The Mind and Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley

 Neuroplasticity implies that the brain can change. It was thought that was not possible as an adult, but the author has worked with OCD patients who have showed it is possible. He gives other examples. A girl, through rigorous practice became an excellent pianist, suddenly found her fingers not working. She went to many doctors until one found the problem that her fingers were making only one imprint on the brain instead of individual imprints for each finger. Her rapid playing trained the brain to respond to the fingers as a group. She was able to retrain the brain be playing slowly.

Another example involved dyslexia where sufferers find difficulty reading. What was found was that it was a matter of the sound being too fast for some to recognized. In the sound 'baa' the 'b' is too fast for some and all they hear is the '..aa'. They retrained by slowing down the sound to make the 'b' sound longer and gradually speeding it up as the client handled it so that eventually normal processing was possible.

Tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, reflects that a tone has taken over more of the neighboring regions so patients should attend to and discriminate acoustic stimuli that are near the frequency of the tinnitus tone to drive the cortical reorganization of the non-tinnitus frequencies into the representation of the tinnitus tone.

Chapter 9, Free Will and Free Won't discusses the impact of volition. The author's OCD patients willfully select alternative actions. William James had come close to formulating a persuasive, scientifically based theory of how intention reifies intention. The author calls mental force the mechanism that allows volition to be physically efficacious. He proposes that metal force is a physical force generated by mental effort. Directed mental effort causes measurable changed in brain function. And mental effort is not reducible to brain action. The "free won't" version of volition refers to the minds veto power over brain generated urges. For James will derives not from the freedom to initiate thoughts, but to focus on and select some while stifling or blocking others

Eye opening possibilities have been shown.

This is Your Brain on Parasites: How tiny creatures manipulate our behavior and shape society by Kathleen McAuliffe

 Parasites are masters of mind control. One parasite convinces mice to be friendly to cats and of course they get eaten, putting the parasites where they want to be, inside of a cat. These same parasites can affect humans who get infected by changing cat litter or playing in an infected sandbox, for example. Infected humans take more risks making them inferior drivers for example.

Studies have shown that in geographic regions more susceptible to parasites, people have more authoritarian governments and associate in smaller groups which favor known individuals. Prejudice increases due to fear of the unknown health of those not part of the known group.

This is an eye-opening read. Very interesting.

The Parasitic Mind: How Infections Are Killing Common Sense by Gad Saad

 The author states "I am a parasitologist of the human mind, seeking to inoculate people against a class of destructive ideas that destroy our capacity to reason." The book contains many examples of destructive ideas that really happened. It's a sad commentary.

The Revolutionary Genius of Plants by Stefano Mancuso

 The subtitle is A New Understanding Of Plant Intelligence and Behavior. Plants contrast with animals in that animal functions are concentrated in specialized organs while those of plants are spread through the entire body. "Plants .. modular, diffused construction is the epitome of modernity: a cooperative, shared structure without any command centers, able to flawlessly resist repeated catastrophic without losing functionality and adapt very quickly to huge environmental changes." Animals use movement as a primary strategy to avoid danger but a plant can be thought of as a colony of modular parts. The author shows that widespread participation in making decisions is the system that evolution rewards most.

Overshoot by William Catton Jr.

 Overshoot is growth beyond an area's carrying capacity leading to die-off. Catton explains that America, with its vast open spaces, saved Europe from overcrowding, but now everywhere is full. Starting with the industrial revolution we starting drawing down irreplaceable resources putting us on a path to collapse and massive deaths. He wrote this in 1980 and since then the problem has gotten a lot worse.

Poor Charlie's Almanack by Charles Munger

 Munger provides quite a bit of wisdom in this collection of talks. One really has to be smart to have great success and one has to know ALL the relevant factors. For example if you're a trick or two short you should know all the six or so standard methos, long suit establishment, finesses, throw-in plays, crossrulls, squeezes, and various ways of misleading the defense into making errors. Talk 7 shows why the accounting for stock options can lead to inflated estimates of company revenue.

The Other Brain by R. Douglas Fields

The neurons, which use electricity to communicate have been, until recently, the main focus of brain research. But only 15% of the cells in the brain are neurons. In 1990 researchers observed that the glia communicate chemically and are not just housekeeping cells. The author delineates the role of glia in helpful functions, diseases such as ALS and Parkinson's, and mental illnesses. It make the structure of the brain even more mind-boggling. 

Dark Matter of the Mind: The Culturally Articulated Unconscious by Daniel L. Everett

 This book is somewhat difficult to read but has valuable insights. Dark matter is what individuals build up through developing culture starting even in the womb but definitely at an early age. He presents a new theory of how culture, language, and the unconscious work together. "It is about how our unconscious is structured and infused with meaning by our individual experiences and social living."  He worked in the Amazon region and found tremendous cultural differences that caused him to change the direction of his life.

The Upright Ape: A New Origin of the Species by Aaron G. Filler

     The author presents evidence that evolution is not gradual with many steps over many years to make a significant change, but happens quickly in a generation with the assimilation of a single mutation. For example, in insects the nerve chord runs along the front of the animal facing the ground with the digestive track running along the back facing the sun. Vertebrates have the opposite arrangement. Perhaps one mutation flipped the insect version to the vertebrate version.

     The discovery of the Moroto vertebra showed that 21 million years ago a mutation occurred that created a new type of body plan: the hominoid body plan. This allowed hominoids to be bipedal. So our ancestors were bipedal that long ago and some descendants went back to the older way of walking but we didn't. 

