Read Mind Hacks™: Tips & Tools for Using Your Brain Online
Authors: Tom Stafford,Matt Webb
Tags: #COMPUTERS / Social Aspects / Human-Computer Interaction
Mind Hacks™: Tips & Tools for Using Your Brain
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“What to do with too much information is the great riddle of our time.”—
Theodore Zeldin, An Intimate History of Humanity
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Few developments in the brain sciences over the past 20 years have been as crucial as the
steady eradication of the brain-as-computer metaphor that dominated so much of our thinking
about thinking in the ’60s and ’70s. Partly the metaphor declined because artificial
intelligence turned out to be a vastly more complicated affair than we imagined; partly it
declined because we developed new tools for understanding and visualizing the biology of the
brain, which didn’t look like a microprocessor after all; partly it declined because an
influential group of scientists began exploring the vital role of emotion in brain function.
It’s true the brain contains elements that resemble logic gates of digital computing, and some
influential researchers continue to describe the activity of mind as a kind of computation.
But for the most part, we now accept the premise that computers and brains are two very
different things that happen to share some aptitudes: playing chess, say, or correcting
spelling.
At first glance, the book you’re holding in your hand might be accused of reviving the old
brain-as-computer conceit: “hacks” is a software term, after all, and the previous books in
the series have all revolved around digital computing in one form or another. But I think this
book belongs instead to a distinctly 21st-century way of thinking about the brain, one we
might call — in the language of software design —
user-centric
. The wonders
of brain science are no longer something we contemplate exclusively in the lab or the lecture
hall; we now explore how the brain works by doing experiments on our own heads. You can
explore the architecture and design of your brain just by sampling the many exercises included
in the following pages. Consciousness exploration is an old story, of course — one of the
oldest — but consciousness exploration with empirical science as your guide is a new one. We’ve
had the age of Freud, of psychedelics, of meditation. This book suggests that a new form of
introspection is on the rise, what I’ve called, in another context, “recreational
neuroscience.”
I think the idea of a brain hack is a wonderful one, and Matt Webb and Tom Stafford have
assembled here a collection of tricks-of-the-mind that will astound you, and give you a new
appreciation for the way your brain shapes the reality you perceive. But it’s worth pointing
out a subtle distinction between the software use of the word “hack” and the way Matt and Tom
use it here. In programming, a hack is something we do to an existing tool that gives it some
new aptitude that was not part of its original feature set. When we hack a piece of code, we
are bending the software to fit our will; we’re making it do something its original creators
never dreamed of.
The mind hacks that will delight and puzzle you in the coming pages largely work in the
opposite direction. When you undergo these experiments, what you’re sensing is not your
brain’s subservience to your will, but rather its weird autonomy. These hacks amaze because
they reveal the brain’s hidden logic; they shed light on the cheats and shortcuts and latent
assumptions our brains make about the world. Most of the time, these mechanisms are invisible
to us — or so ubiquitous we no longer notice their existence. A brain hack is a way of pulling
back the curtain of consciousness to glimpse — however fleetingly — the machinery on the other
side.
This can be a profoundly unsettling experience, precisely because it reveals the way the
brain is not always subservient to your will, which very quickly leads you down an existential
slide. (Whose will is it anyway?) But it’s a journey that anyone interested in the mind cannot
afford to miss. Our brains have a kind of life of their own, quite apart from what we think we
know about ourselves. That’s a scary thought, but being scary doesn’t make it any less true.
As you read through the coming pages, you’ll no doubt find yourself alarmed at the strange
cognitive behavior you can trigger just by following a simple set of instructions. But I
suspect you’ll also find yourself with a new sense of wonder about the mystery of
consciousness — along with some killer cocktail party tricks.
So that is the inward adventure that lies before you. May it mess with your head in all
the right ways.
— Steven Johnson
Brooklyn, New York
Steven Johnson is the author of
Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience
of Everyday Life
(Scribner).
Tom Stafford likes finding things out and writing things down. Several years of doing
this in the Department of Psychology at the University of Sheffield resulted in a Ph.D. Now
sometimes he tells people he’s a computational cognitive neuroscientist and then talks
excitedly about neural networks. Lately he’s begun talking excitedly about social networks
too. As well as doing academic research, he has worked freelance, writing and working at the
BBC as a documentary researcher. Things he finds interesting he puts on his web site at
http://www.idiolect.org.uk
.
