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7. How The Brain Works

How To Invent (Almost) Anything > 7. How The Brain Works

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If we are to really understand how to invent anything, we need to go back to basics in thinking as well as in science—and that means understanding something about how the brain works. Thinking about that blob of grey matter inside your skull can be rather disconcerting, but we will not be side-tracked by metaphysical debate; if you have private views on spirituality, we will not be challenging them. Suffice it to say that if there is a human spirit that inhabits or constitutes our minds, it is way beyond the simple science of synaptic connections.

If we were to present our descriptions of the brain to experts, whether they were brain surgeons or psychologists, there would be many challenges, particularly of the kind “but it is much more complex than that!” But we are not trying to get you to be brain surgeons or psychologists. We are describing the brain in a simple way so that you can hopefully understand enough about how it works to use is in different ways for different purposes. Even if all you do is realise that you can change how you are thinking and move from focusing-in to crazily-creative and back again, and do this with a sense of purpose then we will have achieved our purpose. It is your machine so use it!
 

The other pages in this chapter:

• 7.1. A Quick History of Brain Science
• 7.2. The Real Parts of the Brain
• 7.3. How We Think: Patterns of the Mind
  • 7.3.1. How We Think: Reaching Out to Communicate
  • 7.3.2. How We Think: Thought Patterns
  • 7.3.3. How We Think: Memory Patterns
  • 7.3.4. How We Think: Left Brain, Right Brain
• 7.4. Classification: Making Sense of the World
  • 7.4.1. Classification: Chunking the World
  • 7.4.2. Classification: Languaging Chunks
  • 7.4.3. Classification: Short-term Memory
  • 7.4.4. Classification: Long-term Memory
  • 7.4.5. Classification: Class-ification
  • 7.4.6. Classification: Rapid Classification
  • 7.4.7. Classification: Big Patterns: Mental Models
• 7.5. Association: Just Like That
  • 7.5.1. Association: Neural Networks
  • 7.5.2. Association: Just Like That
  • 7.5.3. Association: Associated Emotions
• 7.6. Invention 'So What?'

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