Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently

by Beau Lotto

Beau Lotto, the world-renowned neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and two-time TED speaker, takes us on a tour of how we perceive the world, and how disrupting it leads us to create and innovate.

Perception is the foundation of human experience, but few of us understand why we see what we do, much less how. By revealing the startling truths about the brain and its perceptions, Beau Lotto shows that the next big innovation is not a new it is a new way of seeing.

In his first major book, Lotto draws on over two decades of pioneering research to explain that our brain didn't evolve to see the world accurately. It can't! Visually stunning, with entertaining illustrations and optical illusions throughout, and with clear and comprehensive explanations of the science behind how our perceptions operate, Deviate will revolutionize the way you see yourself, others and the world.

With this new understanding of how the brain functions, Deviate is not just an illuminating account of the neuroscience of thought, behavior, and it is a call to action, enlisting readers in their own journey of self-discovery.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Science, Philosophy, Self Help, Neuroscience, Audiobook

352 pages, Hardcover

First published February 7, 2017

About the author

Beau Lotto is a visiting scholar at New York University. His research explores how the brain adapts to uncertainty at the cellular, computational and perceptual levels with the aim of understanding the fundamental principles of biologically-inspired innovation.

Reviews

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 3 out of 5]

About everything and nothing at the same time. Not the ultimate mix for a pop science.

It's not such a big surprise that seeing things differently is useful, if you think about it for a sec.

Some subjects could have been made interesting if they were more in-depth, we are not 6-year olds, after all, and this is supposed to be a book not a TED TALK.

[Heba Hssn · Rating 3 out of 5]

فلننحرف جميعااااااا😁
وجدت به منظور جديد
بأن عقلك ليس دائم الموضوعية فيجب أحيانا أن تنحرف عنه
بمعني أن لا تتقيد دائما بما تظن بأنه صحيح ربنا السير في إتجاه مخالف لعقلك يخلق لك فرص أفضل ومنظور أفضل
أي نعم ضده في مخالفة المعتقدات الدينية طبعا
ولكنه معه في الأمور الحياتية التغيير مطلوب وربما والسير
أحيانا عقولنا تخلق لنا قيودا و تبقينا مساجين داخلها يجب علينا التحرر والهرب إنها مجازفة ولكنها مجازفة مخططة 😁

[Jay Green · Rating 1 out of 5]

Given that the subtitle of the edition that I read was "The Creative Power of Transforming Your Perception", I was anticipating some practical ideas and exercises to help generate creativity and originality, enabling me to escape my everyday preconceptions. No such luck. Just abstractions, anecdotes, and generalizations. Here are some things I do in order to generate creativity and to break down my preconceptions: Read books written by and about people not like me, people whose world is different from my own. Then I try to see the world through their eyes. You should try it. It really works. I wish I'd done it instead of reading this book, to be honest.

[François · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite interesting and inspiring - don't we all want to find the secret formula that enables us to 'deviate', differentiate, be special...?! I do believe however that Lotto overreaches when he tries to apply his neuroscientific knowledge to everything from raising children to running a company to creating your personal happiness, solving conflicts and managing your romantic relationships. But I admit that this broad perspective, with many stories from outside the neuroscientific field, is also what makes this book worthwile.

[Qaisar Rashid · Rating 4 out of 5]

By creating a new perceptual past, new perceptions in the future can be created. This is the central idea of the book. In the book, there are at least fifteen interesting themes, which I have liked the most.

1. Uncertainty

Resolving uncertainty is a unifying principle across biology, and thus is the inherent task of evolution, development and learning…Uncertainty is the problem that our brains evolved to solve (p. 8). Our brain evolved to take what is inherently uncertain and make it certain (p. 9). Certainty meant life. Uncertainty meant death. Humans have come to structure their societies around institutions that provide certainty: courts, governments, police, and, most sadly, our educational systems (even at the university level), and processes therein… Religion also reduces uncertainty for us, which is a principal reason (among other reasons) why so many billions of brains value so passionately the assumptions that their unquestioning faiths espouse… But the flip side of this security is that religions replace your own assumptions with theirs, and take it as an article of literal faith that you will not question them (p. 254).

The second biggest challenge to creativity is that we are afraid of the dark. Darkness is a fundamental, existential fear because it contains all the fears that we carry with us in our brains – fear both real and imagined, engendered from living life and from the life lived in stories, from culture, from fairytales… Darkness is the embodiment of the unknown, and this is what scares us more than anything else: knowing that we don’t know what dwells in the space just beyond (p. 244). The world was a hostile and erratic place – the epitome of uncertainty, with the future cloaked in “darkness” (p. 246). When you feel you have agency (i.e. a sense of control – delusional or otherwise), your sense of uncertainty decreases. That is the deep inverse relationship between our fear of uncertainty and agency. For instance, even if the waiting hours are long, knowing how much time to wait makes the waiting experience emotionally tolerable; otherwise not (p. 252). Celebrating uncertainty: to approach “stopping” and all the questions this stopping spawns from the perspective of gain, not loss. Play enables one to step into uncertainty and thrive (272).

