September 2020

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Incognito by David Eagleman

Incognito - book review

To find out how to learn quicker, it’s good to understand how the brain works, at least to familiarize with the current state of what humanity knows about it. One book, which is ranked very high in neuroscience section is “Incognito” by David Eagleman. He is an American neuroscientist and science communicator. He teaches as an adjunct professor at Stanford University and is CEO of NeoSensory, a company that develops devices for sensory substitution. 

Do we really see everything?

One of the common misconceptions is that we think we see everything and perceive the reality as it is. However author provides many scientific proofs this is not the way it is. First, we think our eyes provide us with images like the digital camera. However, the existence of optical illusions causes us to believe, there is a part of the brain that receives the signals from eyes and interprets it. Finally, what we see is rather a retouched picture rather than original. To provide a good experience, our brain sometime makes things up. This is the case with the blind spot, a place where there are no light sensors on the retina and therefore is light insensitive. Brain is constantly analyzing what is around the holes to fill the blanks.

Brain’s Achilles’ heel

We are not good in detecting changes. The scientific term for this is change blindness. This means we need to direct our conscious attention to find differences, otherwise the programs in supercomputer between our ears will think this is not important for us. In fact, this is the reason it is recommended to the people who want to better understand the text, to ask questions prior to reading. As a result, they will give their subconscious a hint to what is important.

Scientists have proven that the left hemisphere is continuously trying to make sense of what is happening in the entire system and it provides us with this information. Yet sometimes is doesn’t have all informations so it makes things up. This might be the reason we remember our dreams with many details. It turns out there was something stitching the dream imagery together and providing a narration.

Brain’s advantages?

The biggest advantage of the human brain is its efficiency and plasticity. Kasparov did not burn as much energy as Deep Blue. Excellence comes with automatism. Experts have mastered their skills to such a level, that they are burned deep into the circuitry. In one study, the game players who played a game for the first time showed a lot more brain activity than the ones already familiar with it. 

Law based on the brain

Much of the book is devoted to a question of legal system and the question if criminals who have changes in brain but no biological signs of it, should be dealt with differently. Question of blameworthiness the author would replace with modifiability. To what degree are we sure that the man can change.

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Peak – secrets from the new science on expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool – book review

Peak - book review

What is the one thing all the top-performers, athletes, have in common? This must have been the life question of Anders Ericsson, who devoted thousands of hours to expert performance research. As a curious researcher, he wanted to check what happens when a human embarks on a journey from an average to a peak performer. One of many people he helped on their way to peak performance was Joshua Foer, who won US Memory Championships in 2006 after only one year of practice (you can find my review of his book in this post). Ericsson did not find any proof for the existence of some innate talents or abilities, causing top-achievers to outperform others. Instead, he is convinced that what connects all the world class performers is the deliberate practice. Using principles of purposeful practice, he could train an average student to remember 80 digits. 

10 000 hours are not enough

In 1993 Ericsson together with Ralf Krampe and Clemens Tesch-Römer published a study of the Berlin violin students that has received a lot of attention a few years later when Malcolm Gladwell published his book ‘Outliers’. Gladwell states that it is enough to train for 10 thousand of hours to achieve expert performance. Ericsson shows, this was not the result of his study. Some violinists had put as much time of training before they were 20, however they were still studying and nowhere near of expert performance. 

Author debunks the 10 thousand hours rule as this is not always sufficient to reach top level. Yet expertise can be achieved by applying deliberate practice, which is focused, goal driven and requires constant feedback about the progress. As soon as we reach a plateau and don’t see any progress, we need to push ourself out of the comfort zone and make a skill we’re working on a little harder. The way to achieve expertise might be shortened by employing a teacher or an expert, who has already done what we’re trying to achieve.

The purpose of deliberate practice is to create high quality mental representations of the skill that we learn. These mental structures that correspond to an idea or an object are very well developed in the minds of expert performers and allow the best chess players to play many chess games simultaneously while blindfolded.

Raise a genius

Although this book is not a parenting guide, there are a few hints for parents. First thing I have learnt is that ‘geniuses are born not made’. A Hungarian chess teacher and psychologist, László Polgár has proven that he can raise a genius. He conducted his experiment on his own three daughters, who he trained to become champions in chess.

According to author any skill can be learned with help of deliberate practice, thus it is completely not justified to say to someone, especially kids, that they are bad at something, as they will quickly believe it and won’t even try to improve. Conversely labeling someone as talented will put him in a spotlight and make him believe he has some innate abilities, which motivates him to work more on these skills. 

This book is definitely worth reading and worth of receiving my highest note. Deliberating is the fact that the expertise is open to anyone. By applying the principles of purposeful practice one can regain control of his life and might be actively shaping it instead of reactively waiting for what life will bring. There is no more excuse to start singing, dancing or whatever we say we suck at.

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Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer – book review

Moonwalking with Einstein - book review

Jim Kwik’s book “Limitless” gave me a lot of energy and motivation to work on my mental abilities. One of many books referenced there is “Moonwalking with Einstein”, which was labeled as groundbreaking. If you are the one who thinks human memory of a healthy human* can’t be improved, you definitely need to read the book.

*There are brain damages that destroy long therm memory, thus making memory improvement impossible.

