“[A]n owner’s manual for the mind, albeit an entertaining one.â€
—Greater Good
“[An] accessible volume on the science of the brain and mind.… Drawing on hard science, literature, and observations of the human condition, the work presents a readable narrative covering both physical and psychological aspects of happiness.â€
—Book News
“In The Happiness of Pursuit…Shimon Edelman takes an unconventional – and cautiously self-aware of its own unorthodoxy – lens to the holy grain of human existence, blending hard science with literature and philosophy to reverse-engineer the brain’s capacity for well-being. What emerges is a kind of conceptual toolbox that lets us peer into the computational underbelly of our minds and its central processes – memory, perception, motivation and emotion, critical thinking, social cognition, and language – to better understand not only how the mind works but also how we can optimize it for happiness…. [The] blend of philosophy and science is indeed the defining, winning characteristic of The Happiness of Pursuit, the underlying message of which may seem simple – roughly captured by the tired yet infinitely true adage, ‘Stop and smell the roses,’ and premised on the idea that experience itself, or ‘pursuit,’ is the true fountain of happiness – but it cuts to the heart of what we intuit to be true, and does so with a razor-sharp blade of science and critical thought.â€
—Brain Pickings
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“The Happiness of Pursuit is for fans of inquiries into the nature of the brain, mind—and happiness itself…. [Edelman] offers a happy addition to the classic recipe of ‘self-knowledge, self-improvement, and, eventually, selfless conduct’—a coherent notion of the self.â€
—New Scientist
“From Bayes’ theorem of probability to Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ Edelman offers a range of references and allegories to explain why a changing, growing self, constantly shaped by new experiences, is happier than the satisfaction any end goal can give us. It turns out the rewards we get for learning and understanding the workings of the world really make it the journey, not the destination, that matters most.â€
—Salon
“Taking passages by luminaries including Homer, William Shakespeare and Jorge Luis Borges as touchstones, Edelman powers along on his ‘quest for an algorithmic understanding of happiness’, revealing that it is this computational journey that constitutes the good life.â€
—Nature
“An elegant tour de force that combines neuropsychology with liberal references to Shakespeare and Homer.â€
—Kirkus Reviews
“Edelman marries his scientific mind with his poetic eye to give us the neuroscience that matters the most: an understanding of our own lives.â€
—David Eagleman, Director, Laboratory for Perception and Action,Baylor College of Medicine, and author of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
“The ancient injunction to ‘Know thyself’ gets a lively update in Shimon Edelman’s eclectic examination of ‘knowing’ and ‘self’ through the lens of twenty-first century cognitive science. It’s human to wander thoughtfully through real and imaginary landscapes, learning as we go—this is happiness, embodied in Edelman’s witty odyssey, which provokes the very pleasures it describes.â€
—Dan Lloyd, Brownell Professor of Philosophy, Trinity College
“For all its seriousness, ambition, and learning, Shimon Edelman’s The Happiness of Pursuit is an extraordinarily human book. It is ambitious because he bases his view of the nature of happiness on what for many of his readers will be an unusual conception of the relation between the brain, the Self, and the body. Happiness, says Edelman, is not simply a state of mind one tries to attain, but an unceasing activity. That is,whenever it does attain its goal, after a pause for savoring its success it must change its goal for a new one. The Happiness of Pursuit shows Edelman to be a witty, resourceful, raconteur. You never forget his presence. He leans out of his book as if he were at an open window beckoning to us to come inside and listen.â€
—Ben-Ami Scharfstein, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy,Tel-Aviv University, and author of Art Without Borders: A Philosophical Exploration of Art and Humanity
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