Doubt is the genesis of powerful, deviating possibilities (p. 12). To overcome our inborn reflex that pushes us to seek certainty (sometimes at any cost), we must lead with our conscious selves and tell ourselves a new story, one that with insistent practice will change our future past and even our physiological responses. We must create internal and external ecologies that … celebrate doubt” (p. 253). If you can muster the courage to celebrate doubt enough to say, “Fine, I don’t know,” suddenly the constricting axes of your space of possibility fall away, freeing you to construct an entirely rebooted space full of new ideas. Approaching conflict with doubt is not just possible but ideal. (p. 255).

2. Perception

We evolved to perceive in order to survive, which presupposes action on our part … the need to do something (p. 59). By physically changing your brain, you directly influence the types of perceptions you can have in the future. This is called cellular innovation, which leads to innovation at the lived level of the things you think to do and the ideas you have (p. 70). Only through empiricism are we able to make meaning out of the meaningless. The meaning we make then becomes a part of our past, our brain’s database of perception (p. 102).

Knowing perceptual history, you can learn to take ownership over your brain’s apparatus and thus make new pasts that will change your brain’s perception of future possibilities (p. 118). In essence, living is nothing other than experiencing continual trial and error. Living is empirical. To succeed, you need to have as many possibilities – and possible perceptions – at your disposal a your brain will permit. A narrower outlook gives you fewer paths to take (p. 119). None of our perceptions has a one-dimensional meaning. All our perceptions are multilayered meaning: red is a meaning, and a red apple is a meaning upon a meaning, and a ripe red apple is a meaning upon a meaning upon a meaning, and so on (p. 121).

3. External environment (Ecology)

The complexity of ecology is matched by the complexity of the sensing apparatus (p. 78). Your ecology shapes your brain (p. 83). Change the environment and change your brain (p. 84). Learning to deviate innovatively requires you to embrace the glorious mess of trial and error, and much of this engagement grows out of the obstacles of your surroundings (p. 84). Parallel to our trail-and-error, empirical physical engagement in the real world, we can use our brain to change our brain internally (p. 122). Brain can be restructured by trial and error and learning how to see things (p. 136).

This physiological reality is also a biological principle: Systems are defined by the interaction between their inherent properties and their external relationships in space and time … whether cell in the cortex, or a person in a larger society or organization (p. 152). The brain matches its environment, both for good and for bad. The cerebral cortex becomes more complex in an “enriched” environment – or less complex in an “impoverished” environment (p. 85). Marian and other discovered that this matching ability enriches the physical makeup of the brain through the release of growth factors that lead to the growth of brain cells and the connections between them (p. 86). Change your ecology and you change your brain (p. 137).

4. Internal environment

One can run mental simulations and thereby practice for a future encounter (p. 135). Your brain matches the complexity not just of its external surroundings, but of its internal environment as well. If you imagine complex, challenging possibilities, your brain will adapt to them (p. 137). Think positively today and it is statistically more likely you will do the same tomorrow (p. 140).

5. Adaptive assumptions

We are lucky that our brain evolved to have assumptions … Every time you take a step, you assume the ground won’t give way, that our leg won’t give way (p. 149). Recent research suggests that human are born with an innate fear of snakes, an adaptive assumption from our past that helped us survive, and still does… Both the children and adults showed an “attentional bias” toward snakes, detecting them more quickly than they did unthreatening stimuli such as frogs, flowers and caterpillars. It is clear, then, that human beings are not a blank state … The concept of blank state (i.e. tabula rosa) raises a question whether we are a product of nature or nurture… It is not one or the other. Nor is it a combination of both. Rather it is their constant interaction…Genes do not encode specific traits as such; rather, they encode mechanisms, processes, and elements of interactions between cells and their cellular and non-cellular environment. Genetics and development are inherently ecological processes (p. 151).

6. Learned assumptions

Socially learned assumptions and biases … affect our gray matter, as well as subsequent perceptions and behaviours, yet they are developed so unconsciously from larger cultural assumptions that we don’t even know they are here, embodied in our brains (p. 154). The empirical process of shaping the brain by trial and error… In short, your assumptions make you YOU (p. 160). Brain’s perceptual apparatus is simply the history of past meanings made (p. 184). We change our future by changing our past. As strange as it may sound, this is entirely possible. As a matter of fact, it is what we do all the time. Every story, every book, all narratives spoken, read or enacted are about changing the past, about “re-meaning” past experiences, or more specifically, about changing the future past (p. 188). All our perceptions represent nothing other than our and our society’s past perceptions about what was useful (or not) (p. 191). The landscape of your space of possibility is determined by your assumptions (p. 218). Changing your assumptions can change the next possible perception (p. 220). Reconstruct assumptions by expanding them in number and by letting contradictory survive together.

