The Illusionist Brain

Download or read book The Illusionist Brain written by Jordi Camí and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-12-03 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How magicians exploit the natural functioning of our brains to astonish and amaze us How do magicians make us see the impossible? The Illusionist Brain takes you on an unforgettable journey through the inner workings of the human mind, revealing how magicians achieve their spectacular and seemingly impossible effects by interfering with your cognitive processes. Along the way, this lively and informative book provides a guided tour of modern neuroscience, using magic as a lens for understanding the unconscious and automatic functioning of our brains. We construct reality from the information stored in our memories and received through our senses, and our brains are remarkably adept at tricking us into believing that our experience is continuous. In fact, our minds create our perception of reality by elaborating meanings and continuities from incomplete information, and while this strategy carries clear benefits for survival, it comes with blind spots that magicians know how to exploit. Jordi Camí and Luis Martínez explore the many different ways illusionists manipulate our attention—making us look but not see—and take advantage of our individual predispositions and fragile memories. The Illusionist Brain draws on the latest findings in neuroscience to explain how magic deceives us, surprises us, and amazes us, and demonstrates how illusionists skillfully “hack” our brains to alter how we perceive things and influence what we imagine.

Download or read book Sleights of Mind written by Susana Martinez-Conde and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2011-02-03 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can magic tell us about ourselves and our daily lives? If you subtly change the subject during an uncomfortable conversation, did you know you're using attentional 'misdirection', a core technique of magic? And if you've ever bought an expensive item you'd sworn never to buy, you were probably unaware that the salesperson was, like an accomplished magician, a master at creating the 'illusion of choice'. Leading neuroscientists Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde meet with magicians from all over the world to explain how the magician's art sheds light on consciousness, memory, attention, and belief. As the founders of the new discipline of NeuroMagic, they combine cutting-edge scientific research with startling insights into the tricks of the magic trade. By understanding how magic manipulates the processes in our brains, we can better understand how we work - in fields from law and education to marketing, health and psychology - for good and for ill.

Download or read book Brainworks written by Michael S. Sweeney and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A companion book to the National Geographic TV series uses brain teasers and optical illusions to shed light on the workings of the human brain.

Download or read book Illusionism written by Keith Frankish and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illusionism is the view that phenomenal consciousness (in the philosophers' sense) is an illusion. This book is a reprint of a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies devoted to this topic. It takes the form of a target paper by the editor, followed by commentaries from various thinkers, including leading defenders of the theory such as Daniel Dennett, Nicholas Humphrey, Derk Pereboom and Georges Rey. A number of disciplines are represented and different viewpoints are discussed and defended. The colleciton is tied together with a response to the commentaries from the editor.

Download or read book How to Be an Illusionist written by J. C. Sum and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-01-02 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you always wondered how to be an illusionist? Do you wish to perform on a large stage for thousands of people? Maybe you are a working magician specializing in close up or stage magic and are looking to put together a bigger show for a special event? "How to be an Illusionist" is a first-of-its kind introductory reference guide on performing a modern illusion show in today's entertainment & pop culture market. In this comprehensive guide, you will learn step by step how to put an illusion show together, regardless of whether you perform illusions for fun, as a hobby, part-time or professionally. You will receive a goldmine of information that will empower you with practical knowledge to take on the world of grand illusions; including a primer on over 100 well-known illusions performed today with credits. The reference guide consists of 10 modules of information that is worth thousands of dollars' to the performing illusionist and has taken years of experience to learn and develop. It features over 80 full-colour photographs of a dozen international illusionists in performance including David DaVinci (USA), David & Abi Haines (USA), Kyle Knight & Mistie (USA), Miguel Gavilan (Spain), Hector Ruiz (Spain), Remy Savary (France), Adeline Ng (Singapore), Daniel Ka (Spain), Sam Powers (Australia), Jason Bishop (USA), Jay Mattioli (USA) and Sean Alexander (U.K.)."

Download or read book The Illusion of Conscious Will written by Daniel M. Wegner and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2003-08-11 with total page 743 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A novel contribution to the age-old debate about free will versus determinism. Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel understanding of the issue. Like actions, he argues, the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and brain. Yet if psychological and neural mechanisms are responsible for all human behavior, how could we have conscious will? The feeling of conscious will, Wegner shows, helps us to appreciate and remember our authorship of the things our minds and bodies do. Yes, we feel that we consciously will our actions, Wegner says, but at the same time, our actions happen to us. Although conscious will is an illusion, it serves as a guide to understanding ourselves and to developing a sense of responsibility and morality. Approaching conscious will as a topic of psychological study, Wegner examines the issue from a variety of angles. He looks at illusions of the will—those cases where people feel that they are willing an act that they are not doing or, conversely, are not willing an act that they in fact are doing. He explores conscious will in hypnosis, Ouija board spelling, automatic writing, and facilitated communication, as well as in such phenomena as spirit possession, dissociative identity disorder, and trance channeling. The result is a book that sidesteps endless debates to focus, more fruitfully, on the impact on our lives of the illusion of conscious will.

Download or read book From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds written by Daniel C. Dennett and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A supremely enjoyable, intoxicating work." —Nature How did we come to have minds? For centuries, poets, philosophers, psychologists, and physicists have wondered how the human mind developed its unrivaled abilities. Disciples of Darwin have explained how natural selection produced plants, but what about the human mind? In From Bacteria to Bach and Back, Daniel C. Dennett builds on recent discoveries from biology and computer science to show, step by step, how a comprehending mind could in fact have arisen from a mindless process of natural selection. A crucial shift occurred when humans developed the ability to share memes, or ways of doing things not based in genetic instinct. Competition among memes produced thinking tools powerful enough that our minds don’t just perceive and react, they create and comprehend. An agenda-setting book for a new generation of philosophers and scientists, From Bacteria to Bach and Back will delight and entertain all those curious about how the mind works.