Mlodinow - Subliminal
Book	Page		Topic
Mlodinow; Subliminal	32		In the mechanisms of the mind, unconscious action enters largely into all its processes.
Mlodinow; Subliminal	33		The human mental system is a two-tier complex of conscious and unconscious.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	33		In the two-tier system of the human mind, it is the unconscious tier that is the more fundamental.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	33		The unconscious mind developed early in evolution, to deal with the basic necessities of function and survival,    sensing and safely responding    to the external world.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	33		The unconscious is the standard infrastructure of all vertebrate brains,    while the conscious can be considered an optional feature.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	33		While most nonhuman species of animals can and do survive with little or no capacity for conscious symbolic thought,    no animal can exist without an unconscious.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	33		According to one textbook on human physiology, the human sensory system sends the brain about 11 million bits of information in each second.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	34		Our sensory perception, our memory recall, our everyday decisions, judgments, and activities all seem effortless -- but that is only because the effort they demand is expended mainly in parts of the brain that function outside awareness.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	35		As a result of evolution, about a third of the brain is devoted to processing vision --    to interpreting color,    detecting edges and motion,    perceiving depth and distance,    deciding the identity of objects,    recognizing faces,    and many other tasks.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	38		Facial expressions are controlled in large part by our unconscious minds.		3
Mlodinow; Subliminal	38		Expressions are a key way we communicate    and are difficult to suppress or fake,    which is why great actors are hard to find.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	38		No matter how strongly men are drawn to the female form,    or women to a man's physique,    we know of no part of the human brain dedicated to analyzing the nuances of bulging biceps or the curves of firm buttocks or breasts.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	38		There is a discrete part of the brain that is used to analyze faces.    It is called the fusiform face area.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	39		The brain devotes a lot more attention to faces    than do many other kinds of visual phenomena    because faces are more important.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	39		We are far better at detecting the distortion    on the face that is right side up    that on one that is flipped over.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	58		People strongly disagree    in their recollection of events.    That's why lawyers take notes when they are having important conversation.		19
Mlodinow; Subliminal	61		None of us can retain in memory the vast quantity of details we are confronted with at any moment in our lives.		3
Mlodinow; Subliminal	61		Memory mistakes are all artifacts    of the techniques our minds employ    to fill in the inevitable gaps.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	61		The techniques our minds use to fill in the inevitable gaps    include relying on our expectations    and, more generally, on our belief systems    and our prior knowledge.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	61		When our expectations,    beliefs,    and prior knowledge    are at odds with the actual events,    our brains can be fooled.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	62		William James had become fascinated with psychics,    communication with the dead,    and other mystical activities    that other scientists considered pure quackery.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	62		Sigmund Freud understood the immense power of the subconscious,    but he thought that repression,    rather than a dynamic act of creation    on part of the subconscious,    was the reason for the gaps and inaccuracies in our memory.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	63		Human memory is subject to the distortion of memory reconstruction.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	63		Though our memory system is far from perfect, it is in most situations, exactly what evolution requires: it is good enough.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	63		In the evolutionary big picture, human memory is wonderfully efficient and accurate --    sufficient to have enabled our ancestors to generally recognize    the creatures they should avoid    and those should hunt down.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	63		The mind is continuously bombarded by quantity of data so vast that it cannot possibly handle it all -- roughly 11 million bits per second. As an evolutionary result, perfect recall has been traded for the ability to handle and process that staggering amount of information.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	64		We store in memory the general features of the faces we remember, and when we see someone we know, we identify the person by matching the face we're looking at to a face in our limited "catalog."		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	64		Linguists recognize two types of language structure --    surface structure    and deep structure.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	64		Surface structure refers to the specific way an idea is expressed,    such is the words used and their order.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	64		Deeper structure refers to the gist of the idea.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	64		Most of us avoid the problems of clutter    by retaining the gist    but freely discarding details.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	64		Although we can retain deep structure -- the meaning of what was said -- for long periods of time,    we can accurately remember surface structure -- the words in which it was said -- for just 8 to 10 seconds.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	65		Memory is based on your recollection of the gist of the list you saw    and not the actual list.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	66		How process of remembering can be said to be analogous to the way computers store images in highly compressed form.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	66		In computers, to save storage space, images are often highly "compressed," meaning that only certain key attributes of the original image are kept. When the image is viewed, the computer predicts, from the limited information in the compressed file, what the original image looked like.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	66		If we enlarge a computer image    and look closely at the details,    we see many errors --    where the software guessed wrong    and missing details were incorrectly filled in.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	66		Memories are reinforced by repeatedly being asked to relive the events being remembering.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	66		When we repeatedly re-create a memory,    we reinforce it each time,    so that in a way we are remembering the memory,    not the event.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	68		The evolution of both cultural and personal memories resembles the telephone game. At the end of the sequence, words bear little resemblance to what was said at the beginning.		2