Matt Webb is an engineer and designer, splitting his working life between R&D
with BBC Radio & Music Interactive and freelance projects in the social software
world. In the past, he’s made collaborative online toys, written IM bots, and run a fiction
web site (archived at
http://iam.upsideclown.com
); now he’s content with hacky web scripts and his weblog, Interconnected, at
http://interconnected.org/home
. Matt reads a little too much, likes the word “cyberspace,” lives in London, and
tells his mother he’s “in computers.”
The following people contributed to this book:
- Adrian Hon (
http://mssv.net
) graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in natural
sciences, specialising in neuroscience. He has also researched synaesthesia with Prof.
V. S. Ramachandran at the University of California, San Diego, and spent a year at the
University of Oxford researching integrative physiology. In the past few years, Adrian
has been the cocreator of the NASA award-winning web site Astrobiology: The Living
Universe and has spent 2 weeks in the Utah desert in a simulation of a manned mission to
Mars (during which time he realised a long-held ambition of wearing a spacesuit). More
recently, Adrian has developed a serious interest in alternate reality games and is
currently working on Perplex City. - Alex Fradera (
http://farmerversusfox.blogspot.com
) is a psychology grad student at University College London. He likes to make
science seem like fun, but all too often fun seems like science. No matter. When not
testing patients or writing programs, he may be found fronting his band, reading comics,
or playing capoeira. - Andy Brown is currently reading for a Ph.D. in developmental cognitive
neuropsychology at the University of Sheffield. He has an M.Phil. in psychology (looking
at cognitive impairment following stroke) and has also spent 2 years as a research
assistant at University College London looking at computer-based interventions within
primary care clinical psychology. He is also a photographer (
http://www.envioustime.co.uk
). - Chris Bird (
http://www.icn.ucl.ac.uk
)
is a
researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in London. He investigates the
effects of brain damage on cognition. - Dr. Christian Beresford Jarrett (
http://www.psychologywriter.org.uk/
) is writer/editor of the British Psychological Society’s
Research
Digest
(
http://www.bps.org.uk/publications/rd.cfm
), research associate with the sensorimotor neuroscience group at the
University of Manchester, and freelance editor for
Trends in Cognitive
Sciences
. He lives in West Yorkshire. - Disa Sauter (
http://www.mpi.nl/Members/DisaSauter
) is a Ph.D. student at University College London. She passionately
researches emotional sounds, the way in which we laugh, cry, cheer, and grunt. When not
in the office, Disa likes to practice yoga and travel. - Dylan Evans (
http://www.dylan.org.uk
) is the author of several popular science books, including
Emotion: The Science of Sentiment
(Oxford University Press) and
Placebo: The Belief Effect
(HarperCollins). After receiving his
Ph.D. in philosophy from the London School of Economics, he did postdoctoral research in
philosophy at Kings College London and in robotics at the University of Bath before
moving to the University of the West of England, where he is currently senior lecturer
in intelligent autonomous systems. - Ellen Poliakoff (
http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/EllenPoliakoff
) is a lecturer in psychology at the University of Manchester and enjoys
working somewhere between psychology and neuroscience. In her free time, she enjoys,
among other things, visiting stone circles and playing in a band (
http://www.stray-light.co.uk
). - Iain Price (
http://www.iain-price.com
) studied the neurosciences for his bachelor and doctorate degrees at Cardiff
University. He is now pursuing science communication projects in conjunction with his
continued fascination with the philosophies of the human mind. Recently he has helped to
develop and present the BBC’s community outreach events to accompany
The Human
Mind
TV series (
http://www.open2.net/humanmind
). - Karen Bunday (
[email protected]
) is studying for a Ph.D. in movement and balance at Imperial College London,
having already graduated with a B.Sc. in psychology from Royal Holloway, University of
London. She has been published as a coauthor in the journal
Current
Biology
and is currently writing two papers based on her own Ph.D. research
for future publication. - Michael Bach, Ph.D. (
http://www.michaelbach.de
), holds a professorship in neurobiophysics, running the section functional
vision research in ophthalmology, at the Medical School of the University of Freiburg,
Germany. He is happily married and has three children. Professionally, he provides
electrodiagnostic services for patients with eye diseases, and is interested in basic
and applied vision research, thus covering both physiology and pathophysiology of visual
perception. His hobbies include reading, swimming, programming optical illusions, riding
his recumbent bike, and in winter snowboarding or skiing. His web site demonstrates and
explains many interesting optical illusions and visual phenomena (
http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/index.html
). - Mike Bywaters
- Myles Jones is a lecturer in psychology at the University of Sheffield (
http://www.shef.ac.uk/spinsn/
). His main research interest is understanding the relationship between
neuroimaging signals and the underlying neural activity. - Nicol Spencer Harper is a CoMPLEX Ph.D. student in the physiology department of
University College London. His main interest is neural coding in the auditory system — how
the electrochemical impulses in our brain represent sounds in the world. His other
interests include eating and sleeping. - Dr Sarah-Jayne Blakemore is a Royal Society Research Fellow at the Institute of
Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. Her current research focuses on the
brain mechanisms underlying social interaction in autism and the development of social
understanding during adolescence. She read experimental psychology at Oxford and then
went on to complete a Ph.D. in neuroscience at UCL in 2000. She frequently gives talks
about the brain in schools, writes articles about her research in newspapers, and gives
interviews on the television and radio. - Suparna Choudhury is studying cognitive development during adolescence for her Ph.D.
