The Brain: The Story of You Paperback – 19 September 2016

Much intriguing and engaging, will surely take to a different world. The way experiments were explained are impressive. Just written for layman.

This is a brilliant book. Not only does it lucidly explain a lot of complicated (but useful and relevant) aspects of the human brain, it enables the reader to co-analyse and co-imagine the future of humans, based on the kind of research that is taking place today. There is actually a plausible future reality where humans can either live forever because they have been able to fully digitise themselves, or at least where they are no longer constrained by the inevitable decay that all biological material necessarily goes through. Human biological cells cannot live beyond a few decades but artificial material can potentially be created to survive much longer. The key lies in being able replicate the trillions of neurons and their quadrillions of synaptic connections.

Intricately knitted book on the brain. worth reading and eye opening book I would say. Fine complementary book to books on meditation.

Superbly written for the lay person. Thought provoking and life changing. Can call into questions many of our beliefs as well.

Very good book for someone who is interested in learning basics of how brain works. The book is not technical and a common man is able to understand the concept well. The book gives you good idea about some of the research that is going on in the area of understanding brain

David Eagleman takes us on remarkable journey of our brain. The book is divided into 6 chapters and each chapter deals with an important question like Who am I ? What is Reality ? How do I decide ? Do I need You ? and most importantly Who will we be ? Each of these questions are directly related to functioning of our brain. This organ which still remains a mystery for neuroscience is capable of such miracles that we don't even realize it in our daily lives.Our perception of reality, ourselves and people around us are nothing but electrochemical cell signals getting generated in our brain. Neurons getting fired up whenever we feel or experience anything. The world that we perceive as reality is nothing but a picture getting created inside brain based on sensory inputs.The book has given me a new insight about how we look at the world around us and at ourselves. Perhaps one day we will unravel the mystery of brain completely and as author tells in the last chapter, would be able to transfer our consciousness on digital systems, just like copying data. It still sounds like science fiction but the more we understand this part of ours the quickly we can make such progress.I would suggest everyone to read this book. Just read and marvel how this amazing brain does these amazing things for us. The book is truly Mind Blowing

🌟🧠 "Eagleman's exploration of the brain's intricacies is both captivating and enlightening. From the depths of neuroscience to the implications for our daily lives, 'The Brain' offers a fascinating journey into the very essence of what makes us human. A must-read for anyone curious about the inner workings of the mind." 📖🔬

India is the land where practices like meditation were discovered and as Dalai lama once said 'the level of knowledge of human psychology in ancient India was much ahead of the current understanding in the west". This was based on experiments and observing the human body and human minds over hundreds and thousands of yearsIn the 20th century, there is now beginning to be a lot of research on nuero science and some of the things that we thought of intuitively and read in ancient texts have theory and experimentation behind them. In that context, reading a book like the Brain that combines academic theory with experiments and stories about human beings in the 20th century makes for a fascinating reading. Some of the things that stood out for me were:1. The human brain is highly plastic. This implies that things that we take for granted actually need to develop in earl childhood e.g., art of seeing. It also means that humans are flexible, they can live in a variety of environments and have the ability to adapt and grow. Downside is that proper growth requires a loving and a nurturing childhood.2. The brain is designed to eventually tell a story. The reality can be interpreted differently based on the story. Different brains can have different interpretations of reality for the same incident. Other interesting thing to keep in view is that memory changes with time. So a trick to remembering things is to recall them periodically and often.3. Senses help us understand our external environment. Interesting is the comment "Color is an interpretation of wavelengths that only exist internally".4. Role of emotions in coming to decisions is very important. As the author says to land on a choice the brain and the body have to be in sync.5. Body and brain are in constant communication. Ancient indian texts say that mind is the subtle part of the body and body is the gross part of the mind.6. As the book points out, humans are designed to co-operate with each other socially to survivev and to thrive. Social ostracism is a way of inflicting great pain.So the author says that the way to avoid mental diseases is to be physically active to learn new things to do and to have a good social life. Author also goes onto say that we over estimate the role of free will and our lives are steered by forces much beyond our awareness and control.Yet as the author say, the human brain is very complex, difficult to simulate and still only partially understood. So artificial intelligence is till very far away from being able to replace humans. All in all, a fun book to read. I give it my highest recommendation.