Customer Reviews

The Three-Pound Universe

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In another lifetime, I would have studied neurobiology--and this book would have been what inspired me. I read this book a decade ago, and recently re-read it. It's still as good; and is enhanced by Asimov's forward. The book touches on the relationship between who we are physically, and what we think. There are chapters explaining the intricate link between our senses (visual perception and sound, for example--how sound can sometime produce 'colors').

The Three-Pound Universe discusses madness, heaven and hell, god, the neurobiology of madness, altered states of consciousness....it touches on a lot, without going too in depth. It was a great introduction, one that inspired me to read more on the subject. If this book had been published in the 1980's, and I had stumbled on it in high school, it could have changed my life.

I have a head injured son and I have made it an avocation to study the brain and how it works. Out of the dozens of books I've read - this is the most exhaustive and thorough book I've seen. More importantly, the material covers everything you'd want to know about our minds including psychology, philosophy as well as the physiology. It's entertaining as well as informative. I keep giving my copies away so I keep having to buy more. I highly recommend this book - for the uninformed as well as the most knowledgable of experts. It's hard to find another book as comprehensive.

This is one of those books that end up profoundly affecting your life and your world view. I changed the direction of my career because of things I read in here. Take a chance and read it. You will never view the world quite the same again. It led me to read at least ten more books that were mentioned in it and they were great too. Reading this book is really a worthwhile way to spend your time.

Anyone remotely interested in the brain, neuroscience, or just science in general may enjoy this book. It is written in an informal, conversational style. At times the author gets slightly carried away with her own wit, but her personality does keep the book lively. The contents of the book could be described as a broad survey of the various aspects of (at the time) the current understanding of the brain -- intertwined around a series of relevant interviews with some of the notable researchers in the field.

This book really seemed promising, with a great title and a very fine first 50 pages or so. But then it sort of gets lost, meandering through a survey of all sorts of disconnected research material. It seems to be saying the same things over and over, pozing interesting questions along the way, but always just leaving them on the table and moving on. I had to fight to read the last 50 pages (I hate not finishing books). Good cover and publishing job.

Yes, it's a primer to the study of the brain and yes, it's both an easy and a difficult read. Easy because the writing is so sharp. Some of the introductory, scene-setting descriptions were among the finest, most beautifully-crafted prose I've ever read in both fiction and non-fiction. Easy, too, because the subject matter is, by and large, absolutely absorbing. Last night, I motored through over a 100 pages, gripped by content, alone: hallucinogenic trips, lucid dreaming, near-death experiences and sensory-deprivation tanks in which some of the most celebrated scientific minds bobbed like corks in a saline solution (the 'dolphin man' in particular combining the trip with LSD) and recollected with enough coherence to tell about it. From an excerpt:

'I moved into smaller and smaller dimensions, down to the quantum levels and watched the play of atoms in their own vast universes, their wide empty spaces and the fantastic forces involved in each of the distant nuclei with their orbital clouds of force field electrons. It was really frightening to see the tunneling effects and the other phenomena of the quantal level taking place.'*

Dude. Er, whoa. Let me just say that I don't even know what marijuana looks like (other than what I've seen on TV- and I don't watch that much TV) much less have actually embarked on any kind of 'trip.' The pages of this book in the second part on altered states of consciousness, though, were trip enough! I felt a little weird and unmoored on the couch in my den as I read about the very thing I was using to read. At any rate, though the subject matter was not exactly light- hence, the difficulty- the execution was, in a word, elegant.

Another reviewer said the book had a strong start and got bogged down. I think with any remotely academic treatise, that danger is almost never completely absent. (Almost never completely- wow. I think I might have just broken some sort of intergalactic modifier speed limit, there. Call the American Copy Editing Society.) Having said that, I believe this attempt to survey something as intricate and complex as the mind/brain connection remains among the best, most thorough and most, ahem, open-minded. My main reason for the last descriptor is that both authors avoid painting a broad stroke when addressing what is more commonly-termed mental illness by classifying mental states on a continuum of experience; eg, a schizophrenic mind is not referred to as diseased but rather a less-frequently occurring state of consciousness. I found the approach very progressive and enlightened and, as a(n extreme) novice student of neurophysiological phenomena, appreciated it.

But hey, I've gone on too long. Suffice it to say if you're looking for a comprehensive, yet accessible introduction to the arguably spooky terrain of your own three-pound universe, this here's a spiffy map.

*Excerpt quoted in the book from 'The Center of the Cyclone,' by John Lilly.

Fascinating and fun to read without being too "dumbed-down" Anyone who enjoys magazines like Discover or shows like Nova will like this book.