A Review of Incognito by David Eagleman

      Eagleman's goal in Incognito is to make the reader really stop and think. He forces the reader to question how she is thinking certain thoughts, discovering certain things, and percepting the world around her all on her own. Eagleman focuses on the central idea of the conscious and unconscious mind. To what extent is a person aware of what is going on in his brain? Somewhere deep in there is the brain already churning over ideas and making plans that the reader doesn't even realize yet? Eagleman opens the reader's eyes to the fact that the brain is extremely complex, and that it does most of its processing behind the scenes. Maybe unintentionally, Eagleman scares the reader into thinking that she doesn't even know her own self.
          Overall, I found the book quite interesting. It definitely brought to light  a lot of ideas that I probably would not have ever considered in my entire life (and would have been content not ever considering in my entire life, haha.) That is not to say that I did not appreciate the read; I certainly did. I just would not have minded remaining blissfully oblivious.
       I especially found interesting the idea of free will not existing- an idea that I do in the bottom of my heart think is true, but am not very fond of. The fact that the brain spends hours, days, maybe even years developing a thought to make it perfect before someone even realizes that he had that thought is crazy. We all take credit for ideas we come up with when in fact the ideas are mechanically made behind the scenes without any conscious effort. I also found especially interesting the case of the occasional pedophile. My personal taste in who I am attracted to, I always consider my own and permanently my own. Meanwhile, something as uncontrollable as a tumor can suddenly make me attracted to someone I never in a million years would have thought I'd been attracted to, and in the case of the occasional pedophile, someone I probably was not morally okay with being attracted to. Lastly, I was mind blown by the fact that we have a blind spot in our eye and that we are not aware of it.
       I disagree with David Eagleman on the importance of all of this fancy shmancy our brain control us stuff he threw at us readers. While I did find it very enlightening, and am honestly glad that I feel a little more open-mined, I do not think it really has that many ramifications on us besides that. I am happy with continuing on with my life as I was before, now just being a little more appreciative of this new knowledge. David Eaglemen made it seem like our whole life was going to change because we are now aware of this, when in my opinion, nothing really can change unless we want to be a bit more frazzled.
       I would recommend this book to someone, as long as I think that that person will appreciate what it has to say. I think giving this book to the wrong person can actually really upset them. Although I wouldn't have minded remaining blissfully oblivious as I stated earlier, I am actually really happy I read it. I can't really describe it, but I feel a little more open and freer now. I definitely appreciated the read.