Mind Hacks

Mind Hacks PDF Author: Tom Stafford
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
ISBN: 144939096X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
The brain is a fearsomely complex information-processing environment--one that often eludes our ability to understand it. At any given time, the brain is collecting, filtering, and analyzing information and, in response, performing countless intricate processes, some of which are automatic, some voluntary, some conscious, and some unconscious.Cognitive neuroscience is one of the ways we have to understand the workings of our minds. It's the study of the brain biology behind our mental functions: a collection of methods--like brain scanning and computational modeling--combined with a way of looking at psychological phenomena and discovering where, why, and how the brain makes them happen.Want to know more? Mind Hacks is a collection of probes into the moment-by-moment works of the brain. Using cognitive neuroscience, these experiments, tricks, and tips related to vision, motor skills, attention, cognition, subliminal perception, and more throw light on how the human brain works. Each hack examines specific operations of the brain. By seeing how the brain responds, we pick up clues about the architecture and design of the brain, learning a little bit more about how the brain is put together.Mind Hacks begins your exploration of the mind with a look inside the brain itself, using hacks such as "Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: Turn On and Off Bits of the Brain" and "Tour the Cortex and the Four Lobes." Also among the 100 hacks in this book, you'll find: Release Eye Fixations for Faster Reactions See Movement When All is Still Feel the Presence and Loss of Attention Detect Sounds on the Margins of Certainty Mold Your Body Schema Test Your Handedness See a Person in Moving Lights Make Events Understandable as Cause-and-Effect Boost Memory by Using Context Understand Detail and the Limits of Attention Steven Johnson, author of "Mind Wide Open" writes in his foreword to the book, "These hacks amaze because they reveal the brain's hidden logic; they shed light on the cheats and shortcuts and latent assumptions our brains make about the world." If you want to know more about what's going on in your head, then Mind Hacks is the key--let yourself play with the interface between you and the world.

Mind Hacks

Mind Hacks PDF Author: Tom Stafford
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
ISBN: 144939096X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 398

Get Book

Book Description
The brain is a fearsomely complex information-processing environment--one that often eludes our ability to understand it. At any given time, the brain is collecting, filtering, and analyzing information and, in response, performing countless intricate processes, some of which are automatic, some voluntary, some conscious, and some unconscious.Cognitive neuroscience is one of the ways we have to understand the workings of our minds. It's the study of the brain biology behind our mental functions: a collection of methods--like brain scanning and computational modeling--combined with a way of looking at psychological phenomena and discovering where, why, and how the brain makes them happen.Want to know more? Mind Hacks is a collection of probes into the moment-by-moment works of the brain. Using cognitive neuroscience, these experiments, tricks, and tips related to vision, motor skills, attention, cognition, subliminal perception, and more throw light on how the human brain works. Each hack examines specific operations of the brain. By seeing how the brain responds, we pick up clues about the architecture and design of the brain, learning a little bit more about how the brain is put together.Mind Hacks begins your exploration of the mind with a look inside the brain itself, using hacks such as "Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: Turn On and Off Bits of the Brain" and "Tour the Cortex and the Four Lobes." Also among the 100 hacks in this book, you'll find: Release Eye Fixations for Faster Reactions See Movement When All is Still Feel the Presence and Loss of Attention Detect Sounds on the Margins of Certainty Mold Your Body Schema Test Your Handedness See a Person in Moving Lights Make Events Understandable as Cause-and-Effect Boost Memory by Using Context Understand Detail and the Limits of Attention Steven Johnson, author of "Mind Wide Open" writes in his foreword to the book, "These hacks amaze because they reveal the brain's hidden logic; they shed light on the cheats and shortcuts and latent assumptions our brains make about the world." If you want to know more about what's going on in your head, then Mind Hacks is the key--let yourself play with the interface between you and the world.

