Download or read book The Man Who Tasted Shapes revised edition written by Richard E. Cytowic and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2008-07-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this medical detective adventure, Cytowic shows how synesthesia, or "joined sensation," illuminates a wide swath of mental life and leads to a new view of what it means to be human. Richard Cytowic's dinner host apologized, "There aren't enough points on the chicken!" He felt flavor also as a physical shape in his hands, and the chicken had come out "too round." This offbeat comment in 1980 launched Cytowic's exploration into the oddity called synesthesia. He is one of the few world authorities on the subject. Sharing a root with anesthesia ("no sensation"), synesthesia means "joined sensation," whereby a voice, for example, is not only heard but also seen, felt, or tasted. The trait is involuntary, hereditary, and fairly common. It stayed a scientific mystery for two centuries until Cytowic's original experiments led to a neurological explanation—and to a new concept of brain organization that accentuates emotion over reason. That chicken dinner two decades ago led Cytowic to explore a deeper reality that, he argues, exists in everyone but is often just below the surface of awareness (which is why finding meaning in our lives can be elusive). In this medical detective adventure, Cytowic shows how synesthesia, far from being a mere curiosity, illuminates a wide swath of mental life and leads to a new view of what is means to be human—a view that turns upside down conventional ideas about reason, emotional knowledge, and self-understanding. This 2003 edition features a new afterword.
Download or read book The Man Who Tasted Shapes revised edition written by Richard E. Cytowic and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2003-08-11 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this medical detective adventure, Cytowic shows how synesthesia, or "joined sensation," illuminates a wide swath of mental life and leads to a new view of what it means to be human. Richard Cytowic's dinner host apologized, "There aren't enough points on the chicken!" He felt flavor also as a physical shape in his hands, and the chicken had come out "too round." This offbeat comment in 1980 launched Cytowic's exploration into the oddity called synesthesia. He is one of the few world authorities on the subject. Sharing a root with anesthesia ("no sensation"), synesthesia means "joined sensation," whereby a voice, for example, is not only heard but also seen, felt, or tasted. The trait is involuntary, hereditary, and fairly common. It stayed a scientific mystery for two centuries until Cytowic's original experiments led to a neurological explanation—and to a new concept of brain organization that accentuates emotion over reason. That chicken dinner two decades ago led Cytowic to explore a deeper reality that, he argues, exists in everyone but is often just below the surface of awareness (which is why finding meaning in our lives can be elusive). In this medical detective adventure, Cytowic shows how synesthesia, far from being a mere curiosity, illuminates a wide swath of mental life and leads to a new view of what is means to be human—a view that turns upside down conventional ideas about reason, emotional knowledge, and self-understanding. This 2003 edition features a new afterword.
Download or read book The Man who Tasted Shapes written by Richard E. Cytowic and published by TarcherPerigee. This book was released on 1993 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cytowic examines the world of synesthetes and the nature of memory, the roots of creativity, the feasibility of artificial intelligence, and the importance of subjectivity in medical research.
Download or read book Wednesday Is Indigo Blue written by Richard E. Cytowic and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-09-30 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revealing the neuroscience and genetics behind synesthesia—and how this multi-sensory phenomenon changed our view of the brain. A person with synesthesia might feel the flavor of food on her fingertips, sense the letter “J” as shimmering magenta or the number “5” as emerald green, hear and taste her husband’s voice as buttery golden brown. Synesthetes rarely talk about their peculiar sensory gift—believing either that everyone else senses the world exactly as they do, or that no one else does. Yet synesthesia occurs in 1 in 20 people, and is even more common among artists. One famous synesthete was novelist Vladimir Nabokov, who insisted as a toddler that the colors on his wooden alphabet blocks were “all wrong.” His mother understood exactly what he meant because she, too, had synesthesia. Nabokov's son Dmitri, who recounts this tale in the afterword to this book, is also a synesthete—further illustrating how synesthesia runs in families. Wednesday Is Indigo Blue reveals how the extraordinary multisensory phenomenon of synesthesia has changed our traditional view of the brain. Because synesthesia contradicted existing theory, researcher Richard Cytowic spent 20 years persuading colleagues that it was a real—and important—brain phenomenon rather than a mere curiosity. Today, scientists in 15 countries are exploring synesthesia and how it is changing the traditional view of how the brain works. Cytowic and neuroscientist David Eagleman argue that perception is already multisensory, though for most of us its multiple dimensions exist beyond the reach of consciousness. Reality, they point out, is more subjective than most people realize. No mere curiosity, synesthesia is a window on the mind and brain, highlighting the amazing differences in the way people see the world.