7. The power of why

The power of why is immense (p. 193). The most insightful quest begins with “why?” (p. 213). The importance of why is that it is all about changing your space of possibility by questioning the assumptions that delineate its dimensions. Otherwise, it is like teaching under the streetlamp, when we know that we dropped our keys somewhere else, in a place of darkness …Rather than “ideas worth spreading” we need to consider “questions worth asking” (p. 197). The basis of complex systems is actually quite simple…what makes a system unpredictable and thus nonlinear … is that the components making up the system are interconnected in a linear fashion to make the world of linear causality (p. 210). The more foundational the assumption, the more strongly connected it is (p. 211). However, one key insight or realization sets off a chain reaction of other insights and realizations, creating a “house of cards” effect of no-longer-useful assumptions collapsing (p. 213).

8. Seeing the invisible

Revolutionary questions and the revolutions they start come from demolishing old assumptions to institute new, wiser ones… the assumptions that shape our perceptions are often like the air that sustains us … invisible, which makes it hard to know where to ask and target our Why questions (p. 217). Another key for seeing differently is not to move through the world comfortably (p. 240). The point of attention is not looking toward, or in directing your gaze to the rational … the things that make most sense statistically and historically. Rather, the power of attention is in looking away from the “obvious,” toward the less obvious. The power of attention is in beginning deviation, and steadfastly challenging your brain to engage the frontal-cortex-driven inhibition of stopping when needed (p. 265). Understanding how perception actually works opens up a whole new frame for looking at creativity and creation. By learning “why” our brain evolved to perceive the way it does, we are able to engage ourselves with steps that can change the way we see (p. 268).

9. Creativity

A creative person is creative because they are able to see a connection between disparate things that we were not able to see (p. 215). Uncreative individuals are those who are unable to bring two disparate ideas together, and unable to fully engage in the mysterious serendipitous process of creativity (p. 218). What was blocking our creativity was not a genetic predisposition to linking disparate ideas, but rather our species’ genetic predisposition to be blind to the causes of our own perceptual behaviours. This is one of the most important obstacles to seeing differently and deviating from uninspired, conventional perceptions: our assumptions are as blind to us as we are to them (p. 222). In addition to humility, creativity requires courage because you are stepping into a space that your brain evolved to avoid (p. 258).

10. Diversity

A diverse ensemble – the full orchestra – is essential in a world like ours that is always changing! Indeed, it is common knowledge that diversity is essential for systems to evolve (p. 246). Diverse populations are more likely to find the optimal solution than a less diverse population. They are more likely to exhibit more “contextual behavior” (i.e., conditional behavior) when they evolved in uncertain environments (where there was a one-to-many relationship between stimulus and reward) relative to unambiguous environments (where there was a one-to-one relationship between a stimulus and reward). Their neural processes were also more complex. For instance, they evolved multiple receptor types in their artificial “retinae” which is a prerequisite for color vision, when the light stimuli were ambiguous. These findings are consistent with the view that contextual behavior and processing are born from uncertainty (p. 247). Openness to possibility: to encourage the diversity of experience that is the engine of change, from social change to evolution itself (p. 272).

11. Not-A

If you want to go from A to B, you have to go first from A to not-A. To be in not-A is to be in uncertainty, to experience the stimulus without the requisite meaning of the past. It is like stopping (p. 260). Through meditation you can dim the intensity of the influence of your current assumptions have on your perceptions… Just stopping engages a different chemical in your brain than the distress-induced cortisol. It releases oxytocin, which is quantifiably associated with more empathic and generous behavior. Through generosity and empathy, we listen much more creatively…. “Free will” lives, not in going to A, but in choosing to go to not-A. “Free will” lives in changing the past meanings of information in order to change future responses. “Free will” requires awareness, humility, and courage within the context of uncertainty (p. 261). Unlike most animals, we can change our future past by looking away from the obvious … by going from A to not-A. What we look at reveals us, but what we choose to not look at creates us (p. 266). Move your attention to “not-A”, the place that our brain have evolved to avoid namely, uncertainty (p. 267).

12. Delusion

What makes the human brain beautiful is that it is delusional. (p. 13). Delusion plays a pivotal role at every operative level of perception (p. 144). Delusion is an important tool for creating new and powerful perceptions because it allows us to change our brains – and thus future perceptions – from the inside (p. 149). Stopping our reflexive meanings is so important because it is the first step into uncertainty from which we can create new, unforeseen meanings, and in doing so re-create the meaning of past experiences through the tool of delusion, which alters your future past, thus in turn altering your future perceptions (p. 260).

13. Ecology of innovation

The process of innovation that unites creativity and efficiency rather than pursues them independently. Together, creativity and efficiency define innovation (p. 275). Even at the level of brain, we see evidence of maximizing efficiency through competition… As a business model, competition means that a company will have a culture of termination, in which people are fired for not producing certain results according to a given timeline. While such an approach can spur extreme effort under pressure, it is exactly the wrong way to promote creativity… not just because exploration is not prioritized, but also because employees’ stress levels will narrow their spaces of possibility (p. 278).

