Brain Bugs, Dean Buonomano
Brain Bugs, Dean Buonomano
2 Rating(s)
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Brain Bugs
How the Brains Flaws Shape Our Lives

Author: Dean Buonomano

Narrator: William Hughes

Unabridged: 8 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/11/2011


Synopsis

A lively, surprising tour of our mental glitches and how they arise. With its trillions of connections, the human brain is more beautiful and complex than anything we could ever build, but its far from perfect: our memory is unreliable; we cant multiply large sums in our heads; advertising manipulates our judgment; we tend to distrust people who are different from us; supernatural beliefs and superstitions are hard to shake; we prefer instant gratification to longterm gain; and what we presume to be rational decisions are often anything but. Drawing on striking examples and fascinating studies, neuroscientist Dean Buonomano illuminates the causes and consequences of these bugs in terms of the brains innermost workings and their evolutionary purposes. He then goes one step further, examining how our brains functionand malfunctionin the digital, predatorfree, informationsaturated, specialeffectsaddled world that we have built for ourselves. Along the way, Brain Bugs gives us the tools to hone our cognitive strengths while recognizing our inherent weaknesses.

About Dean Buonomano

Dean Buonomano is a professor in the Departments of Neurobiology and Psychology and the Brain Research Institute at UCLA. He lives in Los Angeles.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Sean

I think I was the wrong audience for this book. It wasn't that it was terrible, but as one with a science background and a long interest in how the brain works, there wasn't any new information here. It didn't help that the book reads like a fake textbook in the same way that Jon Stewart is fake new......more

Goodreads review by Jim

He immediately grabbed my attention with the first line, a quote from Thomas Edison. It has been just so in all my inventions. The first step is an intuition—and comes with a burst, then difficulties arise. This thing that gives out and then that—“Bugs”as such little faults and difficulties are calle......more

Goodreads review by Amir

This book depicts a decent picture of our brains associative architecture which has been developed through millions of years of evolution and natural selection. The book explains numerous mechanisms of the brain that in the course of evolution were developed to protect and further help the survival......more