Your Brain Is a Time Machine

The Neuroscience and Physics of Time

By: Dean Buonomano

Narrated by: Aaron Abano

Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's Summary

A leading neuroscientist embarks on a groundbreaking exploration of how time works inside the brain.

In Your Brain Is a Time Machine, brain researcher and best-selling author Dean Buonomano draws on evolutionary biology, physics, and philosophy to present his influential theory of how we tell and perceive time. The human brain, he argues, is a complex system that not only tells time but creates it; it constructs our sense of chronological flow and enables "mental time travel" - simulations of future and past events. These functions are essential not only to our daily lives but to the evolution of the human race: without the ability to anticipate the future, mankind would never have crafted tools or invented agriculture. The brain was designed to navigate our continuously changing world by predicting what will happen and when.

Buonomano combines neuroscience expertise with a far-ranging, multidisciplinary approach. With engaging style, he illuminates such concepts as consciousness, spacetime, and relativity while addressing profound questions that have long occupied scientists and philosophers alike. What is time? Is our sense of time's passage an illusion? Does free will exist, or is the future predetermined? In pursuing the answers, Buonomano reveals as much about the fascinating architecture of the human brain as he does about the intricacies of time itself. This virtuosic work of popular science leads to an astonishing realization: Your brain is, at its core, a time machine.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2017 Dean Buonomano (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Great book on an underrated subject

I feel obliged to admit that, like the author, I am a scientist working on the neuroscience of timing. There are not many non-fiction books about time, behavior and neuroscience and therefore I simply had to read this book. And I am glad I did.

The book begins with a summary of the psychology, philosophy, pharmacology and physiology of time. The author has an excellent grasp of the issues at stake and the importance of doing research on these topics. How do humans measure short and long time intervals? What is the shortest time interval that we can detect? How does our body know when to go to bed and get up again, and how accurate is this circadian clock? How do drugs affect our time perception, and what does that tell us about the brain? How can neurons or neural networks detect measure time? I don’t agree with everything he says about the neuroscience of timing. However, it was a joy to read these chapters and, on their own, these six chapters justified the time and money spent on this book. During my own studies, I have read tons of studies on timing employing a broad spectrum of different techniques. This book helped me connect the dots and get a bird eyes view which is something that can get lost in science.

The book sidetracked a bit in chapter seven where Buonomano takes on the physics of time and the philosophical implications. Does time even exist, or is it (like many other things), a persuasive illusion that the brain construes to give us an advantage in evolution? Is presentism (only the ‘now’ exists) or eternalism (time is another dimension and ‘now’ is to time what ‘here’ is to space) the correct model of the universe? What does our subjective sense of time tell us about time itself? These more philosophically oriented questions are taken on, at depth, and Buonomano even gets into the ‘shooting particles in moving trains’ thought experiments to explain the implications of Einstein's theory of relativity. I, perhaps naively, did not expect to encounter so much of Einstein in this book, but in the author's defense, he does an excellent job of explaining the implications of relativity, and he even manages to link it back to the psychology and neuroscience of timing.

In the last chapter, the author returns to the core issues. He discusses whether animals plan for the future (they clearly do) and whether they reflect on the future in the same way that we do (debatable). We also get to meet the Pirahã tribe who, according to an anthropologist/missionary who lived with them, lives in the here and now. They were, for instance, quite unimpressed with Christianity when they realized that their visitor had never actually met Jesus. In the last chapter, the author also takes on free will. If time is just another dimension that we can, at least in theory, travel across, then that should logically mean that everything that is going to happen has already happened which presumably means there is no free will. Free will, the author suggests may only be the feeling associated with making decisions - just like we feel pain when we get painful stimulation.

All in all, if you are interested in time and its relation to human behavior - then this book is the book is for you.

Well done research, interesting topic, but...

Well done book, but it becomes one of the most repetitive books I've ever read a he must rehash the same story and concept, one specific part in at least 15 different chapters. it's a good story he keeps rehashing, but the same point/story over and over just becomes too redundant (story of how black tar heroin came to the states ). take that one point out and it's excellent. terrific writing, great investigative journalism.

A '10' for Cognitive Science, a '0' for Time

Score:
Time and the Philosophy of Time: Zero
At several points I wondered how long the author could talk without saying anything of significance. You get mountains of twaddle. The author also has no clue as to what time is (a tool for tracking change). He comes close once or twice, but falls back into popular misconceptions (that time is a component of the physical world - it is not, change is).
Cognitive and Neuroscience: Ten
He does present some interesting experiments in cognitive and neuroscience, but again, weaves in the unnecessary mysticism born of not realizing what time is (a tool, and not something 'mysterious' or 'an illusion').

total waste of time

the book is banal. rudimentary. uninspired. I learned nothing of importance. The questions were ill formed and the answers were logical fallacies. Do yourself a favor and dodge this bullet.