To create a successful ecology of innovation we must look to our own biology and tap into our very own neural nature that balances efficiency and creativity. This is why neither always being creative nor always being efficient is the end-all route to success. The two qualities must exist in dynamic equilibrium… The process of development is the process of adding dimensionality, called complexification. It is very intuitive: start simple (few dimensions), add complexity (more dimensions), and then refine (lose dimensions) through trial and error … and repeat. Development is the process of innovation incarnate (p. 280).

Thinking back to modeling assumptions as a network, we have shown that the more complex the network, the more likely the “best” solution will exist in your search space of possibility, simply because the large number of interconnections increases the number of potential solutions…This is in contrast to very simple systems that have only a few possible solutions (p. 281). The problem is that complex networks don’t adapt well (i.e. low evolvability)… A conundrum appears: complex systems can help us adapt, but are not very adaptable themselves (p. 282). Adding what we call “noise” (i.e., a random element) to a system can increase the adaptability of that system (p. 283). If our species’ existence is itself an ecology of innovation, the balance between wakefulness creates connections and sleep consolidates them (p. 285).

Alternating cycles of creativity and efficiency are what the most successful living systems did…the key for making this work is figuring out when to analyse feedback from the ecology… As such, a collateral necessity of this process, according to this way of framing things, is “failure.” The success of certain startups that have embraced this approach has led to all the recent hype around catchphrases like fail forward and fail better (p. 289). This spiral process of moving between creativity and efficiency is inherently imperfect because the “spaces between” are by definition zones of transition, which in biology go by the term ecotome – areas of transition from one kind of space to another, whether between a forest and neighbouring meadow, the sea and the beach, or Neanderthals and humans … Ecotomes produce most biological innovation …The key nuance is that innovation moves within the “space between”. It is movement that is innovation: to be innovative is not to live at edge of chaos, but to be at the chaos on “average” … The greatest innovators are rarely individuals, but rather groups that embody this tension between creativity and efficiency. In particular, one potentially powerful pairing inside an ecology of innovation is the novice and the expert (p. 291). We all must engineer our own ecology of innovation, at home and at work, both in the spaces we create and through the people with whom we populate them. Because your brain is defined by your ecology, the “personality” of the space you inhabit will necessarily shape itself accordingly (p. 299).

14. Ignorance as achievement

Ignorance is more than a bliss – it can be an achievement. Experts are often poor at asking good questions, because they know the questions they are not supposed to ask. Yet almost any interesting discovery comes from not asking the “right” question … from asking a question that seems “foolish”. This is why experts can be relatively uncreative, but are instead efficient … Naïve people, in contrast, can toss out disarmingly good questions because they don’t know what they are not supposed to ask. The flip side is they also don’t know what constitutes a good question…Creator types don’t always know where they are going to go or what it will mean (if they are truly creators, that is, which means they are deviant)…Experts are more prone to tunnel vision until a novice comes along and asks a question that suddenly turns the tunnel into a wide-open field (p. 293).

15. Deviation

Detecting differences (or contrast) is so integral to the functioning of our brains that when our senses are deprived of different relationships they can shut down. In other words, we need deviation (p. 100). Our number-one aim is to stay alive. [It is because the fundamental, biologically inspired point is this: adapt or die (p. 288)]. But to stay alive for extended periods of time requires more than responding in the moment. It requires adaptation, since the most successful systems in nature are also the most adaptable. What is more, we want to thrive in every sense. To achieve this requires taking risks in perceptions, which requires us to be deviant. To deviate well is hard. It takes commitment, since we are not just up against ourselves (p. 253). Intentional action: ultimately, to act with awareness … to engage consciously, from the perspective of “why”. That is, to deviate with intention – not just for the sake of deviance (p. 272).

[Myra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unlike many reviewers, I wasn't inspired by this. There is some good info on perception, but I found it lacking in practical ways to really fuel creativity. Sure, the unusual formatting is cool, but that's not enough to make a great book.

[Genetic Cuckoo · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Disclaimer: I was provided with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

My first impression of this book were that it is very colourful and looks unusual, flicking through the pages, there are many hand drawn images and pictures in different parts of the page, and the text often varies in the formatting and layout, making it 'quirky and different'. I understand this is so the book can appeal to non-scientists and visually demonstrate the ideas the book discusses, but as a scientists I found them distracting.

The first half of the book I found a little dry and repetitive. My first laugh out loud moment was on page 141 with the sentence "This is why, on a bad workday, we might find ourselves googling 'Dream vacation' (and not 'closest bridge to jump off')."

The book is filled with many visual puzzles, but were quite interesting, but nothing you won't have seen before, but it is nice to understand how they work. On page 220 there is a puzzle to do with 3 objects and a task, I found this very easy, but the author spends 3 pages explaining why it is so hard and no-one normally can figure it out. I think this is an exaggeration, and there are likely to be many people who solve this and don't view themselves as exceptional, they just have different experiences which make this easier.

I really liked the section about how living abroad makes you see the world differently, as I have experienced this and agree it is very valuable, and so the details in this section was more engaging and relatable for me. I also liked the part about 'knowing' is better than uncertainty, even if you know it is a bad thing, I can completely relate. If I have no idea the bus will arrive in 2 minutes, I would feel much more relaxes to know that the bus is actually arriving in 10 minutes, just because I know for certain and can relax, even though it is longer.

