5 comments about The Wisdom Paradox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Older.

1. This is the book that got me interested, once again, in neuropsychology and neuroanatomy. Yes, the immediate interest is that business of not wanting "to go gently into that good night." as Dylan Thomas wrote. How much will cognitive delcine affect me as I age (something we are all doing since birth - it isn't only the old who are aging).
   
   I think Goldberg, motivated by his own need to "rage, rage against the dying of the light," used his enormous knowledge of neuropsychology to create a work that should benefit all who want to know what their chances are (or of relatives/friends) of continuing to lead a useful life despite the inevitable (and many) ways we decline in capacity as we age.
   
   This book is not necessarily an easy read for a generation used to soundbites, e-mail abreviations, evening news pseudo-profundity, or dumbed-down magazine articles. One has to realize that neurology is the subject medical students fear most. And with good reason. The human brain has been described as the most complex thing we know of. Somehow, in a way not yet fully understood, consciousness emerges from the healthy, mature human brain to give us (finally in human evolution) the ability to study effectively with recent functional brain scanning techniques the very organ system that allows us to smell a perfume and recall a long ago romance, to see a face in the crowd and recognize someone we have not seen for ten years (or fifty years), to freeze with terror as the amygdala (as close as we can come to Freud's Id) brings to mind a terrible incident from childhood, to meditate and find a place of peace where some of our systems shut down like that scene in the film "2001" in which HAL, the space ship's computer, gets his memory modules unpluged after trying to kill the crew.
   
   Frankly, I liked Goldberg's making the book not a text, but a personal exploration. Textbooks are the most boring article ever devised by the human mind - but necessary until in some new century slouching up towards Jerusalem we get microchip implants that make us into Borgs, don't snicker, people are having chips placed subdermal just so they can wave their arm at a door and have it open. Think how willing people will be score of years hence to suffer the implant of cerebral devices that give us many terabytes of updatable data storage or like "The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy" Marvin, the robot with a brain the size of a planet, unlimited intelligence. What Faustian deals will we make in centuries to come?
   
   Get out your magic marker and color all those amazing bits of research and speculation about how our brains age. His theory is that we will get by nicely, thank you very much, on the sheer acumulation of left brain (that's not your creative side, sorry) routines which will enable us to be useful on the job and not too dull in our personal lives. This is despite the loss of some brain capacity (literally, the brain shrinks), memory loss, lessened creativity and such. It helps to have been bright and active using the brain in one's occupation.
   
   However, we still don't know definitively what causes Alzheimer's disease or many other serious forms of cognitive decline. The good news is that we have a better chance than not of living our life to the full without disabling mental decline. It is not a 'neuropsychology for dummies' work. It is not well illustrated - see my review of Rita Carter's "Mapping the Mind" which is - but one keens at Goldberg's expertise in his field (he specializes in the frontal lobes, which, incidentally, is where the part of the mind that seems to be YOU is located - maybe).
   
   With all the babyboomers coming along worried about their senior years, I see a bright future for this book - and many others like it. There are just so many more answers to those questions the artist asked: D'ou venons nous? Que sommes nous? Ou allons nous? (Gaugauin, MFA Boston). Goldberg is one of many helping us to understand the latest discoveries and theories in this field. He has some of his own; he's more in favor of the 'distributed processing' theory of brain function, not the highly modular view which has held sway for decades. Incidentally, recent research has shown that the Broca's area and Werneicke's area are less fixed and immutable than formerly thought.
   
   I recommend this book.



2. Elkhonon Goldberg brings to fore many insights about the brain, but the overriding theme of the book is that as we age our brain shifts focus from a right-hemisphere dominated approach to a left-hemisphere dominated approach. New evidence has generally shown that, contrary to older studies, the right hemisphere is used to 'learn new things' and the left hemisphere is used for pattern recognition. As we age, we shift our brain dominance from right to left. Goldberg explains how we can take advantage of our awareness of this shift. (For example: keep our brain active so it doesn't atrophy -- especially the right hemisphere.)
   
