Your Brain Is a Time Machine – The Neuroscience and Physics of Time - Softcover

Buonomano, Dean

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393355608 ISBN 13: 9780393355604

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018

Synopsis

"Time" is the most common noun in the English language yet philosophers and scientists don't agree about what time actually is or how to define it. Perhaps this is because the brain tells, represents and perceives time in multiple ways. Dean Buonomano investigates the relationship between the brain and time, looking at what time is, why it seems to speed up or slow down and whether our sense that time flows is an illusion. Buonomano presents his theory of how the brain tells time, and illuminates such concepts as free will, consciousness, space-time and relativity from the perspective of a neuroscientist. Drawing on physics, evolutionary biology and philosophy, he reveals that the brain's ultimate purpose may be to predict the future-and thus that your brain is a time machine.

About this title

Review

Beautifully written, eloquently reasoned.... With lucidity and flair--not to mention an appealing avoidance of the reductionism and exaggeration to which many pop-neuroscientists are prone--Mr. Buonomano takes us off and running on an edifying scientific journey.--Carol Tavris

[Buonomano] lays out the latest, best theories about how we understand time, illuminating a fundamental aspect of being human.--Thomas MacMillan

Buonomano lays out a wealth of complex concepts in an entertaining, digestible way.... [This] book will make you question your own perceptions and marvel at the fact that your brain is probably 'the best time machine you will ever own.'--Diana Kwon

The beauty of this book is Buonomano's seamless leap from the fields of biology and psychology into the world of physics. Never appearing out of his depth, he grapples with the subject's most infuriating question: what is time?--Jonathan Blott

Full of delicious details.... Reading Buonomano's book, it's hard not to marvel at how time and timekeeping pervade our existence.--Anil Ananthaswamy

Why does time seem to flow from moment to moment? It's a mystery because physics tells a different story: time simply is, a passive label on different parts of the universe. Dean Buonomano cooks a rich stew of ideas, from philosophy to neuroscience, to help understand this question, and thereby paint a clearer picture of our place in the physical world.--Sean Carroll, author of The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself

About the Author

Dean Buonomano is a professor of neurobiology and psychology at UCLA and a leading theorist on the neuroscience of time. His previous book, Brain Bugs: How the Brain's Flaws Shape Our Lives, was a Wall Street Journal bestseller.

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0393355608
• ISBN 13: 9780393355604
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 304