The Secret Life of the Mind: How Our Brain Thinks, Feels and Decides. Mariano Sigman

A conjecturing machine

The good, the bad and the ugly

He who robs a thief …

The colour of a jersey, strawberry or chocolate

Émile and Minerva’s owl

I, me, mine and other permutations by George

Transactions in the playground, or the origin of commerce and theft

Jacques, innatism, genes, biology, culture and an image

2: The fuzzy borders of identity

      What defines our choices and allows us to trust other people and our own decisions?

Churchill, Turing and his labyrinth

Turing’s brain

Turing in the supermarket

The tell-tale heart

The body in the casino and at the chessboard

Rational deliberation or hunches?

Sniffing out love

Believing, knowing, trusting

       Confidence: flaws and signatures

       The nature of optimists

       Odysseus and the consortium we belong to

       Flaws in confidence

       Others’ gazes

       The inner battles that make us who we are

       The chemistry and culture of confidence

       The seeds of corruption

       The persistence of social trust

       To sum up …

       3: The machine that constructs reality

      How does consciousness emerge in the brain and how are we governed by our unconscious?

       Lavoisier, the heat of consciousness

       Pyschology in the prehistory of neuroscience

       Freud working in the dark

       Free will gets up off the couch

       The interpreter of consciousness

       ‘Performiments’: freedom of expression

       The prelude to consciousness

       In short: the circle of consciousness

       The physiology of awareness

       Reading consciousness

       Observing the imagination

       Shades of consciousness

       Do babies have consciousness?

       4: Voyages of consciousness (or consciousness tripping)

      What happens in the brain as we dream; is it possible for us to decipher, control and manipulate our dreams?

       Altered states of consciousness

       Nocturnal elephants

       The uroboros plot

       Deciphering dreams

       Daydreams

       Lucid dreaming

       Voyages of consciousness

       The factory of beatitude

       The cannabic frontier

       Towards a positive pharmacology

       The consciousness of Mr X

       The lysergic repertoire

       Hoffman’s dream

       The past and the future of consciousness

       The future of consciousness: is there a limit to mind-reading?

       5: The brain is constantly transforming

      What makes