Edited by John Brockman, Harper Perennial, £9.99/£6.99 e-book
Like Brockman’s acclaimed previous work – such as This Explains Everything – Thinking attempts to answer profound questions by channeling the distilled wisdom of globally noted scientists.
In this case, the topic in question is why we approach decision-making and matters of free will in the way we do. And the assembled cast reads like a who’s who of neurology, statistical analysis and applied psychology, including Daniel Dennett (who describes the brain as “like anarchy with some elements of democracy”), Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (who shows how dramatically brains “reorganise” themselves during adolescence), Simon Baron-Cohen (who is fascinating on the effects of testosterone on emotional development) and Nassim Nicholas Taleb of Black Swan fame, who shows why statistics try to create certainty when in reality there is no such thing.
From it all, certain themes emerge, including the idea that consciousness is personal, relative and widely misunderstood, and the reassuring news that anyone can learn almost anything with enough application. At the same time, our lack of knowledge (and control) when it comes to the brain is terrifying, and it is this acknowledgment that scientific discovery is a work in progress rather than a certainty that is refreshing when most similar books invariably claim to be ‘definitive’.
Thinking straddles the worlds of academic and popular science perfectly, but isn’t an easy read, not least because it is culled from speeches and conversations rather than formal essays, and therefore comes replete with linguistic foibles and occasional repetition. But anyone who wants to understand which brain-related research is actually worth reading need not buy anything else – at least for the time being.