Overall, the book was interesting, but I think by trying to appeal to everyone it might actually appeal to no-one. (which is actually a section in the book, so maybe they should have thought about this?!) The book has many interesting ideas, but the doodles and changes in text size and orientation is quiet districting (which I understand was the point) and so it might irritate a scientist, but then for a non-scientist is goes into a lot of dry science subjects and is quite repetitive. I'm sure there will be many people who enjoy this book and will love exploring the ideas, I'm not sure it is right for me, but I thought the ideas were interesting and it would be a good book for anyone interesting in perception.

[Bismillah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sushant Singh Rajput, the young Indian actor committed suicide. It affected me a lot. Why would a successful person with a bright future ahead of him take his life? I tried to read about him. And I found that unlike other typical movie stars, he was an introvert, deeply interested in subjects such as the meaning of life, philosophy, cosmos and the like. I found that he had created a book club on Twitter and had shared list of books that he was reading. This was the first book that I found in the list of his recommendations. This book is for people who admit that they do not know, and if they try to know a little, they will be more convinced that they really do not know! It’s about seeing life differently. It’s about deviating, in thoughts and in our approach to life. It’s a fascinating discussion about reality and assumptions.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author (and voice on the Audible book) is mesmerizing in his command of the subject, delivery, and enthusiasm. If you've watched TED talks, he's a classic TED-like speaker. You need to pay attention while listening as he often makes the most important points just once, some of which are quite obvious but others (that come later in the book) that are more subtle. A few of my favorite points are as follows:
- Your perception is not reality and is based on the vast number of assumptions you have about everything.
- To increase our creativity, we need to change our assumptions, and to do that we must expose them, which can be done by putting yourself in unfamiliar/uncomfortable situations, e.g. live abroad, learn a new language, etc. Fundamentally and for good evolutionary reasons, we are afraid of change. But change leads to expanded creativity.
- Stop and examine your reactions to situations. (In the spirit of Katie Byron, Eckhart Tolle, etc)
- The first step to going from A to B is to get to "not A". Find ways to push yourself out of your current stance/assumptions (A).

Recommend.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. This would be better as a series of videos. The author makes some good points about adaptability and diverse teams. Don’t know how much of this I’ll have retained by this time next year. Really not sure how this will help in day to day problem solving, let alone the kind of breakthrough thinking of people mentioned in this book.

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boom! Consider my mind blown! So much to learn! Oh so much! I loved the explanation, logic, and rationale but I really need my friends to read this so I can talk about it! I have a whole new perspective on my every day - things I think I may have already known but never consciously considered. This book will have lasting power on me (and my classroom)!

[Batdorj Js · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book, written by an amazing guy! Some part, around the midway through the book, it gets bit naggy. Excluding that, I think its a very good base point to understanding human brain functionality, and a very enjoyable experience through out the whole book.

[Saverio Mariani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Questo libro è un'esperienza, vera. Un laboratorio, stimola l'attenzione e la consapevolezza. È un libro eretico, se ci pensiamo bene.

Ne ho scritto un'analisi lunga, qui: http://www.ritirifilosofici.it/il-cer...

[Hrishikesh · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF.

Unnecessarily complex language. There is almost nothing about how to actually perceive the world differently (which is what the title claims) and pages and pages of stating the same thing - that we all perceive things differently.

[Roma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Title: Deviate – Seeing Reality Differently

Author: Beau Lotto

Genre: Science, Physics

Length: 332 pages

Price: Rs. 399

Summary:

The book is based on human psychology and how our brain works. Its a book which depicts how a person assumes things and thinks that is the reality which maybe different.

My Take:

The book describes perception in detail. The example quoted here was the viral post of dress where everybody could interpret different colour of the same dress. It proves that every individual sees the same things differently. Author also proves nothing in this world is right or wrong. It’s completely based on an individual perception.

Book also touches on the human brains aspect. It’s mentioned, “From our brains perspective, other human beings are sources of highly complex meaningless sensory information.” We humans assume things about other individuals which may or may not be true. Book also covers an important aspect of observation. We can train our mind to stop assuming by observing minutely.

The teachings in the book are described by numerous examples. Story of Ben is quite intriguing who became blind at the age of 3 but managed to lead an enormously normal life just by training his brain to identify sounds. It is phenomenal. There many such great stories and revelations. It is interesting to know that various objects can be viewed differently by different species.

This book is a perfect combination of science, physics and psychology. All the illustrations are great. For me a captivating illustration was that of a view from the window with 2 trees placed far from wondow while on turning page it became clearer that 1 was small plant kept near window and the other was tree which was far from the window. It goes on to prove how we assume things by the way we see them.

Book is a compilation of various experiments conducted around the worls and the jaw dropping findings therewith. A lot of emphasis had been given to perception and observation. The presentation of the book is also interesting. The fact that it can also be seen as a flip book where the diamond at the bottom of the page rotates is great.