Download or read book The Man Who Tasted Words written by Dr. Guy Leschziner and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Man Who Tasted Words, Guy Leschziner leads readers through the senses and how, through them, our brain understands or misunderstands the world around us. Vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are what we rely on to perceive the reality of our world. Our senses are the conduits that bring us the scent of a freshly brewed cup of coffee or the notes of a favorite song suddenly playing on the radio. But are they really that reliable? The Man Who Tasted Words shows that what we perceive to be absolute truths of the world around us is actually a complex internal reconstruction by our minds and nervous systems. The translation into experiences with conscious meaning—the pattern of light and dark on the retina that is transformed into the face of a loved one, for instance—is a process that is invisible, undetected by ourselves and, in most cases, completely out of our control. In The Man Who Tasted Words, neurologist Guy Leschziner explores how our nervous systems define our worlds and how we can, in fact, be victims of falsehoods perpetrated by our own brains. In his moving and lyrical chronicles of lives turned upside down by a disruption in one or more of their five senses, he introduces readers to extraordinary individuals, like one man who actually “tasted” words, and shows us how sensory disruptions like that have played havoc, not only with their view of the world, but with their relationships as well. The cases Leschziner shares in The Man Who Tasted Words are extreme, but they are also human, and teach us how our lives and what we perceive as reality are both ultimately defined by the complexities of our nervous systems.
Download or read book Man Who Tasted Shapes written by R. Cytowic and published by Orbit Books. This book was released on 1994-02-24 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Tasting the Universe written by Maureen Seaberg and published by Red Wheel/Weiser. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Explores a dimension of synesthesia long encountered in reports of synesthetes: its relation to mystical and artistic vision . . . fascinating accounts.”—Patricia Lynne Duffy, author of Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens What happens when a journalist turns her lens on a mystery happening in her own life? Maureen Seaberg did just that and lived for a year exploring her synesthesia. The wondrous brain trait is often described as blended senses, but for Maureen, synesthesia is not an idle “brain tick” that can be explained away by science (although it does offer some important clues). It is a unique ability to tap into and reveal a greater creative universe and even the divine. Join her as she visits top neuroscientists, rock stars, violinists, other synesthetes, philosophers, savants, quantum physicists and even Tibetan lamas in her journey toward the truth. Step into Maureen’s shimmering alternate universe as she explores this fascinating subject, combining clear explanations of groundbreaking scientific research with an exploration of deeper spiritual truths. “Tasting the Universe is not only the brilliant writing of a top, professional journalist looking in on a strange but romantic phenomena, but it is the writing of a person who could embrace the feelings of those she interviews, because author Seaberg herself possesses this remarkable gift of synesthesia. I predict when you pick up this book, you will be unable to put it down, as it will open up for you a whole new world in our universe.”—The Amazing Kreskin
Download or read book Synesthesia written by Richard E. Cytowic and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Synesthesia comes from the Greek syn (meaning union) and aisthesis (sensation), literally interpreted as a joining of the senses. Synesthesia is an involuntary joining in which the real information from one sense is joined or accompanies a perception in another. Dr. Cytowic reports extensive research into the physical, psychological, neural, and familial background of a group of synesthets. His findings form the first complete picture of the brain mechanisms that underlie this remarkable perceptual experience. His research demonstrates that this rare condition is brain-based and perceptual and not mind-based, as is the case with memory or imagery. Synesthesia offers a unique and detailed study of a condition which has confounded scientists for more than 200 years.
Download or read book The Man who Tasted Shapes written by Richard E. Cytowic and published by Grand Central Pub. This book was released on 1995 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cytowic examines the world of synesthetes and the nature of memory, the roots of creativity, the feasibility of artificial intelligence, and the importance of subjectivity in medical research.
Download or read book How We Decide written by Jonah Lehrer and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2010-01-14 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to use the unexpected discoveries of neuroscience to help us make the best decisions Since Plato, philosophers have described the decision-making process as either rational or emotional: we carefully deliberate, or we “blink” and go with our gut. But as scientists break open the mind’s black box with the latest tools of neuroscience, they’re discovering that this is not how the mind works. Our best decisions are a finely tuned blend of both feeling and reason—and the precise mix depends on the situation. When buying a house, for example, it’s best to let our unconscious mull over the many variables. But when we’re picking a stock, intuition often leads us astray. The trick is to determine when to use the different parts of the brain, and to do this, we need to think harder (and smarter) about how we think. Jonah Lehrer arms us with the tools we need, drawing on cutting-edge research as well as the real-world experiences of a wide range of “deciders”—from airplane pilots and hedge fund investors to serial killers and poker players. Lehrer shows how people are taking advantage of the new science to make better television shows, win more football games, and improve military intelligence. His goal is to answer two questions that are of interest to just about anyone, from CEOs to firefighters: How does the human mind make decisions? And how can we make those decisions better?
Download or read book A Mango Shaped Space written by Wendy Mass and published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2008-11-16 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An award-winning book from the author of Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life and The Candymakers for fans for of Wonder and Counting by Sevens Mia Winchell has synesthesia, the mingling of perceptions whereby a person can see sounds, smell colors, or taste shapes. Forced to reveal her condition, she must look to herself to develop an understanding and appreciation of her gift in this coming-of-age novel.
