Sensory data pour in from every direction
The bar is packed with people including those on barstools sitting between you and the beer taps. You’re aware of them but not paying attention. Still, if your mother is on one of those barstools, you’d recognize her. You might even be surprised to see her in a bar (not me, though, my mom likes bars). Sensory data pour in from every direction: People talk and move around; TV monitors show three different baseball games, a soccer match from Brazil, and a cooking show. But as you zero in on that IPA tap, you’re not paying attention to any of that. Then someone says your name . . .
Your inner frog, puppy, and Feynman
Metaphors are great for illustrating scientific concepts, as long as we don’t let those metaphors grow hooves and trample the concepts. Your inner frog is delivers tactile sensations of your skin, orgasms, pain, the various biological urges to fill and empty your body and so on. Your inner puppy likes to play. It wags your tail when you’re happy and perks your ears when you’re fascinated. It’s the part of you that feels appetites like hunger, thirst, and carnal lust. Your inner Feynman does your mathematical physics, makes conscious decisions, recognize faces, speaks, plans, and develops goals.
Art is the distillation of pure experience
When artists create, they imposes their experiences of the world in all its meaning and feeling, culture and politics, oppression and exultation, glory and despair on us, the beholders. Artists insert us into different subjective realities to help us understand what it’s like, whatever “it” may be. Sharing one person’s raw subjectivity with another is, of course, impossible. Artists will fly ever closer to the flame, forever distilling meaning into feeling and sharing it in more ways, despite their absolute, primal understanding that they can never make the perfect connection.
Neuroscience for lay-people that uses irreverence, wisecracks, and a physicist’s eye for scientific accuracy to
convey what makes us all tick and how we can tick better.
With as little jargon as possible, each chapter builds a background for the reader to understand the interplay
between what we too often think of as separate topics. Starting with a new and improved left-brain/right-brain
oversimplification, each chapter investigates the inseparable interactions of seemingly distinct concepts, all
building to a working understanding of innovation and creativity in art, science, and life.
Using examples ranging from hanging out in bars to playing guitar to cave people hunting hippos to surfing to
impressionist art to the most important failed experiment of all time, we address consciousness, value, hops and
malt, why we mourn each other’s deaths, and why we do what we do for money.
An edgy, irreverent, accurate look at neuroscience for a lay-audience with emphasis on
innovation in art and science
A Look at the Neuroscience of Innovation & Creativity
in Art, Science & Life
“Exceptionally well written, organized, and presented.”
- The Midwest Book Review
“A book all about hard science . . . with metaphors and stories, jokes and quips,
ideas and assumptions, and crammed with knowledge…a weight of content with
undeniable passion and zest.”
- The Lancet Neurology
Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award
“Narrator James Patrick Cronin brings out the humor and intrigue that are deftly interwoven with scientific
data in this exploration of how the brain works. Cronin’s playful cheekiness effectively lends itself to the book’s
mix of science and emotion and the argument that analysis, creativity, and emotion are deeply interrelated.”
- AudioFile
Sensory data pour in from every direction
The bar is packed with people including those on barstools sitting between you and the beer taps. You’re aware of them but not paying attention. Still, if your mother is on one of those barstools, you’d recognize her. You might even be surprised to see her in a bar (not me, though, my mom likes bars). Sensory data pour in from every direction: People talk and move around; TV monitors show three different baseball games, a soccer match from Brazil, and a cooking show. But as you zero in on that IPA tap, you’re not paying attention to any of that. Then someone says your name . . .
Your inner frog, puppy, and Feynman
Metaphors are great for illustrating scientific concepts, as long as we don’t let those metaphors grow hooves and trample the concepts. Your inner frog is delivers tactile sensations of your skin, orgasms, pain, the various biological urges to fill and empty your body and so on. Your inner puppy likes to play. It wags your tail when you’re happy and perks your ears when you’re fascinated. It’s the part of you that feels appetites like hunger, thirst, and carnal lust. Your inner Feynman does your mathematical physics, makes conscious decisions, recognize faces, speaks, plans, and develops goals.
Art is the distillation of pure experience
When artists create, they imposes their experiences of the world in all its meaning and feeling, culture and politics, oppression and exultation, glory and despair on us, the beholders. Artists insert us into different subjective realities to help us understand what it’s like, whatever “it” may be. Sharing one person’s raw subjectivity with another is, of course, impossible. Artists will fly ever closer to the flame, forever distilling meaning into feeling and sharing it in more ways, despite their absolute, primal understanding that they can never make the perfect connection.
A Look at the Neuroscience of
Innovation & Creativity
in Art, Science & Life
Neuroscience for lay-people that uses
irreverence, wisecracks, and a physicist’s eye
for scientific accuracy to convey what makes
us all tick and how we can tick better.
With as little jargon as possible, each chapter
builds a background for the reader to
understand the interplay between what we
too often think of as separate topics. Starting
with a new and improved left-brain/right-
brain oversimplification, each chapter
investigates the inseparable interactions of
seemingly distinct concepts, all building to a
working understanding of innovation and
creativity in art, science, and life.
Using examples ranging from hanging out in
bars to playing guitar to cave people hunting
hippos to surfing to impressionist art to the
most important failed experiment of all time,
we address consciousness, value, hops and
malt, why we mourn each other’s deaths,
and why we do what we do for money.
An edgy, irreverent, accurate look at
neuroscience for a lay-audience withemphasis on innovation in art and
science
Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award
“Narrator James Patrick Cronin brings out
the humor and intrigue that are deftly
interwoven with scientific data in this
exploration of how the brain works.
Cronin’s playful cheekiness effectively
lends itself to the book’s mix of science
and emotion and the argument that
analysis, creativity, and emotion are
deeply interrelated.”
- AudioFile
“Exceptionally well written, organized,
and presented.”
- The Midwest Book Review
“A book all about hard science . . . with
metaphors and stories, jokes and quips,
ideas and assumptions, and crammed
with knowledge…a weight of content with
undeniable passion and zest.”
- The Lancet Neurology
