false 822367 5 A gifted young writer explores the unexpected links between art and modern science. From a rising journalist and Rhodes scholar, a dazzling look at how five writers, a painter, a composer, and a chef discovered the truth about the mind. In this technology-driven age, it’s tempting to believe that science can solve every mystery. After all, science has cured countless diseases and even sent humans into space. But as Jonah Lehrer argues in this sparkling and original book, science is not the only path to knowledge. In fact, where the brain is concerned, art got there first. Focusing on a group of artists -- a painter, a poet, a chef, a composer, and a handful of novelists -- Lehrer shows how each one discovered an essential truth about the human mind that science is only now rediscovering. We learn, for example, how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George Eliot discovered the brain’s malleability; how the French chef Escoffier discovered umami (the fifth taste); how Cézanne worked out the subtleties of vision; and how Gertrude Stein exposed the deep structure of language a full half-century before Chomsky. It’s the ultimate tale of art trumping science. More broadly, Lehrer shows that there is a cost to reducing everything to atoms and acronyms and genes. Measurement is not the same as understanding, and this is what art knows better than science. An ingenious blend of biography, criticism, and first-rate science writing, Proust Was a Neuroscientist urges science to listen more closely to art, for the right minds can combine the best of both to brilliant effect. 2839122 1 11 2007 Proust Was a Neuroscientist total:716|5:210|4:288|3:166|2:42|1:10| 716 2794 1720 228 5 4 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Apr 19 14:04:53 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 03 16:53:20 -0700 2008 Proust Was a Neuroscientist turned out to be the book I'd been looking to read for a long time. Apparently there have been quite a few books prior to this one about the "third culture," the bridge between art and science (and unfortunately I've not read any of them) —Lehrer mentions E.O. ...more...]]> 3 3 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 18 07:44:22 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 05 08:05:26 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 2 false false Sat Feb 09 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Oct 18 13:20:05 -0700 2007 Sat Feb 09 18:24:44 -0800 2008
1) Walt Whitman - Feeling
2) George Eliot - Fr...more...]]> 3 2 false false Tue Sep 23 12:59:50 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 23 09:48:22 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 2 false false Sat Feb 07 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Sep 06 10:38:08 -0700 2008 Sat Feb 07 00:51:31 -0800 2009 more...]]> 0 1 false false Mon Dec 22 05:42:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 22 05:44:00 -0800 2008
Rachael]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:55:18 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:55:18 -0800 2009 Jonah Lehrer, a Rhodes scholar working in the lab of a Nobel Prize‚Äö_Ñ"winning neuroscientist, was participating in experiments on the nature of memory while reading Proust's Swann's Way. He was amazed to find that the author had predicted his scientific findings nearly a century earlier. This...

more...]]> 0 0 false false Sun Aug 02 15:29:57 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 02 15:35:13 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 1 false false Sun Jul 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 12 20:43:42 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 12 21:01:22 -0700 2009 proves his thesis - that artists of several kinds anticipated the discoveries of neuroscience by several de...more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jun 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 09:31:54 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 09:31:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 01 11:27:07 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 07 07:31:26 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Nov 28 18:11:35 -0800 2007 Wed Nov 28 18:17:15 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jun 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 15 18:08:41 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 06 19:14:00 -0700 2009
Taking a group of artists – a painter, a poet, a chef, a composer, and a handful of novelists – Lehrer shows how each one discovered...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Feb 26 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 30 20:46:58 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 26 19:25:29 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Jun 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 23 18:01:54 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 23 18:03:59 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon May 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun May 24 22:52:43 -0700 2009 Mon May 25 09:56:14 -0700 2009
However, he gives a convincing argument for his angle of the third culture, arguing the valu...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jun 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu May 07 13:32:52 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 11 16:08:19 -0700 2009
In Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Jonah Lehrer argues that the sciences now justify the...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun May 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 21:25:57 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 19:25:30 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Nov 28 10:04:23 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 29 12:51:05 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue May 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 20 19:47:00 -0700 2009 Wed May 06 17:19:14 -0700 2009 more...]]>