Mind Magic

In Mind Magic Professor Miller has succinctly captured and presented the core wisdom of his mentor, Jean Piaget, a task that few if any authors have accomplished. Miller's clear explanations of the human brain's adaptability, creativity, information management and problem solving functions are interspersed with appropriate real life vignettes that make these important scientific concepts, which are the nuts and bolts of an up-to-date understanding of the integrated functioning of the human mind, accessible to readers with or without a background in psychology or learning theory. Miller's work explains critical links between emotional and intellectual mind functions which were poorly understood in the 20th century. Due to the lag time, typical when new socially relevant concepts arise, he also points out that many current educational practices are not consistent with Piagetian research. Therefore, Miller strongly advises parents to trust their own observations and their own judgments when making decisions about appropriate developmental activities for their children, advice with which I wholeheartedly agree.

As a university professor of economics, I found Dr. Miller's book very illuminating. Many of my undergraduate and graduate students feel stuck in stale, unproductive ways of thinking. At times, like almost everyone, I have felt that way myself. This book is full of practical suggestions based on Piagetian psychology that promote the development of individual strategies to extricate oneself from such situations. I would recommend this book not only to interested individuals, but also to college and university learning centers that aim to support students struggling with learning difficulties.

In Mind Magic, Dr. Miller provides a framework for understanding how you can think better by becoming aware of how you think. This awareness includes becoming sensitive to specific styles of thinking that are neither right nor wrong, but will help you find the ways you personally learn best so you can use them when you need to acquire knowledge, solve a problem, or just understand yourself. Dr. Miller also shows you how you can identify and overcome barriers in your thinking. Within the book, Dr. Miller groups dozens of ideas together in manageable parcels so you can see the forest through the trees. He also brings together vivid vignettes and occasional descriptions of relevant research to help you make the most of your mind. I once attended a seminar at the University of California at Berkeley on Piaget, one of the profound thinkers whose research influenced Dr. Miller and Mind Magic. I had just completed a Ph.D. at Harvard, but, as I told another psychologist at the end of class, "I didn't understand a word of this seminar. Did you?" She laughed and said, "Don't worry. I didn't understand anything either for the first two years." Now, thanks to Dr. Miller, you can skip the Harvard Ph.D. and the years at Berkeley and read, in plain, simple English, how to apply the fruits of elegant theory and research to everything from tennis to your personal relationships to complex financial decisions.

The intent of this book is to use the theories of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget who revolutionized our understanding of how the mind works and how people learn to describe how to develop the kinds of intelligence that matter most in today's world. The essence of intelligence is to continue to grow and develop over the years. What he calls Mind Magic seems to me to be a kind of insight or wisdom into a problem or life in general. I particularly like his approach of not saying this is the way and the only way. He says this is what some people have done, what some people have learned. It is still up to you to develop your own way of dealing with the real world. He does give a series of useful problem solving principles that can be applied to many of the problems you face in work and life. They are not specific, but guidelines that are general enough to be helpful in many situations.

The author writes: There are a lot of books out there that try to tell people more powerful or more creative ways of thinking. But Mind Magic is different. Instead it tells you about how your mind naturally works, and what makes it successful on its own. What it says is genuinely different from what you will have heard before. My main claim is that your thinking gains power not by doing something unfamiliar but instead by better understanding how you normally think and applying your normally thinking style more consciously. I hope it will work for you as well as it does for me. Most people agree that self-knowledge is a good thing. Mind Magic applies this idea not just to understanding yourself as a person but to understanding yourself as thinker.