Get Out Tuesday: Jonah Lehrer, Author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist @ Town Hall
Jonah Lehrer, editor of Seed Magazine and author of the blog The Frontal Cortex has written a terrific book centered around this thesis: Creative people discovered truths about how our mind works well before scientists did.
In the book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Lehrer shows how the work of some famed authors, artists and even cooks anticipated neuroscience discoveries. Here's how he tells it:
I actually argue that Proust anticipated some fundamental discoveries in modern neuroscience. But he wasn't the only artist with prophetic powers. I also argue that Walt Whitman, George Eliot, August Escoffier, Paul Cezanne, Igor Stravinsky, Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf (basically a Who's Who of modernism) also anticipated the shiny new facts of neuroscience.Here's Lehrer on NPR explaining how chef August Escoffier intuited the existence of umami, a taste that, according to scientists, didn't exist.
We read the book and found it persuasive and interesting. It touches on everyday sensations like taste and listening to music--they make you think about how you experience the world.
Better to let Lehrer himself explain. He'll be talking about and signing his book at Town Hall (downstairs) at 7:30 pm on Tuesday as part of the Seattle Science Lectures Series. Tickets are $5 at the door only.
