Top Brain, Bottom Brain: Harnessing the Power of the Four Cognitive Modes

Interesting research that fails to provide more than a polemic against alternatives that also adopt a dualistic. Simplistic and distorted approach to thinking about the brain mind interface- good journalism but smdisapointing contribution confusing association with causation

I liked this book. Per usual everyone has a different take on the brain but this was very interesting.

The authors of this book have synthesized many studies and posit that the long-held theory of left-right brain is not correct. They believe that brain function is actually divided more along the lines of top and bottom brain function. It is a fascinating book and very interesting for anyone who has an interest in how our brains operate and how we negotiate with the world around us.

It is hard for me to imagine a worse, more trivial or less meaningful book than this, and I have a pretty good imagination. One of the things that prompted me to buy it was a quote from Steven Pinker on the back cover that stated "Kosslyn is one of the world's great cognitive neuroscientists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century." I admire Pinker and have been impressed by the precision and accuracy of his language. When I looked at this quote again after reading the book, I realized he never said the book was good (or even mediocre) or that its ideas were useful or accurate. All he said was that one of the authors was a great scientist. I have found that the hallmark of poor psychological writing is taking something and subdivide it with little or no evidence that the subdivisions exist and/or are meaningful. Freud started this with the ideas of id, ego, and superego. Since then childhood has been divided into numerous different numbers of phases by various authors, as has personality, the brain and just about everything else they examine. This is a book to avoid since it is a total waste of time and money. If you want a good book on the brain, read Michio Kaku's The Future of the Mind

Short and sweet, I can't recommend it enough. This knowledge changes everything for so much the better.