Mlodinow; Subliminal	69		An important trend in the evolution of a memory --    there isn't just memory loss,    there are also memory additions		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	69		As the original reading of a story fades into the past,    new memory data is fabricated.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	69		When anything appears incomprehensible, it is either omitted or explained by adding content.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	69		People seem to alter a strange story into a more understandable and familiar form. They provide the story with their own organization. Inaccuracy is the rule, and not the exception. The story is stripped of all its surprising, jerky and inconsequential form.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	69		The figurative smoothing out of memory    is strikingly similar to a literal smoothing out    that Gestalt psychologists in the 1920s    had noticed in studies of people's memory for geometric shapes.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	69		If you show someone a shape    that is irregular and jagged,    and quiz them about it later,    they'll recall the shape    as being far more regular and symmetrical    than it actually was.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	69		The process of fitting memories into a comfortable form    is an active process    that depends on a person's own prior knowledge and beliefs about the world,    the preformed tendencies and bias    that the person brings to the task of remembering.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	71		While the eye delivers a multitude of details,    our conscious mind    doesn't register most of them.		2
Mlodinow; Subliminal	74		We are not very good at noticing all remembering the details of scenes that occurred.		3
Mlodinow; Subliminal	77		Our unconscious takes the incomplete data provided by our senses, fills in what's missing, and passes the perception to our conscious minds.		3
Mlodinow; Subliminal	78		Conscious memory and perception accomplish their functions with a heavy reliance on the unconscious.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	92		Reproductive success in males    is generally determined by competing with other males    to mate with as many females as possible.		14
Mlodinow; Subliminal	105		The Social Unconscious		13
Mlodinow; Subliminal	126		Judging People by Their Covers		21
Mlodinow; Subliminal	145		Sorting People and Things		19
Mlodinow; Subliminal	161		In-Groups and Out-Groups		16
Mlodinow; Subliminal	164		Scientists call any group that people feel part of an "in-group,"    and any group that excludes them an "out-group."		3
Mlodinow; Subliminal	176		Feelings		12
Mlodinow; Subliminal	180		William James was born in New York City in 1842 to an extremely wealthy man.		4
Mlodinow; Subliminal	180		William James's interests flitted    from subject to subject, landing for a while on art,    chemistry,    the military,    anatomy,    and medicine.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	180		Medicine was the only course of study William James completed,    receiving an MD degree from Harvard in 1869, at age 27.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	181		After graduating from Harvard,    William James became deeply depressed.    His diary from that time reveals little but misery and self-loathing.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	181		William James suffered from chronic depression for the rest of his life.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	196		Self		15
Mlodinow; Subliminal	199		Our self image    and the more objective image that others have of us    are not quite in sync.		3
Mlodinow; Subliminal	199		By the time we are to calm him most of us have a sense of ourselves as social agents.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	199		Around the time we shed diapers, we begin to actively engage with adults to construct visions of our own past experiences.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	199		People's behavior    is motivated by    their desires and beliefs.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	200		Our ego    fights fiercely    to defend its honor.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	200		Normal and healthy individuals think of themselves as not just competent but proficient, even if they aren't.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	200		There are two ways to get at the truth --    the way of the scientists    and the way of the lawyer.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	200		Scientists    gather evidence,    look for regularities,    form theories explaining their observation,   and test them.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	200		Attorneys     begin with a conclusion    they want to convince others of    and then seek evidence to support it,    while also attempting to discredit evidence that doesn't.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	200		The human mind    is designed to be both a scientist and an attorney,    both a conscious seeker of objective truth    and an unconscious, impassioned advocate for what we want to believe.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	200		Together these "scientist" and "lawyer" approaches vie to create our worldview.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	200		Believing in what you desire to be true    and then seeking evidence to justify it    doesn't seem to be the best approach in everyday decisions.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	201		Often it is the irrational choice that would probably make you happier,    and the mind generally seems to opt for happy.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	201		The "causal arrow" in human thought processes    consistently tends to point from belief to evidence,    not vice versa.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	201		The brain is a decent scientist but an absolutely outstanding lawyer.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	201		In the struggle to fashion a coherent, convincing view of ourselves and the rest of the world, it is the impassioned advocate that usually wins over the truth seeker.