Download or read book Black Leopard Red Wolf written by Marlon James and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-02-05 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of TIME’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time Winner of the L.A. Times Ray Bradbury Prize Finalist for the 2019 National Book Award The New York Times Bestseller Named a Best Book of 2019 by The Wall Street Journal, TIME, NPR, GQ, Vogue, and The Washington Post "A fantasy world as well-realized as anything Tolkien made." --Neil Gaiman "Gripping, action-packed....The literary equivalent of a Marvel Comics universe." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times The epic novel from the Man Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings In the stunning first novel in Marlon James's Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child. Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard. As Tracker follows the boy's scent--from one ancient city to another; into dense forests and across deep rivers--he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them. As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying? Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written a novel unlike anything that's come before it: a saga of breathtaking adventure that's also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is both surprising and profound as it explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, and our need to understand them both.
Download or read book Four Fish written by Paul Greenberg and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-07-15 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A necessary book for anyone truly interested in what we take from the sea to eat, and how, and why.” —Sam Sifton, The New York Times Book Review Acclaimed author of American Catch and The Omega Princple and life-long fisherman, Paul Greenberg takes us on a journey, examining the four fish that dominate our menus: salmon, sea bass, cod, and tuna. Investigating the forces that get fish to our dinner tables, Greenberg reveals our damaged relationship with the ocean and its inhabitants. Just three decades ago, nearly everything we ate from the sea was wild. Today, rampant overfishing and an unprecedented biotech revolution have brought us to a point where wild and farmed fish occupy equal parts of a complex marketplace. Four Fish offers a way for us to move toward a future in which healthy and sustainable seafood is the rule rather than the exception.
Download or read book The Stick Chair Book written by Christopher Schwarz and published by . This book was released on 2023-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "..."The Stick Chair Book" is divided into three sections. The first section, "Thinking About Chairs," introduces you to the world of common stick chairs, plus the tools and wood to build them. The second section - "Chairmaking Techniques" - covers every process involved in making a chair, from cutting stout legs, to making curved arms with straight wood, to carving the seat. Plus, you'll get a taste for the wide variety of shapes you can use. The chapter on seats shows you how to lay out 14 different seat shapes. The chapter on legs has 16 common forms that can be made with only a couple handplanes. Add those to the 11 different arm shapes, six arm-joinery options, 14 shapes for hands, seven stretcher shapes and 11 combs, and you could make stick chairs your entire life without ever making the same one twice. The final section offers detailed plans for five stick chairs, from a basic Irish armchair to a dramatic Scottish comb-back. These five chair designs are a great jumping-off point for making stick chairs of your own design. Additional chapters in the book cover chair comfort, finishing and sharpening the tools. From the author: "When I first wrote 'The Stick Chair Book' in 2021, I was also fighting cancer. So I hammered out the text with urgency and the desire to record every fragment of information I knew about chairmaking. "To be fair, that's usually how I go about writing all my books. But then I typically take a couple months off, put the manuscript aside, then revisit it with fresh eyes and a sharpened pen. My final revisions remove about 10-20 percent of the original material. The stuff I cut is usually chapters that don't match the tone of the rest of the text. Or I snip sections that aren't as relevant as when I first wrote them. I also smooth out the writing and add bits of information I'd forgotten during the first brain-to-fingers dump. "And that's exactly what I've done for this revised edition. As a result, the text is 10.1 percent shorter than the first edition. It's more to the point. And it's where the manuscript would have ended up under normal conditions..."--Publisher's website.
Download or read book The Book of Men written by Colum McCann and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eighty pieces of short fiction and nonfiction on manhood by some of the world's best writers. To help launch the literary nonprofit Narrative 4, Esquire asked eighty of the world's greatest writers to chip in with a story, all with the title, "How to Be a Man." The result is The Book of Men, an unflinching investigation into the essence of manhood.
Download or read book Stuff Matters written by Mark Miodownik and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening adventure deep inside the everyday materials that surround us, from concrete and steel to denim and chocolate, packed with surprising stories and fascinating science.
Download or read book Synesthesia written by Lynn C. Robertson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Owing to its bizarre nature and its implications for understanding how brains work, synesthesia has recently received a lot of attention in the popular press and motivated a great deal of research and discussion among scientists. The questions generated by these two communities are intriguing: Does the synesthetic phenomenon require awareness and attention? How does a feature that is not present become bound to one that is? Does synesthesia develop or is it hard wired? Should it change our way of thinking about perceptual experience in general? What is its value in understanding perceptual systems as a whole?This volume brings together a distinguished group of investigators from diverse backgrounds--among them neuroscientists, novelists, and synesthetes themselves--who provide fascinating answers to these questions. Although each approaches synesthesia from a very different perspective, and each was curious about and investigated synesthesia for very different reasons, the similarities between their work cannot be ignored. The research presented in this volume demonstrates that it is no longer reasonable to ask whether or not synesthesia is real--we must now ask how we can account for it from cognitive, neurobiological, developmental, and evolutionary perspectives. This book will be important reading for any scientist interested in brain and mind, not to mention synesthetes themselves, and others who might be wondering what all the fuss is about.