Author drowns in the flow of time

The author presents very interesting facts and data about the physics and neuroscience of time, but in the that's all the reader is left. The author fails to adequately draw a conclusion

Good parts and dull parts

There were sections of this book that were very rich and intriguing, but it took a while to pick up. I loved the physics chapter and the discussion of the implications of eternalism versus presentism, and how that connects to free will. After reading this book I’m more skeptical of the block universe than I was after Carlo Rovelli’s book, The Order of Time. This book made me think that time is created by our brains for evolutionary purposes rather than a physical property of the universe. Then again, I have no solid answers for what time is.

If you can push through the boring sections of this book, you will learn a lot. If you’re interested in psychology, then you might like the book more than I did. I just thought that all the lab rat experiments used in this book had results that were common sense and obvious. There is a lot of material covering stuff not directly related to time, but in the end it got better.

I’d recommend this book for someone who’s very into science (all fields) and less into philosophy. It’s a good book if you’re really wondering how time works in the brain, and is also curious about physics concepts that relate to time. The physics was my favorite part, but it only took up a small section of the book.

Time to read about time

The most common word used, but the least understood. What is time?

This book takes on the immensely difficult subject of time, from the subjective, the scientific, the philosophical, the historical, as well as famous quotes.

The author delves into as much as one can do in a subject not easily understood. Whether you believe in presentism or externalism. The belief that only the present is real or the block universe where the past present and future are as real as each other, is discussed in detail.

A well worth read for anyone fascinated by time in all its aspects.

Profound Analysis of Time & the Brain

Having finished Carlo Rovelli's "Time", it was fascinating to hear Dean Buonomano's analysis of the interaction between the brain and the fabric of time. Buonomano starts off with the biological concepts, and the study of timing within the cells and brain of the human body. The author goes on to describe the foundations of "what time might be" with examples and stories which would be familiar to anyone who has studied General or Special Relativity. All in all - a must read for anyone trying to understand the current understanding of the nature of time and consciousness.

One of the Best Books Ever

I never write reviews but this book was too amazing not to. Huge neuroscience fan.

Doesn’t get any better.

amazing book!

a must listen! very complete and enticing. I highly recommend it. combines science and biology.

Good but too much padding in the early chapters

This book came up as a suggested title after I listened to Carlo Rovelli's The Order of Time, as one of the few books available on the subject it is definitely worth a listen. I'd recommend listening to this one first though!

Be aware that the author does take a bit of a liberty by using the majority of the work to highlight things like how clocks have evolved in history, the language of time and other, albeit interesting items, but "The neuroscience and Physics of Time" doesn't really start until Chapter 8. Which was in my opinion a shame, it felt like a whole book of content was then condensed in to the five remaining chapters.

I became frustrated at times by the lack of explanation of some concepts, for example, quite some time is spent explaining Presentism and Eternalism at the beginning of the book, yet later on other new concepts are raised without any explanation at all. For example bringing in the Block Universe Theory by simply saying 'this supports the theory of the Block Universe' and talking around the concept, and referencing back to it, without ever actually explaining specifically what the Block Universe Theory is. Likewise again towards the end of the book, the author suddenly slips in a reference to "consciousness", and by the closing remarks “consciousness” features highly, yet there is no attempt made to define what the author actually means by their concept of consciousness. Again, because the later portions of the book seem a bit rushed, I feel an opportunity was missed to delve in to more aspects of the philosophy of time and consciousness. For example if time doesn't really exist, does consciousness? Are consciousness and time the same thing? Does one give rise to the other etc etc - except the author seems to assume everyone has the same understanding of what "consciousness" is and it's already a well defined established fact.

In short, I thought too much time was devoted to the 'fluffy' stuff, which was explained in great detail, and too little time to the real nitty-gritty with little explanation, which given the sub-title of the book, was quite disappointing. That said, anything that helps deepen our understanding of the world is without a doubt worth a listen, and this book does exactly that, it's given me a good few concepts to research further. Like other reviews have said you do need to devote your attention to it or you will find yourself rewinding quite often!

Interesting, but not an easy listen!

Some very interesting ideas, with lots of scientific expressions . Worth a listen, but prepare yourself that it's not an easy one. I guess if you have a more scientific background it's really good, however, if you don't, then you might end up scratching your head thinking:
"suprachiasmatic nucleus what?!".

Excellent

excellent and interesting topic . highly
recommend it.. narrated very well. great job. Thanks

pretty interesting stuff to listen to.

i would recommend this to anyone who loves understanding the world and the human mind :)

Amazing book well explained examples and detail

Chapters lead on from each other well. Good narrator. Would highly recommend to anyone from any background

Mind blowing!

Loved it. This is a must for those on the jorney. Lots of food for thought. Enjoyed every second.

mindblown 🤯

Definitely not what I anticipated (ironic...).
Fascinating nonetheless and, GPS workings? Mind Blown 🤯
Gets metaphysical at the end too.

Thought provoking

Ienjoyed this audio book. Interesting and thought provoking theories that has given me much to think about.

Boring! Unless You Are Into Maths &. Physics

Bored me to tears! Made me angry. Had to finish it! Didn’t enjoy it at all.

an interesting listen~☆

a look at time and the physics of time,. A great narrator brings this story to life~☆