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	201		The unconscious mind    is a master at using limited data    to construct a version of the world    that appears realistic and complete    to its partner, the conscious mind.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	201		Visual perception, memory, and even emotion are all constructs, made of a mix of raw, incomplete, and sometimes conflicting data.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	201		We use a creative process    to generate our self image.    When we paint our picture of self,    our attorney-like unconscious    blends facts and illusions,    exaggerating our strengths,    minimizing our weaknesses,    creating a virtual Picassoesque series of distortions    in which some parts have been blown up to enormous size    and others shrunk to near invisibility.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	201		The rational scientists of our conscious minds innocently admire the self-portrait, believing it to be the work of photographic accuracy		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	201		Psychologists call the approach taked by our inner advocate    "motivated reasoning."		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	201		Motivated reasoning    helps us to believe in our own goodness and competence,    to feel in control,    and to generally see ourselves in an overly positive light.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	201		Ambiguity creates wiggle room    in what may otherwise be inarguable truth, and our conscious minds employ that wiggle room to build a narrative of ourselves,   of others,    and of our environment    that makes the best of our fate,    that fuels us in the good times,    and gives us comfort in the bad.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	203		Our unconscious    can choose from an entire smorgasbord of interpretations    to feed our conscious mind.    In the end we feel we are chewing on the facts,    though we've actually been chomping on a preferred conclusion.		2
Mlodinow; Subliminal	205		It's not uncommon for scientists to operate as advocates    rather than impartial judges,    especially in the social sciences,    in which there is greater ambiguity than in the physical sciences.		2
Mlodinow; Subliminal	205		Scientists with an investment in established theory sometimes stubbornly cling to their old beliefs. Economist Paul Samuelson wrote, "science advances funeral by funeral."		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	205		Because motivated reasoning is unconscious,    people's claims that they are unaffected by bias or self-interest    can be sincere,    even as they make decisions that are in reality self-serving.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	205		Physicians think they are immune to monetary influence, yet studies show that accepting industry hospitality and gifts has a significant subliminal effect on patient care decisions.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	206		Brain imaging studies are beginning to shed light on how our brains create the unconscious biases.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	206		Brain imaging studies show that when assessing emotionally irrelevant data, our brains automatically include our wants and dreams and desires.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	206		Motivated reasoning involved a network of brain regions that are not associated with "cold" reasoning, including the orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex -- parts of the limbic system -- and the posterior cingulate cortex and precuneus, which are also activated when one makes emotionally laden moral judgments.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	209		When someone with a political bias on vested interest sees a situation differently than we do, we tend to think the person is deliberately misinterpreting the obvious to justify their politics or to bring about some personal gain.		3
Mlodinow; Subliminal	209		Through motivated reasoning each side finds ways to justify its favored conclusion and discredit the other, while maintaining a belief in its own objectivity.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	210		Adjusting our standards for accepting evidence to favor our preferred conclusions is but one instrument in the subliminal mind's motivated reasoning toolkit.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	212		People who act in ways we abhor are usually convinced they are right.		2
Mlodinow; Subliminal	213		The subtlety of our reasoning mechanisms allows us to maintain our illusions of objectivity even while viewing the world through a biased lens.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	214		We perceive ourselves as forming judgments in a bottom-up fashion, using data to draw conclusions, while we are in reality deciding top-down, using our preferred conclusion to shape our analysis of the data.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	216		Accomplishments,    large and small, depend to some degree on    the accomplisher believing in him- or herself.		2
Mlodinow; Subliminal	216		The greatest accomplishments    most likely rely on a person's being    not only optimistic    but unreasonably optimistic.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	216		Belief in the self    is an ultimately positive force in life.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	216		Psychological literature is full of studies illustrating the benefits -- both personal and social -- holding positive "illusions" about ourselves.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	216		Those feeling good about themselves are more poor operative in bargaining situations and more likely to find a constructive solution to their complex.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	217		Those feeling good about themselves are better problem solvers, more motivated to succeed, and more likely to persist in the face of a challenge.		1
Mlodinow; Subliminal	217		Motivated reasoning and able to our minds to defend us against unhappiness, and in the process he gives us the strength to overcome the many obstacles in life that might otherwise overwhelm us.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	217		The more of motivated reasoning we do, the better off we tend to be, for it seems to inspire us to strive to become what we think we are.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	217		Studies show that people with the most accurate self-perceptions tend to be moderately depressed, suffer from low self-esteem, or both.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	217		An overly positive self evaluation    is normal and healthy.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal	217		Motivated reasoning and motivated remembering and all the other quirks of how we think about ourselves and our world may have their downsides, but when we are facing great challenges, the natural optimism of the human mind is one of our greatest gifts.		0
Mlodinow; Subliminal