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Synopsis
* Mp3 CD Format *. Using a mix of experiential reportage, personal storytelling, and fresh scientific discovery, Steven Johnson describes how the brain works -- its chemicals, structures, and subroutines -- and how these systems connect to the day-to-day realities of individual lives. For a hundred years, he says, many of us have assumed that the most powerful route to self-knowledge took the form of lying on a couch, talking about our childhoods. The possibility entertained in this book is that you can follow another path, in which learning about the brain's mechanics can widen one's self-awareness as powerfully as any therapy or meditation or drug.
The New York Times - Jonathan Weiner
This is an entertaining and instructive ride inward to a place that looks less familiar the better we get to know it. As Johnson says, ''It's a jungle in there.'' ''If a lion could talk we would not understand him,'' Wittgenstein said. Mind Wide Open takes the point closer to home. If every part of our brain could talk, we would not understand ourselves.