Joshua Foer’s interest in memory training started with an unrelated visit at a Weightlifting Hall of Fame, where he watched a photo of a strongest man in the world. He questioned himself if there is also a title for the smartest person of the world. A good portion of googling did not provide him with an unequivocal answer. He stumbled on a name of Ben Pridmore – the world memory champion at that time. In one of his interviews, he revealed that anyone could train their memory and achieve similar results as he.

In 2005 Josh went to the US memory championships to write an article about not so popular at the time competition. His true motivation, though, was led by curiosity of how do the contestants perform such tricks. The participants of these championships called themselves mental athletes. It amazed Josh how these apparently ordinary people had the ability to remember so many things in seconds. He tried to talk to some of them to find out what special talents they possess. To his confusion, they all stated that there is no special power needed to memorize a deck of cards.

Journey to the depths of the memory

Josh followed the participants to know them better and with time they become friends. He kept thinking about the fact that anyone can do a memory training and he decided to train for the 2006 championships. One of the memory grand masters from England, Ed Cook becomes his mentor. 

Research led him to the Human Performance Lab, where Anders Ericsson and researchers are examining the top performers to find out what makes some people experts. Josh knew that if he wanted to place high during championships, he needed to become an expert within one year. Ericsson agreed to provide him with his feedback in exchange for the granular data from his everyday practice. This win-win solution provided Josh with constant progress analysis and support on how to improve. Ericsson received the possibility to track the process of building expertise from a novice to an expert.

The main story line covers author’s preparation for the Memory Championships, however the author has a brilliant way to plot his research results into the story. Starting from Simonides, who is the first person we know of, inventing memory techniques. Josh guides us through development of mnemonics and reveals how and why these techniques were used during the history of a mankind.

The number one takeaway from the book is that we can achieve the goals we set if we undertake a deliberate effort. What the Experts and top performers are doing we can replicate to achieve expertise. By harnessing focus, planning and constant feedback we can quickly find when our development reaches a plateau. This could be overcome by increasing difficulty or stepping out of comfort zone.

It might be comforting that years of practice are not equivalent to expertise. One can perform action for several years and still suck at it. Only a deliberate effort to improve can bring progress.

Memory training has not provided Josh with superpowers. Even after the comptetion he frogets things that he not focused on remembering. He still forgets where he put his keys. Despite this fact he learned to value memory as a necessary ingredient of creativity but also personality.

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Innercise – by John Assaraf – book review

innercise book review

When you enter the phrase ‘unlock your brain’ in Amazon.com’s search bar, one book that will always come up very high in the results page is ‘Innercise’ by John Assaraf. According to his ‘About’ page he has built 5 multimillion dollar companies and is now a CEO and founder of NeuroGym.

What struck me most about the author is that he was not born with the silver spoon in his mouth. In fact, he was far from success at the beginning of his career. With help of a friend who then became his mentor, he changed his life and achieved the success he always dreamed of.

John uses his experiences and the studies from newest cognitive science to create the book, a guide to overcome our minds’ limitations. The contents of this easy-to-read work are divided into 3 parts. Author begins with a description of the Brain and how it works. Although the brain is not a muscle, it needs to be trained to become and function better. Training of the brain is the primary motive of the book, and even the book’s title relates to this. John Assaraf emphasises, not only our body requires training but also our mind. Yet the exercise is of another form and nature, it is directed to the inside, hence the name Innercise.

Gorilla inside of us

Through our experiences, uprising and interactions with other people, our brains have been hard wired in a unique way. This wiring enables automaticity and causes our brain to work more effectively. Therefore, we can drive a car without focusing on all activities as it was the case when we first learned it. In fact, most of our actions and behaviours are being controlled by the subconscious mind, which the author compares to a gorilla living inside of us. 

Gorilla stands guard over our safety and efficient functioning of the brain. Once it notices some of our actions might be a potential threat, it steps into action. Have you ever heard this voice in your head, dissuading you from doing some kind of new thing. After you’ve came up with a brilliant idea, there is a phase when you are bombarded with doubts. It’s the gorilla speaking with our voice. This mechanism exists to keep us in safety and away from dangers. However, it also might block us from progressing with our dreams.

Tame the gorilla

The advances in neuroscience show neuroplasticity is a fact and thus we can rewire and change some automations that are ingrained in our brains. The second part of the book shows how to do it. We should direct our focus inside of us. What are the reasons for setting goals and not reaching them? There might be several reasons, and this part is revealing them step by step and providing solutions. Fears, habits, excess stress and false beliefs might have steered you in the direction where you are. But encouraging is that we are not a fixed product and we can change with a bit of help. We don’t know what we don’t know so the first step would be to read this part of the book to check what has blocked us from achieving our potential, and while we know what options are there, we can become aware. Awareness is, as I think, already a partial success.

Effective goal setting

Backed up with the discoveries of neuroscientists, we can set up goals which will not fade out. With the help of innercises we can keep them alive and what’s more we can finally take actions and succeed.

“Innercise” is useful to uncover why despite the efforts we take, we don’t achieve our goals. Following sentence is often attributed to Einstein: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”. By reading and learning things described in the book, you can expand your thinking, gain new insights and create an alternative approach to changing unuseful habits or thoughts and finally maybe changing your life.