If the conscious mind—the part you consider you—accounts for only a tiny fraction of the brain’s function, what is all the rest doing? This is the question that David Eagleman—renowned neuroscientist and acclaimed author of Sum—answers in a book as accessible and entertaining as it is deeply informed by startling, up-to-the-minute research.

Krzysztof

Vishal Hassani

Sedef

Jagrut Patel

William

Brian Connelly

Kelly Strum

Simon Ioffe

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Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

Let me start with the easy stuff. On a literary note, this book is entertaining. However, it reads more like a series of interesting essays on neuroscience rather than a book.   Let me move on to the more interesting stuff. This book is deceptive. Eagleman uses a "slight of hand" writing style. Just as he describes how magic tricks deceive the brain, Eagleman uses this entertaining little book to advocate for a social and justice system that disregards civil rights.   How does he do this? He strings together an a serious of interesting tidbits about how the brain is controlled by chemistry and its hardwiring. For example, he outlines research on split brain patients and the difference between the right and left sides. He explains how we become "wired" for routine actions, such as driving to work, and can put forward little effort on accomplishing such things.  When he has you hooked, he launches into a treatise about how the criminal justice system should be used to correct our brains for he assumes that criminal activity is the result of a brain not functioning correctly. He admits that frontal lobotomies were a clumsy early attempt to do this, but he feels science is much more advanced now and continues to advance every day. For those who do not have "correctable" problems, he actually uses the work "warehouse" for their fate.  The bottom line is that he believes in "treatment" for those who commit crimes. On the surface, this sounds enlightened. But when you take a step back from this book, this idea is disturbing. Our criminal justice system, in fact our whole legal framework, is based on the underlying assumption that individuals have the right to control their own bodies. Even when they have forfeited the right to be physically free and are imprisoned, our government does not have the right to force medical treatment and that includes psychological treatment.   Eagleton is advocating for "treating" criminals. This should send a chill up his readers' spines. Our sordid history of "treating" criminals includes institutionalizing gays and lesbians and "treating" them for their "disorder", medical experiments with African American prisoners, and institutionalizing people with developmental disabilities for the minor offenses.   This is a dangerous road. But what is particularly disturbing about this book is Eagleton's deceptive approach. He does not acknowledge or give weight to any of the counterarguments to this approach, which you think should be standard for his "scientific approach". In fact, he positions himself as being "enlightened" because he does not advocate for the "lock up and throw away the key" approach. I can only think back to another book that I read this year - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and how we must carefully balance the rights of individuals with scientific principles.

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