Well written, well read! I enjoyed disagreeing.

This book really got my limbic system and ACC going. Brillantly engaging and deeply frustrating. Bruce Hood is a distinguished academic, (he's won prizes) and a fantastic communicator. "The Self Illusion"  is well written, flows seamlessly, and the author's delivery is delightful. The chapter on the www, avatars and social networking is excellent. Yet I spent much of the book shouting at my iPhone. It's not that I mind being an illusion - Allan Watts & Daniel Dennett have claimed as much - it's that it's never very clear what BH means by "the self". He freely hops between the "experiencing self", self as "personality", "self image" or our varied "personas". He rarely refers to the "self" without appending "illusion" thus implanting a paired association. Caveat emptor!

So, yes, we may be a "bundle of perceptions", but a necessary condition is a perceiver. Yes, we may be more or less influenced by other people (depending on our temperament). Yes, we may develop personalities adapted to our environment (mirror self). Yes, we may be deluded by own self image. Yes, we may present different self images (personas) in different situations. Yes, we make sense of our experience using imperfect memories to make a story. Yes, we are not a single "homunculus", but more like a hierarchy of committees (all of whom are "me"). Yes, the preparation for any decision may begin deep in our minds, probably way down in our awareness.

However, none of these for me indicate the self is an illusion, only that it is complex, multilayered, dynamic, adaptable, constrained & mysterious. BHs own mind/brain analogy of a web is helpful, but he misses out the obvious central point - that as the strands converge, sentience (self) emerges, then self awareness. As he states in ch1, "You are your brain", so his subtitle "Why there is no 'you' inside your head" is annoyingly contradictory. Overall however I really enjoyed disagreeing with this book. Well written, well read and much food for thought.

83 people found this helpful

A profound book on a complex topic

It explores a theme that I have been interested in, and have read a few books of this genre (most notably books like 'Sapiens', 'Predictably Irrational' and 'Thinking, Fast and Slow'). This book dives straight in to the latest scientific thinking on what constitutes an individual’s ‘self’ and shares research and experiments by the foremost experts in this field. While I have read many of the examples narrated here in other books, the author strings them together in a coherent way to make the passages stimulating.

The book is filled with insights and, in equal measure, imponderables. For anyone who likes to question the mysteries of the universe and the meaning of life, this is a great place to start. It is packed with powerful statements (which are then explored in detail) such as this quote by Isaac Bashevis Singer: “We must believe in free will. We have no choice.”
Or this one: “I am not who you think I am or who I think I am. I am who I think you think I am.”
Or indeed this one: “Our identity is the sum of our memories, but it turns out that memories are fluid, modified by context and sometimes simply confabulated. This means we cannot trust them, and our sense of self is compromised. Note how this leaves us with a glaring paradox—without a sense of self, memories have no meaning, and yet the self is a product of our memories.”

9 people found this helpful

Very interesting overview on the mind

I was a bit daunted to start this as the subject could make one a bit despondent but Bruce Hood delivers it in a thoughtful, positive and informative way. It think he goes off topic on occasion but its all ways interesting. This is a general science book for the general public. Recommended.

9 people found this helpful

Patchy and erratic

Contains plenty of useful information but the argument rambles and contradicts itself. Having raised the hard problem the author spends much of the remainder of the book stating that the brain generates our experience. In spite of the metaphysical confusion the information presented makes its own case, though.

5 people found this helpful

Failing to preach to the converted

I bought this book after reflecting on the 'subjective self' and 'free will' after reading a number of philosophy books. I am already convinced of the delusional nature of both and wanted a psychologist 's angle. I also should say I have a neurosciene background (BSc). The book is rambling with an large number of studies that sound both dubious and irrelevant. For example according to one study people seem to have more will power with a very full bladder. Some parts are a interesting but still largely irrelevant. I really feel Dr Hood fails to make the case of the title. He also seems to not really grasp or perhaps stick to some quite fundamental philosophical concepts related the self. Free will is conflated with executive decision making which of course are not one in the same. At times I found this very irritating especially when Dr Hood repeatedly told me (wrongly) what I apparently think or believe!

14 people found this helpful

fascinating

beautifully read by the author, very interesting concepts about our self-illusions which will be helpful in everyday life and give us a greater understanding of human psychology.

4 people found this helpful

Fascinating

This is a very enjoyable book with fascinating information about how the brain creates a sense of self which, in the end, is “an illusion“. It is written in a very straightforward style and is therefore very accessible to most people. It draws upon neuro biology psychology and interlaces the text with references to popular culture and very good real life examples.

2 people found this helpful

Wonderful and refreshing

The narrator spoke clearly and at a pace that can be easily followed,the points and samples he mentions leave you in no doubt.After listening to this narrator over and over gives you new insight every time to me an e-book very hard to put down..

1 person found this helpful

Enlightening

It was an interesting book. It had a lot of information I didn't know yet. I'm not new to to this topic, but I still learned a lot. I'd recommend this book to any open-minded individual, as it would probably be to much for people with closed mindset.

Gave up after 7 hours

What I thought would be an interesting journey into the nature of the self gradually turned into wheeling out the same old psychological studies that you will probably already know e.g Stanford Prison or the Marshmallow experiment.

I really don't like to leave a book unfinished but it just failed to provide anything new to think about.