    Although written for the general reader the book does give extensive details.

Mind: A Unified Theory of Mind and Intelligence by Frank T.Vertosick

 This is a fascinating book that describes all life as intelligent. Bacteria work as a group using genetics to adapt to threats. Humans takes years to develop an antibiotic but bacteria can defeat it in a year. Our immune system changes its own genes to remember antigens and learns millions over our lifetime. The author compares serial processing to the parallel processing of networks and shows how network processing creates intelligence.

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut

 This is the only book you need to read to understand the human condition.  It is brilliant. Humans have big brains, and flexible hands that get us into trouble. The blue-footed booby evolved on the Galapagos to have smaller wings and dive much better for fish. Here humans evolve to better adapt to the environment. A must read.

The 10,000 Year Explosion by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending

 The authors explain that the genes in a population can vary quickly if they are successful. For example blue eyes spread rapidly as humans moved north. It takes larger populations for the effect to propagate rapidly and agriculture allowed population to grow. 

They also explain how the Ashkenazi Jews got their smarts. Jews in other parts of the world were not known for intelligence. They suggest that genetic variants facilitate the nervous system. With only one copy of the gene the nervous system is improved but theat gene causes disease with two copies, such as Tay-Sachs and others prevalent among Ashkenazi Jews. This is similar to the gene causing sickle-cell anemia among Africans. The 3/4 standard-deviation IQ difference means the Ashkenazi population has six times as may highly intelligent members 

Lee and Grant by Gene Smith

 This is a fascinating dual biography. Grant failed in everything he did until 1860. He became a great general in the Civil War. His fame spurred him to the presidency at which he wasn't very good. He was superlative at one thing, winning the war.

"Cause Unknown" The Epidemic Of Sudden Deaths in 2021 and 2022 by Edward Dowd.

Every statement is documented. There are many photos of actual cases.

Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in Science by John Archibald Wheeler

 Wheeler, a genius who always strived to understand, combines his personal development with the general knowledge of the time in a readable, fascinating story. His student Hugh Everett developed a many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. "All of the things that might happen (with various probabilities) are in fact happening." This avoids the idea that classical measurements chooses one of these different quantum paths. 

In the chapter It From Bit Wheeler states "When a photon is absorbed, and thereby 'measured'--until its absorption, it had no true reality--an unsplittable bit of information is added to what we know of the world, and, at the same time, that bit of information determines the structure of one part of the world. It creates the reality of the time and place of that photon's interaction."   

In the chapter The End of Time. Time-reversal invariance means that for any motion that does occur or can occur, the motion is reverse is also possible. For large-scale events such as ripping a piece of paper in half, the reversal is possible but extremely unlikely so we won't experience it. Disorder is more probable that order so entropy increases. "The electron pays for its freedom to move forward and backward in time be remembering neither future nor past. We remember the past and are trapped in one-way motion through time." "It is more to be compared with temperature or entropy, concepts that take their meaning only when large numbers of particles are involved. Time, we must conclude, is of statistical origin, valid only when dimensions are large enough and conditions are not too extreme."

 

Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor by Gordon M. Shepard

      Humans have a good sense of smell but it isn't by sniffing like dogs. Our smell is retronasal which happens when breathing out through the nose while chewing and tasting. Smell receptors are on the inside of the nose connecting to the olfactory bulb near the front of the brain. 

     Knowing that, I chew much more thoroughly and get more enjoyment. In fact the pathways followed are similar to those in addiction which makes sense because being motivated to eat seems like a definite survival skill.

A Series of Fortunate Events by Sean Carroll

 This book shows the important role of chance. The asteroid that hit earth about 66 million years ago caused the large animals like dinosaurs to become extinct giving the opportunity for small mammals and later primates to thrive. If that asteroid had hit a few minutes earlier or later it would have landed in the ocean.  Continental drift is a slow process but the India plate is much thinner and moves a lot faster. Its crashing into Asia changed the climate to be more favorable to primates and then humans. So our species is lucky to be here. See also Full House by Steven Jay Gould that draws similar conclusions

Bernoulli's Fallacy: Statistical Illogic and the Crisis of Modern Science by Aubrey Clayton

 Bernoulli's fallacy is common in current statistical applications, where studies are often not reproducible. The problem is that investigators ask the wrong question. One formulates a hypothesis and then asks whether the sample data is consistent with that hypotheses. But what is really needed is to find which hypothesis is suggested by the data. 

One has to ask how likely is the hypothesis. Being consistent with an improbable hypothesis is not useful and can be very misleading. One need to state the prior probability of the hypothesis and consider alternatives. Bayesian methods are more appropriate than frequentist for many applications

A Lie Too Big to Fail The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy by LIsa Pease and James Di Eugenio

 available from https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/62353202/a-lie-too-big-to-fail-the-real-history-of-the-assassination-of-robert-f-ke

This book shows in great detail that a conspiracy was covered up and that there were many more bullets fired then Sirhan's gun held, even if he actually fired real bullets.

Plandemic: Fear is the Virus, Truth is the Cure by Mikki Willis

 One quote I don't want to forget is from CIA Director William Casey who said during a staff meeting in the White House, "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." The author states that "a simple scroll through the cognitive  minefields of social media confirms that Mr. Casey's program is indeed complete."