The examples in the book become repititive with the same example used at more than 1 place. At times you feel the chapter has been dragged by explaining the same thing in detail. At a point i felt the book is more of a thesis on human perception. The fine print of the book was a bit bothering and I would have preferred Kindle version.

In short the book is good with somethings which could have made the book more interesting and meaningful. The teachings of the book is that our past influences our thoughts. We should question the assumptions and untrain our mind to assume what we see it right.

My rating for this book would be 3/5

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook while commuting and enjoyed many sections of it, but I think I missed out on a lot by not having the accompanying visuals for many of the thought experiments. There's an accompanying PDF you can download apparently but I never got around to it. I love his "Lab of Misfits" concepts, which creates kinds of experiential-public-art-neuroscience-perception games & experiments. A neuro-scientist and philosopher, Lotto definitely has a gift for sharing very complicated ideas in ways accessible to laypeople. I don't know that Lotto's grand predictions of transforming the way the reader thinks are really met, but it is an enjoyable and thought provoking book. And we certainly need more deviations in thinking in our contemporary minds if humans are to survive and thrive another century or more.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was the greatest waste of reading time that I expended over the last year. Lotto seems to like using the phrase "space of possibilities" as a placeholder for all kinds of things that enlightened people select their great choices from. Apparently by recognizing that everything you think about your existence is wrong you will then be able to choose the correct path in life. In particular, I was a bit disappointed by the description of the African doctors recognition that shipping an Ebola patient to another country was a bad idea (spreading deadly viruses along the way) came from this deep well of her "different space of possibilities" rather than her 12 years of medical school. This book is getting a rare one star from me as it overloaded my BullS__t meter.

[Kent Winward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neurology and creativity combined into one nifty little book. Taking a couple of ideas from the book, I wrote a New Year's Resolution/Narrative column for our local paper. Probably the best take I've read on the neuro-biological finding that free will is an illusion of our consciousness. Hint: Creating narratives with our brain is what gives us free will. And what better place for narratives than Goodreads?

[Greg Schumaker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why did I read this. Interesting, but mostly obnoxious.

[Barbara Fero · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining, accurate and witty. One of my favourite books of the last years.

[Hunny · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first pop-science book! Definitely reading more from this genre. This books revolves around much what PLATO insisted with his Allegory Of The Cave. We have to look away from the shadows. Which somewhat also reflects in the words of Nietzsche, a German Philosopher when he wrote, “I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful... I do not want to accuse; I do not even what to accuse those who accuse. LOOKING AWAY SHALL BE MY ONLY NEGATION. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.”
.

For the people who have difficulty believing in the words of people who have been dead since long, will be provided with a series of numerological experiment, accompanied with facts and figures to make them believe how our brain tricks us. We see but we only see layer one. The surface is more than what we know of it, that things come into existence only once we realise their presence. With quirky illustrations by Luna Marguerite, grappling stories about people and their obsession to understand color, and Beau’s remarkable capability to create a sense of tête-à-tête, this books will take you on a tour of how to DEVIATE.

Rewind
Erase
Rewrite
Deviate
And then
Probably become a genius or create something genius!


P.S.- A tad bit lengthy with too many experiments.

[Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did find the book interesting, though there were some sections which were just too long for me and I wished I could read a condensed version of the book. Sometimes this was because I thought I understood his point and he kept offering further examples and description, and sometimes because I wasn't sure where he was going with a chapter and consequently, I couldn't understand why he was spending so much time on a point. Some of his suggested 'experiments' in the text just didn't do much for me so they didn't make me feel I understood his point better. I did think he offers some insight into why humans behave and think the way they do - evolution has allowed the human mind to evolve to a point of efficiency which means we are not always seeing and hearing everything around us, but rather from thin clues we make quick decisions/analyses of things which can help us navigate through life. His point is that if we want to see things differently, we have to stop the mind from leaping to conclusions and pay attention to the details around us. For the sake of survival humans had to make quick judgments of things and threats, but this also causes us to miss lots of details and actually to 'see' or believe things that aren't really there. Our mind/brain takes all the input and attempts to make sense of it (= creates reality). But this is also why it is hard to change people's minds. We sometimes are so comfortable in the world our minds have created, that we don't allow facts, evidence, observations, 'the truth' to alter our thinking. This might explain some of the intransient attitudes we have about politics, social change and the world. New experiences can open our minds to seeing things differently - so trying the unfamiliar can really change our views of the familiar or our familiar views of everything.

[Arshad Pooloo · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is an interesting take on our perception of reality, questioning our senses and how accurate they really are in helping us perceive reality. I found the mix of scientific reasoning along with experiments and observations to explain certain phenomenon such as "phantom limb" and "the dress" quite enjoyable. It might get a little repetitive or constrained at a certain point, but it well researched and documented. The interesting facts "here and there" about how our senses differ from other humans as well as other species makes it all the more enjoyable.

