About book Embracing The Wide Sky: A Tour Across The Horizons Of The Mind (2009)
As a person with aspergers I find books quite fascinating although i can get a bit fed up with the fiction types !!! were they seem to dwell to much on how we tale things literallY but i found this fascinating as went into how the brain works especilly the memory side of it is interesting that i can remember dates and times of things that happened decades ago but if asked to come home with a pint of milk as it does not hold importance to me til i go,and make myself a cup of tea and no milk .ave I have suffered from various trauma in my life as a result i now have PTSD which involves me unable to handle any stress it is fascinating how the brain decides to store memories and especially how it deals trauma I would recomend this book to anyone who has an interest in the brain as we all have one (allegedley) ha cant spell sos Rather than talk about what this book is about, I'd like to share how I reacted to it. First, I think mild autistic spectrum disorders probably run in my family, overlapping with ADHD. I'm pretty sure after reading this book that at least one of my family members has Asperger's syndrome, and realizing this helps me understand their social distancing. I'm encouraged to find out more.I was especially encouraged by the "World of Words" chapter, which deals with language acquisition in general, plus common misconceptions about learning languages beyond one's own initially acquired language. I've always approached learning a second language as if there was something mysterious and hard-wired about the brain that negated my ability as an adult to learn it. After getting all eight questions right in the intuitive sense for word meanings test, I realized that learning new languages does not depend on memorizing strings of words. The techniques for learning a new language Tammet suggests made complete sense to me, and I realized I've failed in the past because I've tried to just memorize words without forming a linguistic gestalt.Throughout other chapters, what soon became clear to me is that many people are taught to just memorize without an understanding of the underlying conceptual, logical, and systematic relationships. Tammet's explanation of the Dewey decimal system used by libraries was a great AHA! for me. The system is not at all arbitrary, as I had always assumed; new categories are not just tacked on willy nilly. The system not only makes elegant sense to me now, the way the books are organized in a library--with books of a similar nature being located near each other--seems analogous to the way information is stored most efficiently in the brain.Tammet encourages people who are trying to learn a new language to learn clusters of words that make the words more memorable; he gives the example in English of the words "pen," "paper," "pencil," and "paint": all the words begin with similar sounds and refer to similar objects or those normally used together. As I read about phonesthesia "(where certain sounds become associated with certain meanings)" I realized that this is a major key in helping me not only learn new words but to reach for them directly in thought without having to first find an English word before translating it into the new language--always an impediment for me in trying to get past the basics of a language.I was most drawn to the linguistic discussions in the book, but Tammet also covers visual, numerical, and other forms of apprehension and thought. Clear examples of what he is discussing are included so the reader can really visualize what he is talking about, and he gives examples to test comprehension as he goes along. He also dispels magical notions of what "genius" is and simultaneously gives us a means of drawing on our own creative intelligence--which, he is quick to tell us, is far more profound and powerful than that of the computers our brains are misguidedly compared to.I laughed out loud when Tammet confirmed for me what I've suspected for quite some time: Drinking too much information too often through the firehose of the Internet can make you stupid! After reading this book, I can see why that is true! Time to restrict surfing like I restrict watching TV.
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This is a really interesting look into how we use our minds and see the world.
—Ella
