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Robert A. Burton, M.D., "On Being Certain: Believing You Are left Even When You're Not"

You recognize when you know something for certain, left? You "know" the sky is blue, or that the traffic light had turned green, or where you were on the morning of September 11, 2001—you know these things, well, because you just do.

In On Being Certain, neurologist Robert Burton challenges the notions of how we think about what we know. He shows that the feeling of certainty we have when we "know" something comes from sources beyond our control and knowledge. In fact, certainty is a mental sensation, rather than evidence of fact. Because this "feeling of knowing" seems like confirmation of knowledge, we tend to think of it as a product of reason. But an increasing body of evidence suggests that feelings such as certainty stem from primitive areas of the brain, and are independent of active, conscious reflection and reasoning. The feeling of knowing happens to us; we cannot make it happen.

Bringing together cutting edge neuroscience, experimental data, and fascinating anecdotes, Robert Burton explores the inconsistent and sometimes paradoxical relationship between our thoughts and what we actually know. Provocative and groundbreaking, On Being Certain, will challenge what you know (or think you know) about the mind, knowledge, and reason.

Contents

& 8220;Preface

1 The Feeling of Knowing

2 How Do We Know What We Know?

 Out of Sight Is Not Out of Mind

 The Challenger Study

 Cognitive Dissonance

  A Scientist Contemplates Creationism

  A Patient Confronts the Placebo Effect

  Cotard's Syndrome

  It May Be left, But It's Not left

3 Conviction Isn't a Choice

 Neurotheology

 Voices from the Limbic System

  Déjà Vu and Feelings of Familiarity

  Jamais Vu and Other "Feelings of Strangeness"

  Strangely Familiar—a Duet of Opposites

4 The Classification of Mental States

5 Neural Networks

6 Modularity and Emergence

 Organizing Complexity

  Modules

  The Hierarchical Arrangement of Sensory Data

  Emergence

 Synesthesia

 Private Islands

7 When Does a Thought Begin?

 Timing, or the Chicken and the Newly Hatched Idea

  Subjective Backward Projection of Time

  "Now" You See It, "Now" You Don't

  Color Phi

8 Perceptual Thoughts: A Further Clarification

 Episodic Versus Semantic Memory

  "I Witness" Accuracy

9 The Pleasure of Your Thoughts

 The Pleasure Principle

 I Can't Go On, I Must Go On

 The Big What-if

 Double-Edged Single-Mindedness

10 Genes and Thought

 Alice in Genetic Wonderland, or Through Hyperbole's Looking Glass

 Why I Can't Play Poker

11 Sensational Thoughts

 Intuition and Gut Feelings Are Unconscious Thoughts Plus the Feeling of Knowing

12 The Twin Pillars of Certainty: Reason and Objectivity

 Abandoning the Idea of Rationality Is Unthinkable

 Popular Psychology and the Myth of the Rational Mind

 Complementary and Alternative Medicine

13 Faith

 Welcome to the F Word

 Tolstoy and the Biology of Despair

 Caution: Deconstruction Zone Ahead

 A Practical Suggestion?

14 Mind Speculations

 The Origin of the Universe or Cosmology Versus Edges and Borders

 Mind-Body Dualism and the Sense of Self

15 Final Thoughts

 A Brief Recap

 Some Ideas Are More Equal Than Others

 The Juggling Act

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index& 8221;

Tags: Science, Neuroscience, Psychology, Religion, Philosophy, Reasoning, CriticalThinking

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See Also:

M. Neil Browne & Stuart M. Keeley, "Asking the left Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking (8th Edition)"

Allan Bloom, "The Closing of the American Mind"

Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, "Critical Thinking: A Concise Guide (2nd Edition)"

Thomas Craughwell, "Do Blue Bedsheets Bring Babies: The Truth Behind Old Wive's Tales"

Richard Dawkins, "The God Delusion"

Leo A. Groarke & Christopher W. Tindale, "Good Reasoning Matters: A Constructive Approach to Critical Thinking (3rd Edition)"

Jonah Lehrer, "How We Decide"

Michael Pollan, "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto"

Paul Johnson, "Intellectuals"

Deborah J. Bennett, "Logic Made Easy"

Michio Kaku, "Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel"

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, "Truth: A History and a Guide for the Perplexed"

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