If you like to question what you see and often wonder whether everyone views all colors or sound, in the same way, you will want to hear the perspective of this author. It is easy enough for people without any scientific background to understand. You just need a willing mind and a little bit of curiosity.

[Yunling · Rating 4 out of 5]

從為什麼會有慣性，大腦怎會看不見現實開啟探討，作者不以此為限的去拓展不確定是好事的論述後，聊到方法，如何突破慣性，譬如說給予是幸福的來源，感知即存在的世界並非黑及白，如何給予正確的決策，是創意加效率～好的領導者就是能帶著大家走過未知的恐懼。

創造未來的過去！

[Marc Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is popular science at its best, the book is fun and easy to read yet intellectually stimulating. My mind feels as if it has had an invigorating workout after reading. It is clearly aimed at the mass market, attempting to make the latest discoveries in neuroscience available to all.
The fundamental premise of the book is that we may think that we see reality, but we don’t. Beau Lotto is open about his aim from the outset, which is to change the way you see the world and how you act within it. Most of the book is spent demonstrating his assertion with the final part looking at how you can use the knowledge.
The book contains many visual exercises to do as you work your way through it. These are designed to challenge how you see the world. There are some classic images that trick your perception about the size and shape of objects, and others that are designed to have a direct impact on how you engage with what you see. To give a couple of examples, there is one page deliberately printed upside down. I was reading it on a train and had the extra dilemma of deciding whether to turn the book around to read it. It is much harder to concentrate on what is being said when you are feeling self-conscious! I don’t think this was the original intention, just an added bonus. Another double page has a drawing of two hands holding a book which contains the actual text. This produces an experience somewhat akin to meditating when you become aware that you are watching yourself, reading in this case. The exercises give an actual experience and a ‘felt sense’ to what is being communicated so that the reader engages with the text in a way that the brains plasticity allows new connections to be made gaining a greater experiential understanding.
Beau Lotto explains that the brain develops through a series of failures until it gets it right. So it is normal for us to fail in order eventually to get it right. A couple of ways to illustrate this is to imagine a toddler learning to walk. They will continually fall but will keep trying until they can walk without falling; once they then their attention will move elsewhere to the next challenge. Another example is playing computer games; most action games are repeating scenarios until we get them right and then move on to the next stage. Over the generations the brain evolves. The one we have now contains the collective experience of its previous generations and the lessons learned from it. This means that the brain has adapted to the past but must adapt to the present circumstances as our environment is continually changing.
This sets up a conflict. We have a tendency to try to understand the world in terms of absolutes. That there are fixed laws that govern the universe even though the theory of relativity is over a hundred years old. The problem is that the brain doesn’t do absolutes it is relational and interacts with and is changed by the world. This is where I think opinion may become polarized with regard to this book. What it is saying is that there are no absolutes, no certainties to reality, simply an ongoing engagement to find meaning. I think that this can cause a visceral reaction. On the one hand as human beings, we like certainty and are drawn to making life as secure as possible. You only have to look around to see how we are shaping our planet to provide continuous sources of food, energy etc. to see that this is the case. The message in this book says that reality is not like this, there is constant change and we are continually adapting to it. You are either going to love it or hate it.
The brain itself is drawn into engaging with our environment, it is drawn to imperfection. Examples of this are that we are drawn to analogue (vinyl) music rather than digital because of the feel of the sound even tough digital is a perfect replica. The recent film Dunkirk was shown in digital form but there were also special screenings on 35mm film because of it’s feel. The brain is relational and ultimately we only learn and adapt through trial and error gaining a tangible experience which helps to change our brains.
Ultimately the message in this book is to stay flexible an open to new experiences and insights with as few preconceptions and judgments’ as possible. We inherit and develop fixed notions of the way we are and the way things should be and lose the childlike wonder of approaching everything as new as we get older. This fits with Darwin’s notion of survival of the fittest.
I found the book lively and engaging, written with a lucidity that can only come from a great intellect but communicated into an interesting and easily digestible form. The exercises and visuals throughout the book serve to stimulate, throw you off course, encouraging you to look at the text from fresh perspectives. A thoroughly stimulating and enjoyable read.
I received a free copy in a Goodreads First Reads Draw.

[Keshan Goberdhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lotto challenges the very fabric of my existence. Since the first chapter I’ve already started questioning my consciousness, my actions, and generally my life. He challenges our perception of life and our creative ability; he makes his theories somewhat easy to understand but does not water down the subjectivity of human psychology. Just an example of this is his science behind free will. Lotto expresses that free will could not exist in the present because our brain is making decisions for us moments before we can fully comprehend the decisions that we’ve made; so how can we claim that we have free will when everything we do is a decision we’ve made subconsciously without knowing yet? I haven’t stopped thinking about this since I read it, I now micromanage everything I do subconsciously and sometimes remember that we are just pawns in this game of life and that I have no control over how I live my life. I can recommend this book to anyone looking for an early midlife crisis or anyone that just randomly feels like questioning their purpose for being alive… all jokes and exaggerations aside this is a great book for people with an open mind looking to expand their perceptions of their own lives or for someone just looking for some cool things about life to think about.

