Elkhonon Goldberg

2 1/2 stars: I didn't particularly like or dislike it. Mixed or no real interest.

From the back cover: Goldberg delves into the mind's mechanisms, outlining how the elegant structures of the brain develop and change over the course of our lifetime. The revelations of "The Wisdom paradox" include: new neurons can be created throughout our lives; the left and right sides of the brain have vastly different roles in the acquisition and storage of knowledge; and the strengthening of neural pathways formed by a mature mind accelerates the decision making process. Goldberg also draws on examples of leaders and artists who achieved their greatest successes late in life to illustrate the effects of this emerging scientific understanding. And most provacatively, he outlines how a "cognitive fitness" program for mature brains can both curtail the negative mental effects of aging and enhance our decision making powers.

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Too bad the book wasn't as good or as detailed as that description above. First off, the author's vanity gets in the way of the book time and time again. Second, the "cognitive fitness" is something he keeps saying he'll discuss and he doesn't until 15 or so pages before the end, then pointedly says he won't discuss details of it (I believe because it's a paid type program). This book could have been distilled down into a 20 page essay with a few footnotes "for further reading" and been just as good.

Having said that, it wasn't bad per se--- I kept reading and never felt like I should stop. I just didn't love it either.

A few quotes that resonated or pieces I do want to remember from the book:

"Language is a means of conceptualization, of information compression, which enables us to represent complex information in compact codes. "

"[with aging comes] the feeling of being in control of my life, like I had never experienced before.... There is increasingly the feeling that life is a feast, when in the past the prevailing feeling had often been that life was a struggle. And despite the full awareness of the biological imperative that the feast will sometime come to an end, or maybe precisely because of this awareness, an urge swells, powerful like a force of nature and getting more powerful with age, to prolong the feast. The existential paradox of aging --to marvel about its effects and yet follow the drive for prolonging the feast. Because life is not a one way street of decay: there are both currents and counter currents to be lived, examined, understood and enjoyed."

"The prefrontal cortex ..is affected to the greatest extent by aging.... the areas involved in receiving raw sensory information and the motor cortex are least affected."

"Interestingly, the memories that end up in the 'permastore' are not evenly distributed across the life span. The distribution of such memories is characterized by a 'bump' corresponding to the ages of 10-30 years old. It is possible that this period in human life is particularly rich in acquiring the most important knowledge , which serves as the basis of lifelong pattern recognition abilities in the broadest sense."

"Every human being accumulates a certain pattern recognition capability in the course of his or her lifetime. But not every human being accumulates the patterns necessary for the solution of problems of genuine importance to a significant number of people. Generally speaking, people who have spent their lifetime dealing with strenuous mental challenges and who have been good at it, in other words people who are both bright and have been mentally active most of their lives, are rewarded with extra mental resistance to the effects of aging. "

"I am rather skeptical about any notion of inbred morality.... I tend to think of the brain as a morally agnostic device, at least in the literal sense. To me, any notion of 'the morality instinct' sounds every bit as fantastic as the notion of 'the language instinct' or even more so. I storngly believe that the ethical norms regulating our social behavior are by and large cultural rather than 'hardwired' constructs."

"In children the effects of left hemisphere damage were far less devastating than in adults, and by contrast the effects of right hemisphere damage were much more devastating than in adults... this suggested a broad transfer of cognitive control from the right to the left hemisphere in the course of cognitive development , and possibly through the whole lifespan... it is reasonable to assume that the right hemisphere is in charge of novelty and the left hemisphere is in charge of cognitive routines."

"As we age, the optimal affective tone changes. Research shows that with aging and with the movement well into the second half of life, negative emotions are emphasized less and the dominant affective tone becomes more positive. This is reflected in our brain activity: with age the amygdala becomes less active in response to emotionally negative stimuli while its response to emotionally positive stimuli remains unchanged. Thus the balance shifts in favor or positive emotions, and as we age the affective tone of the left hemisphere becomes the norm. "

Three take home messages from a brain mapping conference:

1) The right hemisphere decays more than the left hemisphere as we age.
2) The left hemisphere benefits increasingly more than the right hemisphere from mental exercise, as we move through life.
3) The left hemisphere is better able to withstand the decaying effects of age because it continues to be enhanced and strengthened by cognitive activities as we age.

"While taking full advantage of mental autopilot, one must not allow oneself to be lulled by it. Regardless of one's age, one must continue to test one's mind and strive for new mental challenges. In these times of infatuation with physical fitness everybody has heard about the "runner's high", a surge of joy caused by physical accomplishment. But how many of us have experienced the feeling of a "thinker's high"? This feeling is dear to some scientists and artists. "… (meer)

My mother recommended this, and she normally doesn't read science books. I guess she's exercising the right side of her brain, keeping her ability to learn new material and patterns strong. I really don't know how to review this because some was 'um, yeah, no duh' and some was over my head - but let's just say I'm glad I read it and if you're interested enough to be reading reviews, I recommend you go for it. It took me a long time because I kept getting interrupted, not because it was all that challenging.

ETA - later the same day I found myself mentioning this book in a group here and saying something that might be helpful about it:

If you agree that our mind is integral with our brain which is integral with our body, and that our brain works better if one has a well-rounded 'exercise' program for it, and that intuition and wisdom are both aspects of good pattern-recognition abilities, you're pretty much all set.""… (meer)