   Just as our brain shifts focus, this book shifts focus as we read along, too. The first part of the book is generally fact and hypothesis based. Goldberg explains his theories interlaced with personal narrative. The book then shifts focus to what we can do to maintain our cognitive abilities as we age. Goldberg outlines cognitive exercises we can do to keep our brain sharp. This chapter comes immediately following a chapter summarizing recent research proposing that humans grow neurons their entire life -- how many we grow and where they migrate to is up to us (in theory).
   
   This is a positive book, bringing hope and some scientific rigor to those older folk interested in the life-cycle of their brain. Goldberg comes across as a competent scientist and, at over 50, still hasn't lost his writing ability. (If you read the book you'll learn, from a technical point of view, why this isn't so surprising. Hint: writing is a mostly left-hemisphere activity.)



3. I came across this book after I read Joe DeLoux's Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are, and it proved to be an enjoyable read. Elkhonon Goldberg has written quite complex information into a very comprehensible direction for the reader in his "The Wisdom Paradox."
   
   There are fifteen chapters in this book, with an addition of an epilogue. With each chapter, it is more like a personal journey than a simple or dry work. It is both personal and informative.
   
   I personally like this book because it adds to my understanding of neuropsychology and neurobiology as it would be a good resourceful book. After reading this book, I find myself feeling compelled to exercise my mind and get those synapse of mine firing. My current skills are limited and useless. However, I can increase my skills by doing what I never done before. Knowledge is indeed unlimited and so is our brain power.
   
   In my opinion, I recommend this book.



4. I recommend that you read the Scientific American review that you can find above. It contains just about everything this book has to offer. The ideas about brain hemispheres are interesting, but you won't learn much more by reading the 300+ pages.
   The Wisdom Paradox has a very promising premise and the topic is very important and the author has a mighty pedigree, but still the book leaves you emptyhanded. The most infuriating part is the last chapter that describes a program for cognitive fitness, i.e. a way of enhancing your brain power. And that's it: a description! Nothing else. The author doesn't give the reader a single exercise, but he just pats himself on the back for inventing such a wonderful program.
   You won't become any wiser from this book.



5. Coming from someone who studied with Luria, the results were expected to be very high.
   
   The most important part is the clear and interesting explanation about how the brain changes the learning process as time goes by.
   
   There are some corollaries that could be extracted from that. For instance, people with different ages could be better fitted for specific tasks than other people and why.
   
   Other important consequence should be the fact that our learning style during maturity is going to depend strongly on our learning style in earlier times.
   
   This part, that could be extremely interesting, is underdeveloped. It seeems that the author tries to give an optimistic view about the aging process forgetting the drawbacks of this same process...for instance, older people do not fit in task requiring an extensive use of short-term memory.
   
   The book is very good but the objective of showing the "nice face" of aging process could be near to the "self-help" literacy and that can be the worst part.

No comments about Mind Food and Smart Pills.

No comments about Science of Memory Concepts (Science of Memory).

3 comments about Music and Memory: An Introduction.

1. Written textbook style, Snyder's Music and Memory surveys what was previously the largely disparate literature linking cognitive psychology, linguistics, music, neuroscience, and memory. Accessible to the beginner in this interdisciplinary field, Snyder takes effort to introduce musical concepts and terminology before moving to higher level analyses. However, the expert in this field will still find many interesting bits of information regarding current papers on music and memory in these introductory chapters. As the book progresses, the scale of the ideas becomes more grandiose, but Snyder manages to support his tenets about the brain and music well. The chapters are sometimes divided by topic (like rhythm, or syntactic hierarchy in music). This enormous undertaking succeeds admirably -- and even if you are not a cognitive musicologist, you will find many interesting bits of information about this book about why you remember that certain song you've heard on the radio or TV. A+++.



