Elastic: Unlocking Your Brain's Ability to Embrace Change Paperback – January 8, 2019

What makes your brain better than a computer? Computers can hold an unfathomable amount of data, but a computer is unable to interpret that data unassisted. Our brains are unique because they are able to adapt instantly.The book Elastic presents many examples; here is my favorite. Our brains can determine the correct definition of a word given the context of a simple sentence. Consider these two sentences: “The cooking teacher said the young children made bad snacks” and “The cannibal said the young children made bad snacks.” The difference between these two sentences is the definition of “made.” A computer could not, on its own, determine the difference. We, as humans trained in the English language, understand that there could be a difference.Our brain’s ability to adapt, create meaning, and regulate objective and subject thinking are just some of the ways it is extraordinary.Is there a single thing that makes our brains better than computers? No. Is there a single thing that makes our brains different than an animal brain? No. Our brains are profoundly complex. There is a lot we know and more that we don’t know.This was an extremely interesting and insightful book.

In Elastic, we're taken through various parts of the brain in an accessible, engaging way in order to learn how we might become elastic thinkers. Elastic thinkers are essentially people who can tap into the quieter part of the brain that tends to come up with off-the-wall ideas...but also the insanely creative ones. People who can think in an elastic way are better set up to navigate an increasingly complex world.The core idea is that the elastic part of the brain is "blocked" by the more rigid, logical part, which tries to take cognitive shortcuts. For example, if you see a rope-like object on the ground at twilight, the rigid part of the brain is more likely to come up with "rope" or "snake" than "gummy worm placed here especially for me to enjoy" or "actually, it's probably a slinky toy" (which would be ideas from the more elastic part of the brain). These shortcuts can be quite handy. Of course, when they no longer work or you need a different route, they become an obstacle.Coincidentally, I realized this rigid, logical brain is responsible for a lot of cognitive distortions (cognitive distortions are also shortcuts), so tapping into the more elastic part of the brain could be helpful for those trying to deal with them. For example, black-and-white thinking is no match for elasticity--it's just not a concept that can exist in that space. Overgeneralization wouldn't work, either. Despite the term, it's actually a *narrowing* of perception, while elasticity is the opposite.There's some overlap with Genova's "Remember" and Oakley's "Mind for Numbers". I think all three of these books are worth reading. They give you a broad look into memory, learning, and other aspects that allow you to perform at a high level. If you have any background in how to therapize yourself, you'll also get insight into how you can help yourself even more. (Add on professional therapy if you can, and be amazed at the progress you can make.)

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in strategies to navigate present times. As a 50 year old, I grew up thinking on stability and set minds. This books helps to understand why that way of thinking is inapplicable today.

Let me start by saying I really dislike self-help books. Most of the time they feel like predatory cash grabs that either enable bad habits or make impossible promises to trick people into handing over their money. One might expect that Elastic falls into this category, but Leonard Mlodinow does a brilliant job of interweaving research-based fact with anecdotal evidence. His is not a self-help book, but one that helps us to learn about our complex inner workings. The goal is to enlighten us in such a way that makes our ideas richer, even if they're not always conventional. Overall, he does a nice job in getting us there.