Book Recommendation: “Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior”
- aaronglogan
- Sep 30, 2018
- 2 min read
Updated: Oct 17, 2018
I really enjoyed this one. Very enlightening. I plan to go through it again soon. -Aaron
Overview from Amazon:
“From the bestselling author of The Drunkard’s Walk and coauthor of The Grand Design (with Stephen Hawking), a startling and eye-opening examination of how the unconscious mind shapes our experience of the world.”
“Winner of the 2013 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award”
“Over the past two decades of neurological research, it has become increasingly clear that the way we experience the world–our perception, behavior, memory, and social judgment–is largely driven by the mind’s subliminal processes and not by the conscious ones, as we have long believed. In Subliminal, Leonard Mlodinow employs his signature concise, accessible explanations of the most obscure scientific subjects to unravel the complexities of the subliminal mind. In the process he shows the many ways it influences how we misperceive our relationships with family, friends, and business associates; how we misunderstand the reasons for our investment decisions; and how we misremember important events–along the way, changing our view of ourselves and the world around us.”
An Amazon review that I completely agree with:
“This is a wonderful book for those concerned with the function and potential of the mind. The author is a famous and respected theoretical physicist. He apparently has a lot of free time and intense interest that he has parlayed into doctoral-level knowledge of how the mind functions. You will find a great amount of surprising information here. One example is the phenomenon of “blind-sight,” which he discusses thoroughly.
The title is a bit deceiving. It is not about manipulating people through advertising. Rather it is about the importance of the unconscious mind in everything we do and perceive. The word “unconscious” with its Freudian connotations is inaccurate. Perhaps “nonconscious” is better. The author shows that the nonconscious mind accounts for more of our ideas, perceptions, and actions than we normally believe.
The author pulls out all the stops in surveying what we know, from the early history of Psychology to the newest functional MRI studies. It is a wonderfully organized and extensive survey.Yet, this is no dull treatise. The author has a great sense of organization, a lucid writing style, and an ability to relate sophisticated concepts to everyday experience.” - Joseph Wick
Comments