[Adrianaa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Te gwiazdki są tylko za grafikę w książce. Tragicznie mi się to czytało. Mimo, że wszystko miałam na zajęciach to nic nie rozumiałam po tej książce. Nie przeczytałam bym jeszcze raz.

[Austin · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's very obvious the author has a nihilistic, deterministic, atheist world view and ok fine whatever but he makes it so known and so in your face. However, he has to do that because those assumptions are behind his entire theory. So I'll go ahead and warn you if you think there is a God, the world has meaning, and in free will in any way then you will disagree with pretty much everything in this book.

Here are some ideas on the book to let you know.


He says the world is meaningless and we have to assign meaning to it. That meaning can be anything.

He says in chapter 6 that the belief in religious myths are a threat to our evolvement as a society

In chapter 9 he goes on a rant on how religion is holding the world back and there would be better countries if they were populated mostly by atheists

A direct quote " The supposed idea that there was divine design we know now was wrong"

Religious people are closed minded and those of this world are able to build on intelligence

Our essence are our electrical impulses. We are nothing more or less. We are chemical reactions only.

In chapter 6 he mentions that scientific texts can offer more knowledge than religious texts because religious texts are single minded.

In addition he spouts many leftist views such as

He talks about israeli unfair bias against Palestinians and how they need to break down those biases, which is frankly disgusting seeing as how the Palestinian terror attacks recently against Israel and mentions nothing of the reverse.

He parrots lies the media told about Travon Martin saying a bias of white supremacy caused his death even though another minority killed him

He said capitalism destroyed science and that governments should be willing to provide unlimited funding with not expectation of results in a timely manner for this money.

I guess if you're a atheist, deterministic, left wing person you might like this book but if you see the flaws in any of those even in the least little bit you won't like this book or agree with it.

[Maria Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Questo di Lotto, è il libro per me più interessante che ho letto negli ultimi tre anni almeno. Certo è destabilizzante. Divulga conoscenze scientifiche sul funzionamento del cervello umano su cui vale assolutamente la pena riflettere perché ci danno degli strumenti per cercare di adottare atteggiamenti che ci possono rendere più liberi. Questo libro mi ha fatto venire in mente, per la sua portata destrutturante e il suo insistere sulla natura della realtà, la fisica dei quanti e in generale la fisica dopo Newton. Infatti, così come la realtà nella fisica dei quanti non è determinabile in anticipo, cioè di fatto non c'è ed è rappresentata solo da una serie di possibilità, la realtà che noi conosciamo a partire dai nostri sensi, dalle nostre percezioni, è tutta nella nostra testa e nel nostro corpo, e il mondo è solo una nostra personale proiezione. Infatti i nostri recettori prendono le informazioni prive di significato che ricevono; poi il cervello attraverso la sua interazione con il mondo, codifica il significato storico di quelle informazioni e proietta sulle cose la nostra versione soggettiva del mondo. Di fatto le nostre reazioni alle cose del mondo (tutte le cose del mondo) sono automatiche e corrispondono a quello che abbiamo fatto, o non fatto, in passato per sopravvivere in situazioni simili. La vita così com'è codificata nei nostri geni, sembra finalizzata alla sopravvivenza più che all'effettivo esercizio della facoltà di sceglierne la qualità. Per esercitare davvero tale facoltà di scelta, dobbiamo cercare di prendere in contropiede la nostra tendenza a consolidare il significato che diamo al mondo e le reazioni che abbiamo al significato che diamo al mondo. Dobbiamo deviare dai nostri automatismi ancora per lo più inconsci, ed inoltrarci su una strada difficile che attraverso l'incerto e il vuoto, ci può portare all'esercizio di una vera scelta di vita. Lo sto leggendo per l'ennesima volta, come faccio con tutti i libri che mi prendono.

[Snoakes · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's some interesting stuff in this book - particularly in the early chapters where Beau Lotto is talking about perception. We think we see reality, but in fact our perception is an approximation based on feedback about what has been useful in the past. The central theme is that by changing our "future past" we can influence our own inner feedback and make ourselves more open-minded and creative. That sounds like it's straying into the murky waters of self-help, but he never really delivers on that promise (or threat!) beyond vague and obvious ideas e.g. living abroad will broaden your horizons.

The book has a number of formatting and layout changes such as odd words in large text designed to trick your brain out of its comfort zone and deviate your mind, but I found these gimmicky and irritating. The blurb promises entertaining illustrations and optical illusions throughout, but there aren't that many of them and nothing that we haven't seen before. Lotto also has a penchant for uses ellipses where there should be a dash or a comma. I found that peculiar foible extremely annoying.

I felt the whole thing got a bit bogged down and waffly from the middle onwards. There are anecdotes to illustrate the points but not enough concrete evidence for my liking. Perhaps this is deliberate as it is a popular science book.

On the whole, if you've never read anything on the subject then there's a lot of ideas in here, but for my money there are better books out there.

I had a copy of this as a Goodreads giveaway.