really interest everyone, as it is all about us, and more specifically, the way our brains work.
The work looks at what makes our brain work the way it does, and includes a clever and enjoyable series of interactive tests for the reader to illustrate its point that what we see is not always the same, and our reality is very much manipulated and filtered by our brains themselves. It links these processes to some practical and everyday life choices that we make - we are, apparently and amazingly, more likely to like and have relationships with people who share our own details such as the first initial of our name, or our birthday.
There are thought provoking insights into the world of people who cannot see at all, as Eagleman argues that congenitally blind people are not missing anything that sighted people have, they just have a very different reality where other senses are much more heightened and sharp. So it seems that even our everyday realities are completely subjective.... Read more ›
Eagleman possesses that rare skill of explaining complex scientific concepts to non scientists, in a way that makes them fascinating, and weaves in references to literature, philosophy and history, to create a fabulously rich book. And his subject is one which should really interest everyone, as it is all about us, and more specifically, the way our brains work.
The work looks at what makes our brain work the way it does, and includes a clever and enjoyable series of interactive tests for the reader to illustrate its point that what we see is not always the same, and our reality is very much manipulated and filtered by our brains themselves. It links these processes to some practical and everyday life choices that we make - we are, apparently and amazingly, more likely to like and have relationships with people who share our own details such as the first initial of our name, or our birthday.
There are thought provoking insights into the world of people who cannot see at all, as Eagleman argues that congenitally blind people are not missing anything that sighted people have, they just have a very different reality where other senses are much more heightened and sharp. So it seems that even our everyday realities are completely subjective.... Read more ›
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By T. Peters
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I have a keen interest in all things 'brainy' and it's difficult to find a book that isn't so far 'pop' psychology that it might have been written by Mystic Meg or so far medical that I find it too difficult to get through: This book strikes just the right note and offers some interesting and new viewpoints.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By David
Format:Hardcover
A very good introduction to the working of the brain and the role of the conscious mind. For anyone that enjoys this I would recommend "The Blank Slate" by Stephen Pinker and "Consciousness Explained" by Daniel Dennett for a more detailed discussion of these topics.
22 of 25 people found the following review helpful
By Patricia
Format:Hardcover
A superb book for me.No psychobabble,no unecessary psychiatric terminology.I read it with ease and great interest and it sparked lots of questions in my brain.Fascinating to read about the brain being just like an amazing computer I had thought this for years .
I was sorry to read other peoples reviews that were so damning.
I was sorry to read other peoples reviews that were so damning.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By A. J. Lornie
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
David Eagleman writes with such flair and enthusiasm; he can make any subject accessible. This book is a must read for anyone who wishes to have an insight to the workings going on in the engine room. It is brilliant.
24 of 28 people found the following review helpful
By Aubyn
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Highly enjoyable, often fascinating, sometimes mind-expanding read. Would recommend to anyone interested in deepening their understanding of how human beings work from an up to date neuroscience perspective. I would agree with other reviewers that Eagleman knows how to explain science to the lay reader without over-complication or condescension. Sometimes it feels like Eagleman takes quite a long time to convey his key ideas, albeit with many fascinating examples. These key ideas include; that conscious volition or choice has much less to do with our behaviour than we think and that we are certainly less rational that we like to believe; that most behaviour is handled by ingrained and unconscious `zombie' programmes, some of which arrive ready packaged as our species inheritance and others which are laid down by repeated practice; that what we experience as reality `out there' is actually pictures created by our brains and some or much of which our minds make up entirely depending upon a whole bunch of influences; that our consciousness is largely concerned with setting directions rather than with handling details and that even our thoughts are generated by unconscious machinery to which we have no direct access; that our minds contain multitudes of sub-personas rather than a single coherent self. He goes on to question our notions of blame-worthiness, using examples of how brains that been altered by damage, drugs or disease, and proposes a new blueprint for our legal systems based upon the knowledge neuroscience is unearthing.
In the final chapter Eagleman shifts gear entirely and provides some well-needed context setting about the neuro-scientific perspective from which the book is largely written and acknowledges that it doesn't and can't tell the whole story.... Read more ›
In the final chapter Eagleman shifts gear entirely and provides some well-needed context setting about the neuro-scientific perspective from which the book is largely written and acknowledges that it doesn't and can't tell the whole story.... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
If there is 1 book to read before you die, this is the one. This book...
If there is one book you must read in your life, let it be this one. A fun read, factual, yet not overly scientific for the average reader, but references the appropriate papers... Read more
Published 12 days ago by TechnicallyCreative
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't read this review - just read the book!
EXCELLENT!
Now, if you don't want to hear a bunch of rambleage, take me at my word; Excellent!
No? You're gonna keep reading? Okay - I warned you... Read more
Now, if you don't want to hear a bunch of rambleage, take me at my word; Excellent!
No? You're gonna keep reading? Okay - I warned you... Read more
Published 17 days ago by Lo-yal
5.0 out of 5 stars
brains
Fantastic book about human brain. After I read it I wanted to become a neuroscientist, really...it makes you better understand human nature, better understand people.
Published 23 days ago by Eugene Grigonis
5.0 out of 5 stars
a good read
this was a very interesting book science based but easy to understand for the non science reader
if you are interested in how the brain works this is the book for you
if you are interested in how the brain works this is the book for you
Published 24 days ago by lila evans
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good read.
Interesting, thought provoking. I never figured I'd find myself buying a book on neuroscience, but I heard the author talk on Richard Bacon's BBC 5 Live show and lo and behold. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mr. J. T. P. Goode
4.0 out of 5 stars
I wrote this review of my own volition (at least I think I did)
This book brought to mind the oft quoted phrase 'My name is legion for we are many'. David Eagleman explains how our mind is the sum of a myriad of parts and that conscious... Read more
Published 2 months ago by GillianBC
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating
Although more of a leisure book, I was telling myself: this is not usable ... but such fun to read.
Published 2 months ago by Ondrej Ilincev
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good Read
Excellent book. Started in a thought provoking way, leafing through it find that there are lots of thought provoking passages. Looking forward to reading this book
Published 2 months ago by jacks
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stimulating reading
A great balance of accessible writing style with detailed academic study. Case histories are lively and bring the point under discussion to life. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Ms Philippa J Kershaw
5.0 out of 5 stars
David Eagleman can really write
I've read quite a few books about neuroscience, the brain and consciousness, and this is definitely one of the most well-written. It's actually very difficult to put it down. Read more
Published 5 months ago by amaryllis london
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