Book report: Sleights of Mind, by Stephen L. Macknik, Susana Martinez-Conde, and Sandra Blakeslee
I love magic tricks. Even when I know exactly how the trick is done, I’m amazed by the skill of the magician. If you think about it, the whole idea of magic tricks is fascinating. We KNOW that they are not doing what they pretend they are doing. We KNOW that they can’t get the jack of clubs to rise to the top of a deck of cards, or pull a rabbit out of an empty hat, or make a person vanish. But we still watch, we’re still fooled, and we still enjoy it.
How is this possible? We are watching what they do the entire time. Why don’t we SEE what they are really doing? Why do we believe that something impossible has just happened?
This book answers those questions, and many more. The first two authors are researchers and experts in human perception and neural processing, especially about illusions. The third author is a professional writer, who I believe is largely responsible for the very entertaining way that the book is written.
It turns out that many, if not all, magic tricks work precisely because they take advantage of certain peculiarities of how our senses and brains work. Our eyes and brains did not evolve in order to keep track of peas under thimbles. When we try to use our limited and fallible senses to keep track of what a magician is doing, we do not – or, rather cannot – guess correctly. If there’s one lesson you come away with, it’s that seeing might be believing, but it’s not necessarily true.
The authors have watched, interviewed, and collaborated with dozens of the world’s top magicians, including Max Maven, Teller, and James Randi. Descriptions of some of the magicians’ amazing illusions are sprinkled throughout the book. Now, you’d think that a description of a trick in a book would be pretty dull compared to watching the real thing, but it isn’t. The descriptions are detailed and jus-like-you’re-there. Also, there are optional explanations behind many of the illusions mentioned – they are marked so you can read them or skip them, as you prefer. I read them all. It is astonishing how difficult and complex it can be for magicians to create their illusions. These people work hard! You definitely want to read the explanation of how psychic spoon-bending works.
Each chapter is devoted to a different aspect of the senses and the brain, describing what we know about how they work, and why, as a result, we fall for certain illusions. This is not dry or pedantic material. It is well written and easy to understand, even for a biology blockhead like myself. Somehow, it’s all the more compelling because it’s describing senses that we all have. Along the way, we learn a lot about sensation, perception, attention, and consciousness.
This book is mind-blowing in a number of ways. One of the first concepts we come across is that consciousness is a simulation. In other words, what we think we see or perceive is not reality. It is what our brains have constructed from our sensory information. Certainly, reality and our perception of reality overlap. But you can’t read this book and still think that what you see IS reality. There’s too much going on.
For example, there’s a reason that magic tricks don’t “work” with very young children. Until they reach a certain age, kids can’t tell what’s possible from what isn’t. Make someone disappear? Yeah, big deal. Our brains have to be capable of certain concepts before magic tricks work for us.
One of the most fascinating sections was on mentalism and associated illusions, where it seems as if the magician can read your mind and know things about you that they couldn’t possibly know. Part of this is skill at what is called “cold reading”, the kind of things that palm readers and astrology writers do of making vague statements that elicit more information from you. But it also has to do with actually guiding and changing what you believe. This is scary stuff. We – you and I – tend to believe that we know what is true and what isn’t. It turns out that that isn’t so. It is all too easy to manipulate, using only words, what people think, remember, and believe. One fascinating-but-scary concept is “choice blindness”: the fact that people don’t know why they make the choices they do. It turns out that people make their choices first, then make up the reasons for their choices afterwards. Yes, any idea we have that we make rational choices is itself also an illusion.
This is the kind of book that starts a thousand trains of thoughts and possibilities. It’s hard to imagine anyone reading this without saying “Whoa!” every few pages. I’ll certainly never look at magic tricks the same again.
Highly recommended
Their web site:
http://www.sleightsofmind.com/
Their “Illusion of the Year” contest
http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/
I love magic tricks. Even when I know exactly how the trick is done, I’m amazed by the skill of the magician. If you think about it, the whole idea of magic tricks is fascinating. We KNOW that they are not doing what they pretend they are doing. We KNOW that they can’t get the jack of clubs to rise to the top of a deck of cards, or pull a rabbit out of an empty hat, or make a person vanish. But we still watch, we’re still fooled, and we still enjoy it.
How is this possible? We are watching what they do the entire time. Why don’t we SEE what they are really doing? Why do we believe that something impossible has just happened?
This book answers those questions, and many more. The first two authors are researchers and experts in human perception and neural processing, especially about illusions. The third author is a professional writer, who I believe is largely responsible for the very entertaining way that the book is written.
It turns out that many, if not all, magic tricks work precisely because they take advantage of certain peculiarities of how our senses and brains work. Our eyes and brains did not evolve in order to keep track of peas under thimbles. When we try to use our limited and fallible senses to keep track of what a magician is doing, we do not – or, rather cannot – guess correctly. If there’s one lesson you come away with, it’s that seeing might be believing, but it’s not necessarily true.
The authors have watched, interviewed, and collaborated with dozens of the world’s top magicians, including Max Maven, Teller, and James Randi. Descriptions of some of the magicians’ amazing illusions are sprinkled throughout the book. Now, you’d think that a description of a trick in a book would be pretty dull compared to watching the real thing, but it isn’t. The descriptions are detailed and jus-like-you’re-there. Also, there are optional explanations behind many of the illusions mentioned – they are marked so you can read them or skip them, as you prefer. I read them all. It is astonishing how difficult and complex it can be for magicians to create their illusions. These people work hard! You definitely want to read the explanation of how psychic spoon-bending works.
Each chapter is devoted to a different aspect of the senses and the brain, describing what we know about how they work, and why, as a result, we fall for certain illusions. This is not dry or pedantic material. It is well written and easy to understand, even for a biology blockhead like myself. Somehow, it’s all the more compelling because it’s describing senses that we all have. Along the way, we learn a lot about sensation, perception, attention, and consciousness.
This book is mind-blowing in a number of ways. One of the first concepts we come across is that consciousness is a simulation. In other words, what we think we see or perceive is not reality. It is what our brains have constructed from our sensory information. Certainly, reality and our perception of reality overlap. But you can’t read this book and still think that what you see IS reality. There’s too much going on.
For example, there’s a reason that magic tricks don’t “work” with very young children. Until they reach a certain age, kids can’t tell what’s possible from what isn’t. Make someone disappear? Yeah, big deal. Our brains have to be capable of certain concepts before magic tricks work for us.
One of the most fascinating sections was on mentalism and associated illusions, where it seems as if the magician can read your mind and know things about you that they couldn’t possibly know. Part of this is skill at what is called “cold reading”, the kind of things that palm readers and astrology writers do of making vague statements that elicit more information from you. But it also has to do with actually guiding and changing what you believe. This is scary stuff. We – you and I – tend to believe that we know what is true and what isn’t. It turns out that that isn’t so. It is all too easy to manipulate, using only words, what people think, remember, and believe. One fascinating-but-scary concept is “choice blindness”: the fact that people don’t know why they make the choices they do. It turns out that people make their choices first, then make up the reasons for their choices afterwards. Yes, any idea we have that we make rational choices is itself also an illusion.
This is the kind of book that starts a thousand trains of thoughts and possibilities. It’s hard to imagine anyone reading this without saying “Whoa!” every few pages. I’ll certainly never look at magic tricks the same again.
Highly recommended
Their web site:
http://www.sleightsofmind.com/
Their “Illusion of the Year” contest
http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/
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