The Secret Life of the Mind: How Our Brain Thinks, Feels and Decides
• Where do our thoughts come from?
• How can we manipulate our dreams?
• What is the role of the unconscious?
• How do we make choices and trust the judgement of both others and ourselves?
These are some of the questions answered in this groundbreaking, personal and comprehensive guide about our thoughts.
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.
”'Sigman finds the sweet spot between findings and experimental detail, and it makes for a compelling read. Entertaining… with moments of exhileration” - Financial Times
”'Sigman provides vivid depictions of foundational behavioral psychology experiments…The book's exhaustive survey of experiments is, overall, enlightening, and Sigman's clear passion for neuroscience makes it easy to browse” - Science Magazine
”'Sigman is one of the many professors to become popularizers of their own fields… His book is peppered with brief stories and artistic allusions, and it moves quickly from idea to idea, study to study” - New York Times Book Review
‘Mariano Sigman writes and thinks in a uniquely provocative way. He is a gifted cognitive neuroscientist, and we are lucky to have him excavating the secret life of the mind. He makes learning about the mind and brain easy and almost automatic. He is the Richard Feynman of the brain’Andrew Meltzoff, Professor of Psychology, the University of Washington; co-author of ‘The Scientist in the Crib -
”'The author takes us on grand tour covering an extraordinarily diverse range of topics that are of interest to readers and specialists alike” - VS Ramachandran FRCP, author of The Tell-Tale Brain
”'The brain is the star of this book, with chapters focussing 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
”'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