It is nice to learn how mysterious and complex the human mind is, who discovered the synapse, when, in what particular university, and what everyone was doing that day, but what you really want to know is how your mind functions, how you reason, how you have your feelings and ideas, and how your mind affects you in every detail. You want to know exactly what happens in your mind when you watch the painting of Renoir with the beautiful woman wearing the white dress and playing the grand piano and why it makes you enjoy a beautiful moment then, compared to watching sofas and chairs. You want to know all biological details related to how a simple yellow car on the road can remind you of your best friend and of all the loving moments that you once had, through what cognitive mechanisms it happens, and even more, you want to know why it reminds you of your friend sometimes, while other times it associates with work, rain, and shopping. How exactly does the mind know all these? Since it is interesting as it happens, while it remains at an unconscious level, and you just cannot find out how it takes place, in order to be able to control it and use it whenever you desire. You want to know exactly how you are able to predict the displacement of a tennis ball for example, in order to hit it perfectly in an instant giving its exact speed, direction, and angular momentum necessary to win, and doing it long before your conscious mind even perceives the ball. How can your subconscious do it without your conscious mind, while the conscious mind should be more capable and therefore better prepared according to science? What is the exact cognitive mechanism? Because if you can only know it, all your strategies in life can become flawless. You want to know exactly how your mind is able to solve advanced mathematical problems and how it retrieves on its own the proper knowledge in order to perform very abstract operations. How does everything happen? How do you have your ideas in mathematics, business, and art? What is the human creativity, and how can the human mind achieve it at will and in all domains? What exactly makes your brain perform better or worse under all circumstances, and why exactly is reasoning different in everybody? How do you perform abstract thinking? How do you imagine? How exactly does your mind generate plans and strategies related to important future events? How do you comprehend and enjoy scientific and nonscientific subjects as psychology, literature, mathematics, art, and music? How do you love? How does everything happen within your mind, brain, and the entire organism?
Because this is of interest, this is what you want to know, while this is what you actually need in life, since without these, you cannot understand your mind, the extraordinary human mind. And since your mind and reasoning integrate you in life and in the world, now you cannot understand yourself, life, the world, and your place and meaning in life and in the world without understanding the human mind along with the human reasoning. While it is meaningful to know these well, otherwise you end up doing everything else instead of reasoning accurately, developing entirely, and behaving adequately in life and in the world. Since ignorance always harms the world, while now it has a main cause, the lack of accurate knowledge about the human mind.
Throughout this book, we create a comprehensive mental model for the human mind, including its structure, abilities, development, interconnectivity, reasoning, and further meanings, allowing you to understand yourself and your entire cognition. If you want to understand the human mind in all its meaningful details, this book is for you.