research at the Institute of Child Health, University College London, having completed a
B.Sc. in neuroscience. Her research focuses on the development of perspective-taking and
motor imagery. She is also interested in phenomenology and philosophy of mind and is
involved in public understanding of science. - Vaughan Bell is a clinical and research psychologist interested in understanding
brain injury, mental distress and psychological impairment. He’s currently at the
Departmento de Psiquiatra in the Universidad de Antioquia and the Hospital Universitario
San Vicente de Pal, in Medelln, Colombia, where he’s a visiting professor. He’s also a
visiting research fellow at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the Institute of
Psychiatry, King’s College London. (
http://www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/staff/?go=10947
) - William Bardel (
http://www.bardel.info
) is an information designer living in the United States, specializing in
information graphics, mapping/ wayfinding, and design strategy. His work involves making
complex ideas simple and accessible through structure. Will holds a master of design
degree in the fields of communication planning and information design from Carnegie
Mellon University, and a B.A. in English from Kenyon College; he has studied information
design at the Rhode Island School of Design SIGDS.
We would like to thank all those who contributed their ideas, hacks, expertise, and time
to this book. To all those who share their research and demonstrations online: you’re doing
a wonderful thing.
Rael Dornfest has been our editor and guide. We’ve traveled a long way, and we wouldn’t
have come even close to this point without him or, indeed, without the rest of the O’Reilly
team. Thanks all.
Our technical editors and advisors have been absolute stars. Thanks for watching out for
us. And of course, James Cronin, who, in Helsinki, provided both the wine and conversation
necessary to conceive this book.
Many thanks to the BBC for being flexible and employing us both (in different
capacities) part-time over the past few months. Thanks also to our colleagues and friends
there and for Radio 4.
Amongst the many applications we’ve used, throughout planning, researching, and writing,
the MoinMoin Python WikiClone (
http://moinmo.in/
) has been the most valuable.
Oh, we must acknowledge the role of tea. So much tea. Possibly too much, it has to be
said.
Matt was the best coauthor I could imagine having — thanks for getting me on board and
for seeing us through. It’s been both an education and great fun.
I’d like to thank all my lecturers, friends, and colleagues in the department of
psychology at the University of Sheffield. It was there that I acquired an appreciation of
just what a good account of mind might be, and how exciting the endeavor to provide it
is.
I couldn’t have made it without my family and friends — old, new, nearby, and far away.
I am astoundingly grateful to everyone who took me out, shared time with me, fed and
watered me, sheltered me, and was kind enough to indulge my occasionally overexcited
blather. I have too much gratitude to be able to list names individually, but I’m sure you
all know who you are.
Special thanks to my brother Jon, to Nicol who was always there and who always
understood, and to Dan and Gemma who have been taking me out to play while I’ve been in
London and who are both inspirational in their own way.
When I’ve read the effusive thanks and apologies authors give to their loved ones, I
must admit I’ve thought it a little overdone. It turns out it’s not. Thank you,
Ehsan.
Second, if you get a chance to go for a drink with Tom, don’t turn it down. Our weekly
breakfast meetings over the summer have been mind-blowing.
For the record, my last point, the surface of my light cone is enveloping the star
system
p Eridani
in the hours I write these words.
p
Eridani
, hello!