The Power of Not Thinking, Simon Roberts
The Power of Not Thinking, Simon Roberts
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Power of Not Thinking
How Our Bodies Learn and Why We Should Trust Them

Author: Simon Roberts

Narrator: Jonathan Keeble

Unabridged: 8 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/12/2022


Synopsis

Ask someone to point to the part of their body responsible for their intelligence and it is highly likely that they will point at their head. This assumption is understandable, given that, for centuries, from Descartes' "cogito ergo sum" to the computer age, this is what we have been told to think.

And yet we all share common experiences that have revealed the incomparable power of "not thinking." Have you ever struggled to remember your pin number only to hold your fingers out and type it correctly with your hands, played the piano without focusing on remembering the correct notes, or listened to your gut feeling when under the pressure of a big decision? All these instances prove that it is time to stop neglecting the role the body plays in our acquisition of knowledge and to explore how it is that brain and body combine to deliver what we view as uniquely human intelligence.

In this unique new book, Simon Roberts looks at the pivotal role that our body plays in how we learn. Drawing upon an incredible range of cutting-edge science, real-life examples, and personal experience, Roberts explores the complexity of even the simplest of tasks that humans perform every day and goes on to explain how, with a greater awareness of the processes at work, we can tap into our full potential and excel in any area of our lives.

About Simon Roberts

Simon Roberts's twenty-year career as a business anthropologist has included founding the UK's first dedicated ethnographic research company, running an innovation lab at Intel, and being ethnographer-in-residence at technology think tank, iSociety. His consulting experience centers on product, business, and platform strategy, in consumer and business contexts. Simon's work has been covered by Bloomberg, the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC Radio 4, and Quartz. He lives with his wife and three children in East Sussex.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kirstysbookishworld on November 19, 2020

I really did enjoy the idea that our bodies are just as much a part of our intelligence as our minds. That we do things every day mindlessly but effectively. I however believe book would have been too information dumpy without the audiobook to make it more lively. But all in all I feel like I learnt......more

Goodreads review by Marty on October 14, 2022

I started out to give this three stars, because it held me for half its length. I liked the idea he quotes that education moves from body to brain as children age, and that we have "embodied knowledge" as well as the stuff we learn with "rational detachment." From early on, I suspected he was talkin......more

Goodreads review by Jung on October 11, 2024

"The Power of Not Thinking" by Simon Roberts delves into the concept of embodied knowledge, which is the wisdom and intelligence stored in our bodies. Roberts explores how learning, understanding, and performing often rely more on our physical experiences than on conscious thought. The book highligh......more

Goodreads review by Shahzad on October 10, 2024

Summary: Our bodies play a crucial role in shaping our intelligence and understanding of the world. Embodied knowledge—the wisdom gained through physical experiences, sensations, and actions—is just as important as mental knowledge. By engaging our senses, practicing skills, improvising, empathizing,......more

Goodreads review by Koo Ping Shung on March 17, 2022

Being a researcher and enthusiast in Artificial Intelligence, the author presented another perspective of how we humans learn and build up our knowledge and environment of the world, through our body. The author showed through many examples how different characteristics of humans are learned through......more