Black Box Thinking

Black Box Thinking PDF Author: Matthew Syed
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 069840887X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Nobody wants to fail. But in highly complex organizations, success can happen only when we confront our mistakes, learn from our own version of a black box, and create a climate where it’s safe to fail. We all have to endure failure from time to time, whether it’s underperforming at a job interview, flunking an exam, or losing a pickup basketball game. But for people working in safety-critical industries, getting it wrong can have deadly consequences. Consider the shocking fact that preventable medical error is the third-biggest killer in the United States, causing more than 400,000 deaths every year. More people die from mistakes made by doctors and hospitals than from traffic accidents. And most of those mistakes are never made public, because of malpractice settlements with nondisclosure clauses. For a dramatically different approach to failure, look at aviation. Every passenger aircraft in the world is equipped with an almost indestructible black box. Whenever there’s any sort of mishap, major or minor, the box is opened, the data is analyzed, and experts figure out exactly what went wrong. Then the facts are published and procedures are changed, so that the same mistakes won’t happen again. By applying this method in recent decades, the industry has created an astonishingly good safety record. Few of us put lives at risk in our daily work as surgeons and pilots do, but we all have a strong interest in avoiding predictable and preventable errors. So why don’t we all embrace the aviation approach to failure rather than the health-care approach? As Matthew Syed shows in this eye-opening book, the answer is rooted in human psychology and organizational culture. Syed argues that the most important determinant of success in any field is an acknowledgment of failure and a willingness to engage with it. Yet most of us are stuck in a relationship with failure that impedes progress, halts innovation, and damages our careers and personal lives. We rarely acknowledge or learn from failure—even though we often claim the opposite. We think we have 20/20 hindsight, but our vision is usually fuzzy. Syed draws on a wide range of sources—from anthropology and psychology to history and complexity theory—to explore the subtle but predictable patterns of human error and our defensive responses to error. He also shares fascinating stories of individuals and organizations that have successfully embraced a black box approach to improvement, such as David Beckham, the Mercedes F1 team, and Dropbox.

Why Is Everyone Else Wrong?

Why Is Everyone Else Wrong? PDF Author: Tibor R. Machan
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441978593
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 42

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Book Description
Especially when there is a lot of political rhetoric in the air, those of us with strong political convictions are inclined to reflect on just why we hold certain views even as others who are basically like us hold very different ones. Social scientists and other thinkers struggle to explain it, but the puzzle remains—in part because they, too, disagree so much with one another. Whether the arena is politics, religion, business, scientific research, or education, individuals who operate in the same environment and experience the same conditions may have radically different interpretations of the facts and diametrically opposed convictions about how to react to them. When faced with a fundamental disagreement, we ask ourselves: Why are these folks so wrong? And how can they be so convinced that we are wrong? In this provocative monograph, Tibor Machan explores the principles of truth, reason, and ideology, with particular respect to the profound political, economic, and social crises gripping the world today. In so doing, he not only sheds light on the nature of “truth” but also suggests a framework for embracing differences to come up with creative solutions.

Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite

Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite PDF Author: Robert Kurzban
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691154392
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The evolutionary psychology behind human inconsistency We're all hypocrites. Why? Hypocrisy is the natural state of the human mind. Robert Kurzban shows us that the key to understanding our behavioral inconsistencies lies in understanding the mind's design. The human mind consists of many specialized units designed by the process of evolution by natural selection. While these modules sometimes work together seamlessly, they don't always, resulting in impossibly contradictory beliefs, vacillations between patience and impulsiveness, violations of our supposed moral principles, and overinflated views of ourselves. This modular, evolutionary psychological view of the mind undermines deeply held intuitions about ourselves, as well as a range of scientific theories that require a "self" with consistent beliefs and preferences. Modularity suggests that there is no "I." Instead, each of us is a contentious "we"--a collection of discrete but interacting systems whose constant conflicts shape our interactions with one another and our experience of the world. In clear language, full of wit and rich in examples, Kurzban explains the roots and implications of our inconsistent minds, and why it is perfectly natural to believe that everyone else is a hypocrite.

