Working in Movement

The Science Blog reports that Heavy Smokers See Cigarettes as Friends. Boy, talk about your bad ideas and unreliable sensory appreciation!

Neuroscience concerns itself with THE brain. That's a pretty objective description. The only trouble is each of us has our own brain (OK, I've had my doubts about some people I've met, but let's assume), and that gives us a subjective experience. Steven Johnson takes a crack at merging neuroscience and subjective experience in a new book Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life. From his website:

"The book is an attempt to look systematically at the question of what brain science can tell you about yourself as an individual. There are a number of great books that ask questions like: How did the brain evolve? Or: how does the brain work? This book asks a related, but more intimate question: how does your brain work? In what ways can science shed light on your own personality traits, emotional habits, mental blindspots or strengths? In the book I've set myself up as a kind of guinea pig for this experiment: I take a number of tests that evaluate different cognitive faculties; I do a number of explorations with neurofeedback; I help design a series of fMRI experiments on my own head. I also have conversations with some of the world's leading brain scientists, who function as guides through this amazing inner landscape.

Could be worth checking out.