Review of Incognito: Chapter 1

Reviews | Moose

I've started reading David Engelman's critically acclaimed book 'Incognito'.

The blurb introduces a number of questions to gather momentum for the book:
- Why does your foot hit the brake pedal before you are conscious of danger going ahead?
- Why do you hear your name in a conversation that you didn't think you were listening to?
- Why is a person whose name begins with J more likely to marry another person whose name begins with J?
- Why is it so difficult to keep a secret?
- And how is it possible to get angry at yourself: who, exactly, is mad at whom?

These are all questions that end the first chapter as well, which serves, as with most books, as an introduction into his concept, and the human knowledge of 'The Mind' as something working separately from the conscious self, and the conscious thought.

The first chapter, labelled 'There's Someone in my Head, But it's Not Me' introduces the concept beautifully, and, through reading it, I immediately learnt things about the history of 'The Mind' that I did not know.

I will be looking at some of the idea's presented in his book, though still suggesting that you buy it of course, and introduce you to my state of thinking as I'm reading the book, which will include general 'Streams of Thinking' I have on certain points.

With the first chapter being an Introduction in itself, I will not go into any real detail, but here are some initial thoughts I had this morning, in finishing the first chapter, that I hope will get an answer by the end of the book:
- Are we all Schizophrenic?
- How does the mind understand the world? And what does it perceive?
- How exactly do the neurons use light to give you an understanding of what you're seeing? (And a thought on that, how can we help blind people regain their thoughts by exercising this neurons)
- Are we ever one characteristic or the other as is suggested by conventional media? It almost seems, reading the book and looking at my own self, that there can be a conflict between different parts of you, so maybe there is a scale.
- What is MY true state?

These questions may appear stupid, but it is something I am really interested in finding out.

Buy the book in the UK, the US, or any other Amazon links that I cannot be arsed to search for.

Moose Out!