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On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not | |||||||
 
| 80% Recommended by our customers. Publisher: St. Martin's Press Catalog: Book Release date: 2008-02-05 Media: Hardcover Number of pages: 272 Ean: 9780312359201 Book Isbn: 0312359209  Tip: compare prices with similar booksAuthor:
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You recognize when you know something for certain, right? You "know" the sky is blue, or that the traffic light had turned green, or where you were on the morning of September 11, 2001--you know these things, well, because you just do. In On Being Certain, neurologist Robert Burton challenges the notions of how we think about what we know. He shows that the feeling of certainty we have when we "know" something comes from sources beyond our control and knowledge. In fact, certainty is a mental sensation, rather than evidence of fact. Because this "feeling of knowing" seems like confirmation of knowledge, we tend to think of it as a product of reason. But an increasing body of evidence suggests that feelings such as certainty stem from primitive areas of the brain, and are independent of active, conscious reflection and reasoning. The feeling of knowing happens to us; we cannot make it happen. Bringing together cutting edge neuroscience, experimental data, and fascinating anecdotes, Robert Burton explores the inconsistent and sometimes paradoxical relationship between our thoughts and what we actually know. Provocative and groundbreaking, On Being Certain, will challenge what you know (or think you know) about the mind, knowledge, and reason. |
| User Reviews: |
 Written on June 8, 2008 Summary: Lacks depth In the initial chapters of this book, Robert Burton explains that knowing is primarily a feeling; a feeling that something is certain even if we have evidence to the contrary. He then proceeds to briefly discuss artificial neural networks, used later to construct the metaphor of "the hidden layer," which, he goes on to claim, is "the interface between incoming sensory data and a final perception..." This may well be true, but he doesn't provide adequate evidence in support. Basically what he says is that thinking and emotions are in certain ways a unitary structure which is heavily influenced by genetics, which sounds right, but then he concludes that humans' world views are determined by their genes and the peculiarity of their neural machinery. He has not provided a warrant for this claim. It is true that the Platonic/Cartesian rationalist view of human nature is no longer tenable, but to say that human beings are not pure rational minds is not to say that it is not possible for human beings to use reason to critically evaluate experience. The title of chapter 12 (The Twin Pillars of Certainty: Reason and Objectivity) contains an unwarranted assumption, namely that reason and objectivity are what the feeling of certainty is based on. It seems to me that the more reasonable and objective people are, the less certain they are. Burton seems to castigate scientists for believing in certainly, but his evidence consists of a few anecdotes. Isn't he attacking a straw man? Science does not talk about certainty but about degrees of probability based on available evidence. The strangest chapter is number 13, where Burton attacks Richard Dawkins for "believing in the myth of the autonomous rational mind," and Daniel Dennett for insisting that the secular and scientific view of the world ought to be accepted by everyone. "Try telling a poet to give up his musings and become a mechanical engineer, says Burton, in an either-or fallacious attempt to convince us that someone cannot be a poet and accept a scientific view of the world. Even the Dalai Lama tries to have a scientific view of things. There are interesting ideas in the first eleven chapters of this book, it is unfortunate that the author did not expand on them, did not provide more elucidation and data, but chose instead to attack Dawkins, Dennett and science itself.  Written on June 2, 2008 Summary: I am certain I try to keep up with brain research and read everything I can to help me out of the old psychology paradigm and into the new neuroscience understanding of what makes us tick. This book is a wonderful contribution to some of the stuff in our hidden layer of "knowing." I recommend it highly to anyone curious about their own biases which are so easily justified by the conscious mind. This could be called the Gibson behavior. Too many of us seem to cling to little understood bad ideas. Buy this book, it will help. Written on April 4, 2008 Summary: I can't be certain you'll love this book, but I sure did. As an avid reader of authors such as Stephen Pinker (How the Mind Works), Malcolm Gladwell (Blink), Richard Restak (The Brain Has a Mind of Its Own) and Timothy Wilson (Strangers to Ourselves), I found Burton's book On Being Certain a riveting read. Trying to understand how the mind works feels to me as if we are putting together a huge jigsaw puzzle, knowing that we only have 20 or 30% of the pieces. On Being Certain provides a key piece that for me shifted all the others into a more meaningful pattern. Burton argues eloquently for the power that the feeling of certainty that we are right has over us. I agree; and also find that this book triggered the reverse in me: a sense of uncertainty,the feeling that I'm not sure what I believe about some of the issues Burton raises. And that can be an exhilarating experience as well. As one wit said, "Being certain is nice, but it's doubt that gets you an education." Burton uses very creative analogies, practical examples, and reader-friendly illustrations to convey the intricacies of what he is describing, and he links what might otherwise seem to be esoteric issues to questions about self and the meaning of life that have haunted humantity for eons. I thought this was a super book. Written on March 11, 2008 Summary: Well thought out Like another reviewer, I am often amazed how people can be "certain" of a massive outcome when there is no humanly possible way they could know everything they need to know to be certain. This proves true for both those of a theistic mindset and those of an atheistic mindset. I can understand the agnostic's honesty that he