The Idiot Brain: A Neuroscientist Explains What Your Head is Really Up To

by Dean Burnett

This book begins the same way as nearly all my social interactions; with a series of detailed and thorough apologies.

The first fish to crawl onto land aeons ago wasn’t racked with self-doubt, thinking, ‘Why am I doing this? I can’t breathe up here and I don’t even have any legs, whatever they are. This is the last time I play truth-or-dare with Gary.’

The brain apparently thinks logic is a precious resource to be used only sparingly.

if you were to be told some interesting gossip or useful information after a couple of glasses of wine, your brain would encode your slightly intoxicated state as part of the memory, so would be better able to retrieve this memory if you were to have another couple of glasses of wine (on a different night, not right after the first two). In this scenario, a glass of wine can indeed improve your memory.

You never hear about conspiracies that are intended to help people. The mysterious elite don’t organise charity bake sales.

Science is so advanced these days that lasers are now old-fashioned. This is a cool thing to realise.

this was the 1950s, and of course, women were allowed to have personalities only from the mid-1970s.

believing the world is random and all actions are ultimately meaningless won’t help you get out of bed at a reasonable hour.

So that’s the brain. Impressive, isn’t it? But, also, a bit stupid.