Our Shared Illusions

What Neuroscience Reveals About Our Minds, Our Planet, and Our Future

De: Joachim Raese MD, Trip Venturella

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

The human brain is not as it seems. The systems that it relies for everyday tasks—such as sensory processing and the maintenance of consciousness—have “failure modes” that mislead us about the nature of our mind and the world around us. In the face of a climate crisis, these failure modes have inhibited us from acting with the resolve this moment calls for. Drawing on cutting-edge research, Our Shared Illusions: What Neuroscience Reveals About Our Minds, Our Planet, and Our Future uses this new science of the brain to understand these failure modes, and chart a way forward.

Our Shared Illusions explores the stunning implications of a fully-neurobiological view of the brain, and ultimately shows how the systems we rely on to get through our daily life are far stranger, more complicated, and more compromised than we might expect. In the end, this book suggests how adapting to a hotter world doesn't just require a radical restructuring of our economy, but a profound reorientation of our understanding of the mind and the self.

About the Authors

Joachim Raese, MD is a board-certified psychiatrist and neuroscientist with nearly 50 years of experience as a researcher and practicing doctor. After graduating medical school in Hamburg in the 60’s, he conducted neuroscience research at the University of Munich and completed a residency at Stanford University. After conducting further research in molecular neuroscience at Stanford, he joined the faculty of UT Southwestern Medical School and developed the Schizophrenia Research Center at the VA Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, directing a molecular biology lab and a clinical research unit. For many years he ran a hybrid private practice/clinical trial company in California, and eventually retired as Associate Residency Training Director and Adjunct Professor of Clinical Medicine at UC-Irvine-affiliated Kaweah Health. He is very interested in the therapeutic and personal application of mindfulness practices, and has an active meditation practice.

Trip Venturella is a writer based in Illinois, with a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from Colby College and a Master of Fine Arts in playwriting and screenwriting from Ohio University. He has worked as a scientific copywriter, and as a professional dramatist. His opera The Murderess with composer Allison McIntosh premiered with Landlocked Opera in the summer of 2023, and he is currently developing another opera with composer Felipe Hoyos-Gonzalez at the University of Illinois. His work has been produced throughout the country and featured in The Boston Globe and The Chicago Tribune. He has been interested in neuroscience and the study of human cognition since he was diagnosed with generalized clonic-tonic epilepsy at 19.