by Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang
Chapter 1 - Can You Trust Your Brain?
In this non-fiction novel, many themes and the reliability of the brain are explored. Your brain is doing its best to keep you alive and well and has good intentions, but sometimes, it lies. In emergencies or quick thinking situations, your brain may not take the time needed to figure everything out and get the best possible solution and may sometimes assume. For example, if you ask someone what is 1+1+1*0, some people might say 0. It seems like a very simple question. Doing everything in order, it would be 3*0 so the answer is 0. However, because it seems like an easy question, they don't take into consideration the order of operations where they only multiple the last 1 by 0, resulting in an answer of 2.
With the innumerous sensory triggers around you in the environment, the brain receives more information than it can grasp. The brain throws away any information it finds unimportant. Lawyers use this information against eyewitnesses since they usually remember more information than they actually can. Your brain often takes shortcuts, especially when speed if a major factor. The brain will interpret events based on what is easy to apply since concentrated logical thinking takes a lot more effort.
Chapter 2 - Gray Matter and the Silver Screen: Popular Metaphors of How the Brain Works
Mental dysfunctions are often poorly depicted in Hollywood films either that they occur too often or are not factual, often blurring the line between fiction and non-fiction. In problematic situations, ideas wrongly portrayed in films can reinforce a large amount of people to believe in an inaccurate depiction of the brain or its disorders. A common myth about the brain is that we only use 10% of our brain's capacity, which used as facts in the movie Race to Witch Mountain. This started when it was observed that with damaged lobes of the brain, people are still able to perform other tasks under the other lobes. This led to the belief that we only use 10% of our brain, since other lobes may not be in use, but this is completely false. This myth caught on due to its optimistic message of "we only use 10% of our brain, so imagine what we can do if we use the other 90%", but has been proven to be entirely false.
1) I found one section of the novel that was very relatable to something that was discussed in class. In class, we discussed how the right side of the brain was in control of creativity and the left side of the brain was in control of logical thinking. There is a myth that people are either "right brain" or "left brain", but the authors debunk this myth that people have a dominant side of the brain. The authors explain that how left brain is used more for speech, mathematics, and logical problem solving, intense need for logic. They explain how the right brain is spatial perception and the analysis of objects by touch. The right side of the brain is also in responsible for being great at visual-motor tasks, not just artistic and emotional skills contrary to common belief.
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