The Wisdom Paradox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger as Your Brain Grows Older

I came across this book after I read Joe DeLoux's Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are, and it proved to be an enjoyable read. Elkhonon Goldberg has written quite complex information into a very comprehensible direction for the reader in his "The Wisdom Paradox." There are fifteen chapters in this book, with an addition of an epilogue. With each chapter, it is more like a personal journey than a simple or dry work. It is both personal and informative. I personally like this book because it adds to my understanding of neuropsychology and neurobiology as it would be a good resourceful book. After reading this book, I find myself feeling compelled to exercise my mind and get those synapse of mine firing. My current skills are limited and useless. However, I can increase my skills by doing what I never done before. Knowledge is indeed unlimited and so is our brain power. In my opinion, I recommend this book.

This is a terrific book explaining how new knowledge of brain plasticity can be put to use to combat mental decline. It combines state-of-the-art knowledge about the brain delivered in a very clear and lucid manner with enjoyable cultural and historical digressions. I liked Goldberg's other book, The Executive Brain, but this one is even better. It is refreshing to see a serious scientist stepping out of the ivory tower and developing practical applications. The idea of cognitive fitness through cognitive exercise is fascinating and I can't wait to start!

If you like the thinker's prose, the so-called "romantic science",a style attributed to the Russian neuroscientist A. R. Luria,which consists in publishing original research in literary form, you would love this book. Clearly intellectual scientists are vanishing under the weight of the commoditization of the discipline. But once in a while someone emerges to reverse such setbacks. Goldberg, who was the great Luria's student and collaborator, is even more colorful and fun to read than the master. He is egocentric, abrasive, opinionated, and colorful. He is also disdainful of the conventional beliefs in neurosciences --for instance he is suspicious of the assignment of specific functions, such as language, to anatomical regions. He is also skeptical of the journalistic "triune" brain. His theory is that the hemispheric specialization is principally along pattern matching and information processing lines:the left side stores patterns, while the right one processes novel tasks. It is convincing to see that children suffer more from a right brain injury, while adults have the opposite effect. There is a little bit of open plugging of Goldberg's for-profit institute;he would have gotten better results by being subtle. A fre minor points. I did not understand why Goldberg discusses "modularity", of which he is critical, as if it were the same thing in both neurobiology and in cognitive science. In neurobiology, modularity implies regional localization, while cognitive scientists (Marr, Fodor, etc.) make no such assumption: for them it is entirely functional and they would be in great agreement with Goldberg. Also I did not understand why he attributes the language instinct to Pinker, not Chomsky, and why he makes snide remarks about behavioral scientists like Kahneman and Tversky. But these are very minor details that do not weaken the message (I still gave the book 5 stars). I am now spoiled; I need more essays by opinionated, original,and intellectual, contemporary scientists.

Highly recommended. A fascinating, well-conceptualized proposition that educates, integrates, and provokes at many levels. Dr. Goldberg's clarity of writing makes intriguing concepts understandable for lay persons, yet challenges experienced neuroscientists to re-think old paradigms. Who wouldn't be interested-from either a personal or professional perspective-in coming to understand how our aging brains change in "style", and can be strengthened throughout our lifetime? While there is no guarantee that reading Dr. Goldberg's book will make you wise, reading, understanding, and practising the "wisdom" the book offers is certainly a step in the right (or left!) direction. GBS, Saskatoon

Elkhonon Goldberg has once again created a book that blends his extensive knowledge of neuropsychology and neuroscience, modestly including his own very large (and probably still underestimated) contribution to the cutting edge of the field, and his own introspective experience as a living, breathing brain-owner, into a highly accessible, often playful, yet profoundly elegant treatise on the fate of the brain and cognition over the course of "normal aging." Similar to his equally excellent and well-received earlier book "The Executive Brain," he writes with warmth and genuine affection for his reader and his material. As a clinical neuropsychologist myself, I generally prefer the more "textbook" type of presentation to those that are created for popular consumption, but in Goldberg's case, I make a strong exception. His gift seems to be his ability to "connect" hard science to life experience using accessible language that captures what might otherwise be arcane discourse, instead providing cogent explanation of complex ideas in a lively and inviting fashion. Goldberg, as a deep and heuristic thinker, has contributed several highly promising and potentially advancing observations to the field of neuropsychology. Each of these ideas is incorporated into a forward-looking path toward understanding the complex changes in brain function and cognition that take place over the lifespan, culminating for those who are fortunate (and have worked hard for it) into a "style" of cognitive processing that, in more poetic terms, has been referred to through the ages as "wisdom." One of the more elegant aspects of Goldberg's writing is that while resorting to science to explain what has otherwise required the "poetic," he manages to hold on to the poetry, perhaps even creating some in the process.