Unleash Your Primal Brain - Demystifying How We Think and Why We Act

Why You Should Read This Book

Introduction

Part I — Foundations

Chapter 1 — The Lie of Rationality
The big lie
Emotions and decisions
We are the products of evolution Chance and circumstance

Chapter 2 — The Big Picture of Brain Evolution
Life without brains
Why do we need a brain? Following the recipe
Key brain systems Simplifying to make it useful

Chapter 3 — Brain Basics
Gross anatomy Experience wires the brain Use it or lose it

Chapter 4 — How We Learn and Remember
The purpose of memory Stages of memory Encoding
Storage Retrieval
Forgetting and distortion
There is no detailed life recording

Chapter 5 — This Is Your Brain on Drugs
Emotions are signposts for survival
Repetition and emotion — the two key ways to learn
The treadmill of unhappiness
Altered states
The arc of addiction
Feeding and energy balance Food and emotions

Chapter 6 — The Chemistry of Happiness
Older and newer brain chemicals
Dopamine — motivation and energy control
Updating our mental model
The pleasure circuit in more detail
Endorphins — emergency pain suppression
Oxytocin — attachment and outgroups
Serotonin — social dominance and hierarchy
Happiness gone wrong

Part II — Reptiles and Shrews

Chapter 7 — The Autopilot and the Power of Pain
The reptile brain — avoiding harm and ignoring most events
Fear and unhappiness
Sore losers

Chapter 8 — Demystifying Risk
Relativity and reference points
Loss aversion
Sure things and surprises

Chapter 9 — The Emotional Life
Embodied emotions
Personal life experiences
Cultural overlays and interpretation

Chapter 10 — Safer in the Herd
Pluses and minuses of herds
Isolation equals death
Attachment and affection
Avoidance and approach
Status and dominance

Chapter 11 — Good Night, Sweet Dreams
The universal need for sleep Human sleep
The effects of not sleeping
REM sleep
Dreams as a rehearsal for dangerous events
Remembering, learning, and creativity

Chapter 12 — Monkey See, Monkey Do
Mirror neurons
Imitation
Getting into other people’s heads
Empathy and sympathy

Part III — Clumsy Bigheads

Chapter 13 — Humble Beginnings
Aren’t we amazing?!
Other archaic humans
Brain drain

Chapter 14 — Big Babies
Death by cannonball
Neonatal freaks
Helpless learners

Chapter 15 — Sexy Apes
Are we sluts?
Hunting, gathering, and screwing
High-risk sex
Sexual asymmetry
Men’s signaling
Women’s signaling
The biology of love

Chapter 16 — Let Me Tell You a story
The functions of language
Storytelling and mindreading
Order out of chaos
Simulating social experiences
Gossip, tribes, and civilizations

Chapter 17 — The Dance Between Your Brains
Characteristics of the primal brain
Characteristics of the conscious brain

Part IV — Hypersocial

Chapter 18 — How We Evolved to Be Cultural Creatures
The common narrative of human dominance
The real story — cultural and genetic co-evolution
Big brains evolved for cooperative learning
How culture and genes caught fire

Chapter 19 — The Building Blocks of Culture
Whom to learn from Teaching
Blind faith
Social rule followers

Chapter 20 — The Social Network
Social thinking
No one is an island
The need for belonging and validation
Peer pressure and conforming
Ingroups and outgroups

Chapter 21 — Ownership, Fairness, and Favors
Ownership and possession
Fairness or revolt
Social and transactional spheres
Reciprocity and obligation

Chapter 22 — Conformity and Integrity
The inner lives of others 
Group power
Integrity and consistency
The seeds of voluntary action
Making a public stand
Self-sacrifice

Part V — What’s Next?

Chapter 23 — How to Be More Primal
Get proper sleep
Be in your body
Regularly access your intuition and emotions
Avoid artificial addictions
Don’t be a loner
Learn from others and teach something

Chapter 24 — A Personal Challenge

Appendix — Recommended  Reading