The Feeling Good Handbook

The Feeling Good Handbook PDF Author: David D. Burns
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0452281326
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 769

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Book Description
From the author of the national bestseller Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy comes a guide to mental wellness that helps you get beyond depression and anxiety and make life an exhilarating experience! With his phenomenally successful Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, Dr. David Burns introduced a groundbreaking, drug-free treatment for depression. In this bestselling companion, he reveals powerful new techniques and provides step-by-step exercises that help you cope with the full range of everyday problems. • Free yourself from fears, phobias, and panic attacks. • Overcome self-defeating attitudes. • Discover the five secrets of intimate communication. • Put an end to marital conflict. • Conquer procrastination and unleash your potential for success. With everything you need to know about commonly prescribed psychiatric drugs and anxiety disorders, such as agoraphobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, this remarkable guide can show you how to feel good about yourself and the people you care about. You will discover that life can be an exhilarating experience. “A wonderful achievement—the best in its class.”—M. Anthony Bates, clinical psychologist at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia “Clear, systematic, forceful.”—Albert Ellis, PhD, president of the Albert Ellis Institute

Being Wrong

Being Wrong PDF Author: Kathryn Schulz
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061176052
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
To err is human. Yet most of us go through life assuming (and sometimes insisting) that we are right about nearly everything, from the origins of the universe to how to load the dishwasher. In Being Wrong, journalist Kathryn Schulz explores why we find it so gratifying to be right and so maddening to be mistaken. Drawing on thinkers as varied as Augustine, Darwin, Freud, Gertrude Stein, Alan Greenspan, and Groucho Marx, she shows that error is both a given and a gift—one that can transform our worldviews, our relationships, and ourselves.

Why I'm Right ... and Everyone Else is Wrong

Why I'm Right ... and Everyone Else is Wrong PDF Author: Tom Harris
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781849541053
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This is a collection of the best bits from the popular Labour blog. Tom Harris uses his And Another Thing... blog as an outlet for opinions, jokes, musings and whimsy about a range of subjects including - but not only - politics. If you believe that politicians take themselves too seriously, you might enjoy it. If you think they should take themselves very seriously indeed, or shouldn't have any interests outside politics, I would avoid it, frankly. Try John Redwood. Tom has been a Labour MP since 2001, and was a minister at the Department for Transport from September 2006 until October 2008. He has a number of obsessive interests, including Doctor Who, science fiction in general, the music of Genesis, The X-Factor and any other old rubbish that comes into my head. Oh, and politics.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

When Bad Things Happen to Good People PDF Author: Harold S. Kushner
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
ISBN: 0805241930
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Offers an inspirational and compassionate approach to understanding the problems of life, and argues that we should continue to believe in God's fairness.

The Book of Understanding

The Book of Understanding PDF Author: Osho
Publisher: Harmony
ISBN: 0307341860
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
The path to freedom is filled with questions and uncertainty. Is it possible to truly know who we are? Do our lives have a purpose, or are we just accidental? What are we meant to contribute? What are we meant to become, to create, and to share? In The Book of Understanding, Osho, one of the most provocative thinkers of our time, challenges us to understand our world and ourselves in a new and radical way. The first step toward understanding, he says, is to question and doubt all that we have been taught to believe. All our lives we’ve been handed so-called truths by countless others—beliefs we learned to accept without reason. It is only in questioning our beliefs, assumptions, and prejudices that we can begin to uncover our own unique voice and heal the divisions within us and without. Once we discover our authentic self, we can embrace all aspects of the human experience—from the earthy, pleasure-loving qualities that characterize Zorba the Greek to the watchful, silent qualities of Gautam the Buddha. We can become whole and live with integrity, able to respond with creativity and compassion to the religious, political, and cultural divides that currently plague our society. In this groundbreaking work, Osho identifies, loosens, and ultimately helps to untie the knots of fear and misunderstanding that restrict us—leaving us free to discover and create our own individual path to freedom.

Mindwise

Mindwise PDF Author: Nicholas Epley
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 030774356X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Winner of the 2015 Book Prize for the Promotion of Social and Personality Science (Society for Personality and Social Psychology) Why are we sometimes blind to the minds of others, treating them like objects or animals instead? Why do we talk to our cars, or the stars, as if there is a mind that can hear us? Why do we so routinely believe that others think, feel, and want what we do when, in fact, they do not? And why do we think we understand our spouses, family, and friends so much better than we actually do? In this illuminating book, leading social psychologist Nicholas Epley introduces us to what scientists have learned about our ability to understand the most complicated puzzle on the planet—other people—and the surprising mistakes we so routinely make. Mindwise will not turn others into open books, but it will give you the wisdom to revolutionize how you think about them—and yourself.