The Secret Life of the Mind: How Our Brain Thinks, Feels and Decides

(Paperback)

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Where do our thoughts come from
How can we manipulate our dreams
What is the role of the unconscious
How do we make decisions and trust the judgement of both others and ourselves
In this provocative, mind-bending international bestseller, prize-winning neuroscientist Mariano Sigman reveals his lifes 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.

Reviews

Sigman finds the sweet spot between findings and experimental detail, and it makes for a compelling read. Entertaining with moments of exhilerationFinancial Times

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

The idea of the mind as a tabula rasa is only one of many erroneous notions that Sigmans brilliant book helps to correct El Mundo

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

Sigman confirms that although we are capable of detecting and manipulating consciousness, science is still not able to physically break it down. The idea of the mind as a tabula rasa is only one of many erroneous notions that Sigmans brilliant book helps to correct El Cultural, El Mundo

Author Bio

Mariano Sigman, a physicist by training, is an international leading figure in the cognitive neuroscience of learning and decision making. He is the founder of the Integrative Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Buenos Aires. Sigman is the only Latin American scientist to be a director of the Human Brain Project, was awarded a Human Frontiers Career Development Award, the National Prize of Physics, the Young Investigator Prize of "College de France," the IBM Scalable Data Analytics Award, and is a scholar of the James S. McDonnell Foundation. In 2016 he was made a Laureate of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.