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Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide To Critical Thinking Skills (2012)

by Steven Novella(Favorite Author)

4.31 of 5 Votes: 2

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

The Great Courses

review 1: Stupendous! I love the instructors approach to the subject. Rather than rehashing tiered old philosophical and rhetorical conventions, he takes you on a fun, eye opening tour of cognitive psychology and the scientific method. Even if you "already know" all of the material he covers, the instructor assembles and presents the material in such a skillful and targeted way, that you will inevitably gain something of value from listening to his arguments.At times the instructor was a little dry. I have heard these concepts explained in really funny, entertaining ways (see Leonard Moldinov's Subliminal). But again, this is excusable due to the brevity and comprehensiveness of the course.This course is well worth the 11+ hour and 25.00 investment. It's doubtlessly going to add to ... more(or at least sharpen) my cognitive toolkit. And for those unfamiliar with the findings of cognitive science, this is crucial, potentially transformative listening.
review 2: Not a book, but one of the Great Courses series (lectures on varying topics). If you can get them through your library, this is ideal, but if not, try Audible. For $15 vs. $100, it's a pretty nice deal. You miss out on the course booklet, but I find I never end up referring to them anyway (I mean to, I just don't get to it). This one ran about 12 hours. Some parts were a bit dry, but I overall loved it and found it thought provoking. I do really wish his closing segment (the last 10-15 minutes or so) were at the opening of the lecture series. It clarified intent, in some cases, and added some disclaimer - it was overall fantastic and I'd be a lot more inspired about recommending it if that part was at the beginning.The one thing that was good, but at the same time really, really sucked...was his explanation of how memory works and how the brain fills in the blanks when presented with a piece of information but not the whole story. Even though I had read something to this effect before and had an idea of it, hearing it in a lecture in more detail and listening to the full implication of how memory works was depressing as hell. It really knocked me down. I LIKE to think of memories being locked in a vault in my head to be pulled out and examined from time to time as they were...but this is not the case and I'm not having the easiest time accepting that (while at the same time, it's a little freeing... which is such a conflicting feeling). It made for a mopey drive to work the day that lecture was on. Overall it gave me a lot to think about and I think much of this was worthwhile and definitely worth a listen. I will probably revisit it at some point, as I felt there were a few things that I need to hear a couple times to process better. less

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