Leonard Mlodinow

Leonard Mlodinow
Leonard Mlodinowis an American popular science author and screenwriter...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhysicist
CountryUnited States of America
feelings understanding research
Research suggests when it comes to understanding our feelings, we humans have an odd mix of low ability and high confidence.
judging people vision
We judge people and initiatives by their results, and we expect events to happen for good, understandable reason. But our clear visions of inevitability are often only illusions.
falling-in-love believe judging
We believe that when we choose anything, judge a stranger and even fall in love, we understand the principal factors that influenced us. Very often nothing could be further from the truth. As a result, many of our most basic assumptions about ourselves, and society, are false.
beautiful black soup
Science has revealed a universe that is vast, ancient, violent, strange, and beautiful, a universe of almost infinite variety and possibility one in which time can end in a black hole, and conscious beings can evolve from a soup of minerals.
aware bonds connect conscious form grooming hours society spend touching
Non-human primates spend hours a day grooming each other. And with humans, touching is also important. It's a way to form bonds and connect in modern society. But you can also speed up the use of conscious purposes once you're aware of that, and it can be manipulated.
both clear explain fade indeed longer people vivid
If memories were indeed like what a camera records, they could be forgotten, or they could fade so that they are no longer clear and vivid. But it would be difficult to explain how people could have memories that are both clear and vivid while also being wrong. Yet that happens, and it is not infrequent.
impart seems
On the unconscious level, touch seems to impart a subliminal sense of caring and connection.
architecture arise conscious due forces mental mind motivational operate outside portions processes rather subject
Our subliminal mental processes operate outside awareness because they arise in these portions of our mind that are inaccessible to our conscious self; their inaccessibility is due to the architecture of the brain rather than because they have been subject to Freudian motivational forces like repression.
complete exhaustive fill form rarely scientific visual
When judging a product, we rarely have exhaustive scientific data to go by. As a result, if we are to form a complete picture, we must fill in the blanks, just as we must in our visual perception.
'Subliminal' is about how we misinterpret our behavior because we're unaware of what our unconscious minds are doing.
course future less likely lives longer might predicting
I find that predicting the course of our lives is like predicting the weather. You might be able to predict your future in the short term, but the longer you look ahead, the less likely you are to be correct.
whether
Whether it's fiction or nonfiction, writing takes me to another world.
adjust amount communication forms function relative social spend surprising time
One of the most surprising forms of nonverbal communication is the way we automatically adjust the amount of time we spend looking into another's eyes as a function of our relative social position.
aware factors
We perceive, we remember our experiences, we make judgments, we act - and in all of these endeavors, we are influenced by factors that we aren't aware of.