The More Familiar The World Becomes, The

Reductionism Is Not The Right Viewpoint For Everything, And It Certainly Won't Explain The Relationship Between The Brain And The Mind. This Is Because Of A Feature Known As Emergence. When You Put Together Large Numbers Of Pieces And Parts, The Whole Can Become Something Greater Than The Sum.

Even Though The Outside World Has Not Changed, Your Brain Dynamically Presents Different Interpretations.

When We're In A Human Body, We Don't Care About Universal Collapse - Instead, We Care Only About A Meeting Of The Eyes, A Glimpse Of Bare Flesh, The Caressing Tones Of A Loved Voice, Joy, Love, Light, The Orientation Of A House Plant, The Shade Of A Paint Stroke, The Arrangement Of Hair.

If You Cannot Always Elicit A Straight Answer From The Unconscious Brain, How Can You Access Its Knowledge? Sometimes The Trick Is Merely To Probe What Your Gut Is Telling You. So The Next Time A Friend Laments That She Cannot Decide Between Two Options, Tell Her The Easiest Way To Solve Her Problem: Flip A Coin. She Should Specify Which Option Belongs To Heads And Which To Tails, And Then Let The Coin Fly. The Important Part Is To Assess Her Gut Feeling After The Coin Lands. If She Feels A Subtle Sense Of Relief At Being "told" What To Do By The Coin, That's The Right Choice For Her.

Instead Of Reality Being Passively Recorded By The Brain, It Is Actively Constructed By It.