Scott Grafton

Dull. Concepts covered are either obvious or unbelievable. In the rare cases where it's more likely correct it presents opinion so trite to be unremarkable.

Each of a series of chapters are preceded by the author's recounting of what is presented as being one continuous expedition, which coincidentally just happens to elucidate the aspect being covered. These just don't ring true, and while they may be personal experiences of the author (dubious although it seems) the likelihood of it being one journey is incredible. This serves to cast doubt over what's presented as science through the rest of the chapter. I couldn't be bothered to chase the references provided so will take the science at face value, but given that there were multiple occurrences of theories being supported by fMRI, none of that was particularly convincing either.

Given that the practical applications boiled down to "if you want to get better at climbing, do more climbing" there didn't seem to be much relevance to any of the work even if the dubious fMRI work was correct. Its of no public interest which particular nominal sub-structure of the brain is involved in any decision making. There were many tedious examples highlighting the same issue, most of which I felt free to skip through.

Surprisingly the last chapter on fatigue is slightly more relevant and verges towards interesting, but this is of course the chapter with the fewest examples and contains no guidance on tips for motivating yourself through fatigue or for explaining or recognising the differences between genuine physical exhaustion and what merely is the brain's preparation for perceived future exertion. There was of course no evidence supporting this hypothesis either.

One of the least convincing and certainly least entertaining pop-sci books I've read. Avoid.… (mere)

Wow. The leisurely way into to the book falsely set up an expectation of a light trivial book. How so very wrong. He uses a sequence of experiences of a wild trek to start each chapter. They are but scene setters for getting to the meat of this complex auto pilot juggle between your physical relationship with the external world and the minds processing of what needs to be done, without any conscious thinking or awareness. From the scene setter and an explanation of the processes running in the background he examples patients where the controlling mechanism has been damaged together with other research experiment to pin down and isolate the actual processes at work. All done at an easy digestible style. Getting out of bed connecting to the world and drinking that cup of coffee will never been the same again. All those cogs whirring in the background that you never previously knew you had.. Finishing with a cautionary note that in our cocooned urban life, shielded from the rawness of the wild, these concealed adaptive processes may lack the flexibility to respond to novel circumstances.… (mere)