The Mind and the Brain

Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force

By: Jeffrey M. Schwartz, Sharon Begley

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

Conventional science has long held the position that 'the mind' is merely an illusion, a side effect of electrochemical activity in the physical brain. Now in paperback, Dr Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley's groundbreaking work, The Mind and the Brain, argues exactly the opposite: that the mind has a life of its own.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2002 Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley (P)2011 HarperCollins Publishers

Fabulous book

What did you love best about The Mind and the Brain?

This book explains the connection between the mind and the brain. It's full of information about how the brain functions.

Hard to Digest

While interesting and fascinating, "The Mind and the Brain" was just hard to digest because it was written in a way to be very technical and you need the necessary vocabulary to understand the authors. It's almost too technical for someone to pickup from the coffee table and read.

You might take a glance and put it down because it might not interest you unless you are a brain surgeon or want to know more about OCD and how it affects the brain.

I just wished that the authors would had gone more in depth and studied more on physical disabilities, such as Cerebral Palsy and the brain. Cerebral Palsy happens when there is a lack of oxygen to the brain and damaged that portion.

I have CP and my brain allows me to type with my feet, as I write this review, but other people with the same disability doesn't have the same abilities like myself. I hope that some day, these authors will do a study on disabilities and the brain and publish their findings.

The authors covered almost everything that is possible on this human organ that is so hard to understand, but they left out involuntary motor skills that is caused by trauma to the brain.

WHAT ABOUT REEDITING THE BOOK?

When I started reading this book it didn't ignite my curiosity, so I stopped it and listen to some other books. After 5 months, I came back to the reading and noticed that the book is full of information, great ones indeed, about the brain/ mind. When I was liking it, the author started talking about quantum physics-- for more than an hour-- well, I thought this book was about brain science!!
My opinion: a good red pen could cut many hours of this book, leaving the "MEAT", the real stuff, the motive why we listen to the theme in the first place.

Free Will Makes a Comeback

Tired of being told that you're just a wind up toy in a wind up universe? Break out of the causal universe into the realm of the empowered soul with the help of objective data and proven results. You have nothing to lose but your Newtonian shaclkles! Take up arms against the inevitable and embrace the possible!. This well written exposition of the power of intention will make everyone who regrets the loss of personal accountability in the social sphere glad and will point you in the direction of changing your concept of will and empower you to exercise it. Great listen, also. Arthur Morey keeps it interesting.

Lullaby reading

Would you try another book from Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley and/or Arthur Morey?

I might, as the content did sound interesting, but I found it hard to pay attention to the words as the reading performance was more like something I would expect from a relaxation meditation.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Didn't get to the end.

What didn???t you like about Arthur Morey???s performance?

Dry, quiet, flat, sleep-inducing. Good enunciation, so the words were clear. I would choose to listen to him recite a book that I want to fall to sleep to.

Any additional comments?

Might have to buy the book in print to properly review the book as I couldn't listen to it all the way through.

Amazing

I really enjoyed every aspect of this audiobook. A delightful, if not intense, romp through the brain, neuroscience, neuroplasticity, quantum physics, consciousness and the mind. Cohesive and insight, this could easily be a prescribed text for a neuroscience program.

Do Not Mistake The Message Here For Dualism!

This is not a throwback to the old mind/matter dualism of Descartes, though it does decidedly (and, I believe healthfully and rightly) break with some of the tenets of hardcore behaviorism and inflexible functionalism. In short, the authors do view the brain as the seat of thought and emotion and all lower and higher cognitive functions, but they view the mind as something other than "byproduct of a dynamic, like the noise that is emitted by a lawnmower," as some radicals have asserted. Rather, the mind is a Gestalt, a whole greater than the sum of its biological parts, a living dynamic with "a life of its own": and that Gestalt is something special and real--the minds, the personalities, the psychic beings that we are.

brilliant insights Mind -body Spirit Attention

If you could sum up The Mind and the Brain in three words, what would they be?

Mind body Spirit brain correlaries and the use of Intention and Attention to change intranced patterns and to creat altrnate results and states fof mind adn thus reality

What does Arthur Morey bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I thought his reading was clear and insightful and well tempered

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

the last 1/4 Changing reality andinner and outer states thorugh the use of will and attention .

Any additional comments?

Excellent science but most of all the proof that we co create our reality and that reductionist materialism is aremnant of old non science.
the practical uses of intentional focus and willful use of dynamics to create alternate results and reality.
If you ar into the mind body spirit movement and or the brain sciences this gives you a great amount of ammo to prove that our intentions are powerful if we use various techniques.

Understand the casualties of scholar denialism?

Would you listen to The Mind and the Brain again? Why?

If you have no 'agenda', i.e. if you are open, repeated reading or listening will reveal deeper meaning, greater significance. If you think not, do it then, just to prove you are right.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Mind and the Brain?

The very long human history of retarding and destroying discoveries is objectively documented by many. Evidence in fascinating detail: "The Mind and the Brain" provides an insiders experience of a scientific revolution and the human causalities perpetrated by scholar denialism. One isn't required to have formulated a 'better' model before revealing the intellectual corruption of the existing one. Humans suffer and die when the various but small 'information mafia' succeed. This work points to objective data/findings from which rational and I would add, obvious arguments are made.

Have you listened to any of Arthur Morey’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Arthur Morey's delivery is most agreeable for me. In fact, the best I've experienced so far.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

The Scholars Holocaust

Any additional comments?

Do not permit any reviewer to pursuade you that this work has anything whatever to do with religion or your constructs of it. I would say, one who suggests so has (a) not read the book or (b) has made 'enemy' with what is, and conjured supporting attributes upon it.

Life application

What did you love best about The Mind and the Brain?

Experience is a good teacher. This book explains why. OCD patients have a bad habit. This book describes the four step process to break the bad habit. Learn how a stroke patient can regain some lost functionality. Learn how some students with language problems overcame them. Learn what some serious musicians facing career ending decisions done to overcome the struggle.
You could summarize the above in less than 30 minutes. But it would not include the history or the series of scientific experiments that changed the thinking of the scientific community.
Some Christians believe in “free will”. Others believe in predestination. The author makes the case for free will but from a Buddhist perspective.
And while many of the Ten Commandments contain “shall not”, the scriptures also contain some things to do. Philippians 4:8…Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest… think on these things.

What other book might you compare The Mind and the Brain to and why?

Talent is Overrated. Some of the research presented by both books blends together.