Books on the mind

There is another new book about how the mind works on the bestseller lists. It is Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior, by Leonard Mlodinow. Other such books are Imagine: How Creativity Works, by Jonah Lehrer and Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman.

There seems to be endless demand for these books. I heard Mlodinow promoting his book, and he does not have a shred of evidence for the unconscious mind ruling behavior. He claimed that it was based on research of the last ten years, but most of it has been known for centuries. His best examples were optical illusions. These illusions are amusing examples of how the mind can get fooled, but they say nothing about the unconscious or behavior. He disavowed Freud, as expected, but quoted Jung who was just as kooky.