101 mental
exercises to melt your
brain and flip your world inside out. Many of the
thought experiments require no or very little preparation and all of them are entirely accessible to just about anyone. The experiments are triggers, to set off certain patterns of thinking and illustrate philosophical ideas, the process is described for creating each experience, and the possible effects and interpretations of each are discussed.
The book addresses the way that we interact with and interpret the world around us. How we
create our own personal worlds, incorporating assumptions drawn from a mutually shared, communal sense of
reality. It challenges our certainties about things, not necessarily with a view towards convincing us that they are incorrect, but just to give us the experience of living in a world free of things we’re used to taking for granted. It demonstrates the power of thought and imagination, shows how a person can alter even the most mundane of
experiences, at one level just by being aware of the event’s more complex attributes and implications, and how with the application of will and a little make believe such experiences can be transformed into world-altering psychic adventures. If reality as we perceive it is an illusion that we create for ourselves then we are given complete freedom to create our own, alternate versions of reality for the purposes of amusement or of gaining a fuller understanding of our inner space, none of them will ever be any less or more valid than the original.
The writing is excellent, ideas flow faster than Niagra Falls when it’s late to a job interview (working at the river bank J Heh) and the book is imaginative and thought provoking right the way through from start to finish, every experiment is a philosophical adventure. But, though there’s enough in there to give your brain an ample supply of epiphany for quite some time, its most important effect is to open your eyes to the significance of things you might normally think too trivial to consider, and the joys inherent in trying something you’ve never done before, purely for the sake of exploring something unfamiliar. There are 101 exercises printed in the book, but you might find yourself conducting many, many more.
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