simply doesn't know, but I cannot fathom the theist who says his idea of God is perfect and there's no way it is flawed or the atheist who says there is definitely no God and there's no way he's wrong. Can either side really be certain of this or are they simply trusting other people who share their primary model of thinking or that they "feel" a rapport with? This is why, though I am a theist, my guiding principle in life is, "when I'm wrong I don't know it". This is the nature of deceit and that's what this book is all about. How do we become convinced that something is right or wrong? Is if by facts? Is it internal or external? The reality is that this books shows that mental stability can be reached in an instant, which shows that it is not particularly related to the whole of information, but maybe to a way that the information can be seen to cooperate with our worldview or the view we hope to hold. The author helps you understand why you are certain about some things and not about others and even helps you feel certain that you can trust the information in the book, which is particularly important since the whole book is about certainty not always being accurate. His discussions on rational thinking and objectivity have placed in words what I've been feeling for years. This very experience, which I encountered while reading the book, is itself an expression of "knowing". The modern research, the author informs us, shows that it is impossible to disengage irrelevant parts of the brain in a decision process and, therefore, decisions are always made based on both factual information and other factors (biases, emotions, etc.) that we cannot control. He then suggests the possibility of partial objectivity, which he also suggests is not itself very logical. All-in-all, you'll like this book if you are OK with walking away and being real with yourself, because you'll have to admit you can't be arrogant in your ideas. Me, I've had teenagers to help me do that, so I had a bit of a leading advantage. Written on March 6, 2008 Summary: Great insight into how the mind works Book Review: "On Being Certain: Believing You Are Rights Even When You're Not" by Robert A. Burton, M.D. In my theistic discussions; I am often fascinated (stymied) at the level of certainty that some theists have in the validity of their religious narrative...often in the face of clear contradictory empirical evidence. Over the years, I have taken a keen interest in neurology and how the brain works; enough so that I have a passing regret for not having gone into neurology instead of engineering (it's never too late, right?). Over these years, I have amassed a mental library of various illustrations that show how malleable and unreliable the mind (as manifested in the brain) can be. Still; the inexplicable certainty that some possess was never addressed directly in my readings. Hence, when I saw a brief blurb about the book "On Being Certain", I immediately went and bought a copy (my library had ordered it, but they did not yet have it ready for lending). Dr. Burton's sole focus of "On Being Certain" is that sense of certainty that we all recognize. He provides evidence that the feeling (or `emotion' more accurately) is a `primary emotion' and refers to it as the "feeling of knowing" (he did not shorten it to an acronym, I think, because of the obvious, awkward acronym that would result). Burton cites the rapidly accumulating knowledge that we have with regard to brain function and perception to good end. The less diligent reader, though, might not find the reading deeply satisfying as we cannot, based on our current knowledge, fully answer specific questions (i.e. why do we create gods to address the unknown). Still, the empirical evidence cited is often clearly in conflict with some common presumptions. This, in my mind, is the true purpose of the empirical method. While we may be unable to answer a specific, granular question on a topic, we can effectively eliminate the wrong answers...and Burton's book does go a long way in eliminating some of those wrong answers (at least for those open to empirical evidence). One interesting point Burton makes is there are some emotions that we can induce through direct electrical stimulation of very specific regions of the brain. One example is the "sense of another presence" (i.e. that there is someone or something nearby). Another example is the disruption/manipulation of the "sense of self" where we can feel separate from our bodies (floating) or feel "at one" with our surroundings. The point of his book, of course, is that "feeling of knowing" which can be elicited through electrical stimulation. Burton calls these "primary emotions" and are localized to very specific areas of the brain. On the other hand, we have no evidence of being able to similarly induce higher order emotions such as the "sense of irony". Burton effectively demonstrates how these primary emotions (particularly the "feeling of knowing") do not necessarily reliably correlate with facts or reality. Reading the book, while mentally critiquing it, is a bit of a mobius-like conundrum. You are simultaneously judging and amassing knowledge, while you are reading about how your judgment and knowledge is not reliable. WHEW! I will confess; I feel that Burton, on one or two occasions, overstepped the implications of bits of evidence. In his defense, the book was written for a more general audience and some background that might have been omitted might justify his positions. In all, the book offers some fascinating insights as to how our brains and minds work and an astute reader can learn much from it. |
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| Collectible price | - | $25.99 | - | - | - | - |
| Catalog | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book |
| Release date | 2008-02-05 | 2008-02-19 | 2008-06-03 | 2007-04-26 | 2008-04-08 | 2008-03 |
| Media | Hardcover | Hardcover | Hardcover | Paperback | Hardcover | Paperback |
| Format | - | Roughcut | - | - | - | - |
| Number of pages | 272 | 304 | 224 | 250 | 293 | 304 |
| Ean | 9780312359201 | 9780061353239 | 9780385524384 | 9781591025092 | 9780300122237 | 9780156033909 |
| Book Isbn | 0312359209 | 006135323X | 0385524382 | 1591025095 | 0300122233 | 0156033909 |
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