Who Will We Be? - Now it's time for speculation - plug and play devices into the brain to take care of handicaps; sensory augmentation; keeping the brain in suspended animation; uploading one's consciousness into a computer; artificial intelligence... science fiction? Maybe. Like space travel was science fiction once upon a time. Research is ongoing in all these areas, with exciting possibilities opening up every day. In the course of his investigations, Eagleman guides us through the world of extreme sports, criminal justice, facial expressions, genocide, brain surgery, gut feelings, robotics, and the search for immortality. Strap in for a whistle-stop tour into the inner cosmos. In the infinitely dense tangle of billions of brain cells and their trillions of connections, something emerges that you might not have expected to see in there: you. In the current world, we sadly have enough examples of this. Eagleman gives us a fascinating example of a school experiment, and indicates how education can teach children about the dangers of dehumanisation.

To empathize with another person is to literally feel their pain. You run a compelling simulation of what it would be like if you were in that situation. Our capacity for this is why stories – like movies and novels – are so absorbing and so pervasive across human culture. Whether it’s about total strangers or made-up characters, you experience their agony and their ecstasy. You fluidly become them, live their lives, and stand in their vantage points. When you see another person suffer, you can try to tell yourself that it’s their issue, not yours – but neurons deep in your brain can’t tell the difference. This ranks as the most fascinating and unsettling science series of the year, setting out the state of contemporary research into the human brain in terms that any interested layperson can comprehend.” – OC Register Genocide is only possible when dehumanization happens on a massive scale, and the perfect tool for this job is propaganda: it keys right into the neural networks that understand other people, and dials down the degree to which we empathize with them. Author David Eagleman is an American neuroscientist, writer, and science communicator. He teaches neuroscience at Stanford University and is CEO and co-founder of Neosensory, a company that develops devices for sensory substitution.Within about seven years every atom in your body will be replaced by other atoms. Physically, you are constantly a new you. Fortunately, there may be one constant that links all these different versions of your self together: memory. As Harris puts it, by shutting down the systems that see the homeless person as a fellow human, one doesn’t have to experience the unpleasant pressures of feeling bad about not giving money. In other words, the homeless have become dehumanised: the brain is viewing them more like objects and less like people. As Harris explains: “If you don’t properly diagnose people as human beings, then the moral rules that are reserved for human people may not apply.” Actually, grouping together is advantageous from the evolutionary point of view. But the flip side is that the "ingroups" creates "outgroups" out of necessity (a fact that Desmond Morris has also touched upon, in The Human Zoo: A Zoologist's Study of the Urban Animal) and this is the beginning of conflict. And outgroups can be objectified and dehumanised through propaganda - in the worst case, leading to genocide.

Considers important philosophical questions. Does the idea of an immaterial soul reconcile with neuroscientific evidence? Find out. Lasana Harris of the University of Leiden in Holland has conducted a series of experiments that move closer to understanding how this happens. Harris is looking for changes in the brain’s social network, in particular the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). This region becomes active when we’re interacting with, or thinking about, other people — but it’s not active when we’re dealing with inanimate objects, such as a coffee mug. A look at the future of neuroscience. “The secret to understanding our success – and our future opportunity – is the brain’s tremendous ability to adjust, known as brain plasticity.”Writing a popular science book (I won't use the abhorrent term "pop science") is a dicey affair. If it becomes too scientific, it is not likely to be popular; but if it dumbs the science down too much, it tends not to be taken seriously by discerning readers. So the writer of such a tome has a tough time, striking exactly the right note - that is why very few people succeed in this field. David Eagleman is one such, and this book is gem. There are also many pictures, illustrations, charts, and other supplemental visual aids interspliced within the writing here. Points awarded, as this provides some great additional context to the material covered. I've shared just a few of them here.

It would normally feel unconscionable to murder your neighbour. So what suddenly allows hundreds or thousands of people to do exactly that? However, there’s a less known side effect of Botox. We showed Botox users the same set of photos. Their facial muscles showed less mirroring on our electromyogram. No surprise there — their muscles have been purposely weakened. The surprise was something else, originally reported in 2011 by the psychologists David Neal and Tanya Chartrand. Similar to their original experiment, I asked participants from both groups (Botox and non-Botox) to look at expressive faces and to choose which of four words best described the emotion shown. However, people still co-operate irrespective of kinship. That observation leads to the idea of “group selection”. If a group is composed entirely of people who co-operate, everyone in the group will be better off for it. On average, you’ll fare better than other people who aren’t very co-operative with their neighbours. Together, the members of a group can help each other to survive. Bu kitab düşüncələrimi dəyişdi. Artıq öz atdığım addımlara, düşüncələrimə, duyğularıma, hər bir kiçicik bədən hərəkətlərimə diqqət yetirməyə və əslində beynimizin necə mürəkkəb və möhtəşəm bir üzvümüz olduğunu anlamağa başlayıram. The audiobook version I have is also read by the author; which is a nice touch that I always appreciate.

All this social glue is generated by specific circuitry in the brain: sprawling networks that monitor other people, communicate with them, feel their pain, judge their intentions, and read their emotions. Our social skills are deeply rooted in our neural circuitry — and understanding this circuitry is the basis of a young field of study called social neuroscience.