2. not much to add to Sean Bennett's review, which is very cogent, but just wanted to second the high ranking--this is a book that deserves to be acknowledged and read.



3. This book explores hearing and memory from a highly technological view point. It is difficult for the average person even with a college degree to follow and renders one bored after only a few pages of trying to follow the tiny details in the book.

No comments about Thought Power.

No comments about The Anatomy of Memory: An Anthology.

3 comments about User's Guide to Brain-Boosting Supplements: Learn About the Vitamins and Other Nutrients That Can Boost Your Memory and End Mental Fuzziness.

1. I bought this book because I've been having a few senior moments (even though I'm not a senior!) I really liked it because it wasn't too technical and was easy to read. I like that the authors make recomendations for things to take and what they are. I recomend this book to anyone looking to boost their memory!



2. The authors do a superb job of identifying the how to get the most from your mind. Their suggestions are practical and effective.
   
   I would only caution people to be very careful where you source the recommended supplements. A supplement retailer with more than 4-5 suppliers cannot keep up with the latest innovations. Snake-oil abounds. RelentlessImprovement.com is fast, professional, and offers only pharmaceutical quality fully tested supplements.
   
   Be the best you can be, let this book help you.



3. I was impressed enough when Gormley came out a landmark book on DHA in 1999, but was equally impressed when he came out with this book, the most-concise, best-researched, most practical and powerful consumer book on brain-boosting I have ever read--and there are a number out at this point. Bravo!

1 comments about Strengthen Your Mind: Activities for People With Early Memory Loss.

1. As an individual that works with people in all stages of memory loss, this book has been a lifesaver. The exercises can be adapted to assist anyone in experiencing success and are lots of fun as well. If you are in the field, or if you know someone with early memory loss, this book is for you.

2 comments about Rewriting the Soul.

1. Hacking asks, "Is it real?" He referred to the epidemic nature of multiplicity. He wrote that at one time multiplicity was considered rare. Hacking asks, "What happened? What is it? And, what is the answer?" He considered that multiplicity could be a fabrication between doctor and patient or as a social circumstance. He suggests that an intervention should be made and concluded that the situation demand professional caution. He sites the organizational work done by, "the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, but he claimed to be neutral.

   Hacking seems to be part of a movement that believes that "... emphasis on personalities is wrongheaded." He writes that multiplicity is a failure to integrate. He quotes Spiegel (1993) as saying, "The problem is not having more than one personality; it is having less than one personality." Hacking further writes a comparison of multiplicity to Alice (in Wonderland). "For this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. `But it's no use now,' thought poor Alice, `to pretend to be two people! Why, there is hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!"

   Yesterday, I pulled from my shelves the first book I found on multiplicity. I wanted to write the first item in THE CATALOG. I skimmed through the first chapter. And, I felt anger and betrayal. This author's thinking horrified me. I don't have the ability to remember what I have or have not read or who is who, but I'd fallen under the wrong assumption that I have bought only "good books." So-be-it. This remains the first entry. We hope to offer "some" objectivity.

   We will be checking out the other books on our shelves before going much further. We find it hard to remember, but we do know what allows feeling good or bad. We're not less than one!

   Kate (Aynetal System)
   KathrynCoreyCenter.com




2. Ian Hacking is a brilliant thinker and an elegant writer. I read this book after one of my husband's friends suggested it. He said it was the best book he can ever remember reading (like me, he prefers to read good nonfiction).
   After reading the book (during which I couldn't help marking particularly good passages because I knew I'd want to reread them), I have found myself refering to this book frequently in my own writing (I'm an academic) and conversation with my students. I must agree with my husband's friend: this is certainly one of the best books I've read.
   If you enjoy smart analysis of contemporary culture and the frailties of sciences claiming to map the human mind, you will really enjoy this book. If you are a deep believer in the pure and virtuous authority of psychology, you will feel disturbed.

No comments about Maximum Memory.