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Rating: 
Summary: An in depth and original guide on how the mind works.
Review: Claxton takes a great idea -- the idea that sometimes our 'intuition' knows more than our conscious mind -- and drives it into the ground through endless repetition. After the first couple chapters nothing new is presented, just more and more (and more!) of the same.His focus is almost exclusively Freudian, postulating a complete, functioning "undermind" which is inaccessible (or at least veiled) to consciousness. He utilizes many fascinating examples to bring together Einstein's ruminations, Heidegger's meditations, Coleridge's unconscious plagiarism, and literally hundreds more into a more-or-less coherent argument for 'unconscious knowing.' The fact that he lumps both 'flash insight' and 'extended contemplation' into the same category seems a bit strained, but after 200+ pages of wide-ranging testimony one is hard-pressed to reply. His is a fascinating topic, touching many important areas (like the value of experiential learning over book learning) and the first couple chapters are real eye-openers. After that, unfortunately they tend to become eye-closers from the sheer volume of corroborative evidence.
Rating:
Summary: Faster Is Not Always Better
Review: Hare Brain Tortoise Mind has created tremendous interest among those who want to gain a better understanding of human intelligence. According to John Cleese, author Guy Claxton provides "The essential guide to creative thinking" in a book published by The Ecco Press. Almost immediately we are informed that "Roughly speaking, the mind possesses three different processing speeds. The first is faster than thought....Below this, there is another mental register that proceeds more slowly still. It is often less purposeful and clear-cut, more playful, leisurely or dreamy....[the] third type of intelligence is associated with what we call ceativity, or even 'wisdom'." With delicious wit as well as probing insight, Claxton helps us to understand learning by osmosis; the potential value of intuition and creativity to decision-making and problem-solving; why reason and intuition are sometimes antagonists; the phenomenon of perception without consciousness; the "rudiments" of wisdom; and, how to recognize situations in which there is greater need for the tortoise's "slower ways" than for those of the hare who, in many quests for understanding, either arrives later or not at all. This is a very informative, highly entertaining book.
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Summary: An extraordinarily important book
Review: Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind had a powerful impact on me. The book operates on the reader at two levels, just as Claxton says the mind operates. At the conscious, d-mode level, it presents powerful, experimental evidence for the deep influence in everyday life of the undermind. This is the unconscious mode of knowing through waiting, intuition, and thinking slowly. At the second level, the book helped reshape and reorganize my understanding of the links between spirituality and "rationality." Claxton is not a facile popularizer; he builds a profound and original bridge between the worlds of cognitive science and mysticism. Too often, the life of the spirit and the life of the calculating, conscious mind are treated as two entirely separate realms of experience. Claxton helps the reader integrate these worlds. The effect on me was to create a felt sense of "Yes, that's it." Read this book and tell your friends and your bookseller about it!
Rating:
Summary: A fabulous book for getting your thinking straight.
Review: The author is the ultimate teacher, presenting his material in several forms and different ways till you "get it". He filled a gap in my thinking about how we do things, showing me the third leg of the conscious, the cerebellum and now the unconscious in mediating our actions. He showed me how to use my mind to much greater advantage and he cleared up some of my thinking about Joseph Campbell's myths and psychoanalysis. I will now write down the pros and cons of material and back off, content that my "undermind" will sort things out to some extent.
Rating:
Summary: A fabulous book for getting your thinking straight.
Review: The author is the ultimate teacher, presenting his material in several forms and different ways till you "get it". He filled a gap in my thinking about how we do things, showing me the third leg of the conscious, the cerebellum and now the unconscious in mediating our actions. He showed me how to use my mind to much greater advantage and he cleared up some of my thinking about Joseph Campbell's myths and psychoanalysis. I will now write down the pros and cons of material and back off, content that my "undermind" will sort things out to some extent.
Rating:
Summary: Lafontaine was right all along. You need the turtle.
Review: The author takes gutsy stands. He considers the "Left brain Right brain" concept obsolete. According to his research, the mind's skill set is a lot more fluid than that. Everything the left brain can do, the right brain can do to, and vice versa.
His theory focuses on two main thinking modes:
1) intellect (d-mode); and
2) intuition (undermind).
He believes that optimal cognition is reached through a balance between these two modes of thinking. One is not better than the other. Thinking modes can be used in effective sequences.
He indicates that many challenging problem solving situations can be tackled through four stages of thinking:
1) Preparation in D-Mode,
2) Incubation in intuitive mode,
3) Illumination in intuitive mode, and
4) Verification in the D-mode.
The above is a good description of the scientific method from a psychological framework. This approach will help you out in both school, and business situations.
Rating:
Summary: How We Really Think
Review: This book is an excellent, clearly-written presentation about how we really think, learn and know. Claxton challenges our cultural assumption that real thinking involves effort, strain, and our verbal self. Claxton shows that we unconsciously register patterns, and the patterns guide our action. I've read enough psychology to agree that most patterns never reach verbal consciousness, but our verbal self is great at "filling in the details" after the fact. For years I've regarded "logical, rational" thought as a comforting myth. I'm a mathematician, so I know a little about logic, and in my opinion it's just hindsight. In my experience as a student and a teacher, I know we use our well-trained intuition to solve a problem, then we look back and say, "My, wasn't that logical?" Well, it wasn't.Claxton's book is filled with psychological studies that prove that we are conscious of very little of our real thought processes. It's inspired me to trust my unconscious to learn its own way, from experience, without letting my conscious mind interfere.
Rating:
Summary: Mind Boggling
Review: This is a terrific book if you have any interest in understanding your fellow humans and yourself. Claxton is a clear enticing writer with a rich source of research and background on his subject. The chapter on attention was particularly useful.
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