David Eagleman
Encyclopedia
David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine
, where he directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action and the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law. He is best known for his work on time perception, synesthesia
, and neurolaw
. He is also a Guggenheim Fellow and a New York Times bestselling author published in 23 languages.
for high school. As an undergraduate at Rice University
, he majored in British and American Literature. He spent his junior year abroad at Oxford University and graduated from Rice in 1993. He earned his Ph.D. in Neuroscience
at Baylor College of Medicine in 1998, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Salk Institute. He directs a neuroscience research laboratory at Baylor College of Medicine. He serves on the editorial boards of the scientific journals PLoS One
and Journal of Vision
. Eagleman sits on boards of several arts organizations and is the youngest member of the Board of Directors of the Long Now Foundation
. He is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Next Generation Texas Fellow, a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
, a council member on the World Economic Forum
’s Global Agenda Council on Brain & Cognitive Sciences, and was recently voted one of Houston's Most Stylish men.
Eagleman's science and writing have been profiled in such magazines as the New Yorker, Texas Monthly, and Texas Observer, and on such television programs as The Colbert Report and Nova Science Now.
and the timing of neural signals. Areas for which he is known include temporal encoding, time warping, manipulations of the perception of causality, and time perception in high-adrenaline situations. In one experiment, he dropped himself and other volunteers from a 150 foot tower to measure time perception as they fell. He writes that his long-range goal is "to understand how neural signals processed by different brain regions come together for a temporally unified picture of the world."
is an unusual perceptual condition in which stimulation to one sense triggers an involuntary sensation in other senses. Eagleman is the developer of The Synesthesia Battery, a free online test by which people can determine whether they are synesthetic. By this technique he has tested and analyzed thousands of synesthetes, and has written a book on synesthesia with Richard Cytowic, entitled Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia
.
and wagon wheel effect.
is an emerging field that determines how modern brain science should affect the way we make laws, punish criminals, and invent new methods for rehabilitation. Eagleman is the founder and director of Baylor College of Medicine's Initiative on Neuroscience and Law.
wrote that "Sum has the unaccountable, jaw-dropping quality of genius," The Wall Street Journal
called Sum "inventive and imaginative" and the Los Angeles Times
hailed the book as "teeming, writhing with imagination". In the New York Times Book Review, Alexander McCall Smith
described Sum as a "delightful, thought-provoking little collection belonging to that category of strange, unclassifiable books that will haunt the reader long after the last page has been turned. It is full of tangential insights into the human condition and poetic thought experiments... It is also full of touching moments and glorious wit of the sort one only hopes will be in copious supply on the other side." Sum was chosen by Time Magazine for their 2009 Summer Reading list, and selected as Book of the Week by both The Guardian
and The Week
. In September 2009, Sum was ranked by Amazon as the #2 bestselling book in the United Kingdom. Sum was named a Book of the Year by Barnes and Noble, The Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, and The Scotsman.
described Why the Net Matters as a "breakthrough work". The project was longlisted for the 2011 Publishing Innovation Award
by Digital Book World. Eagleman's talk on the topic, entitled "Six Easy Ways to Avert the Collapse of Civilization", was voted the #8 Technology talk of 2010 by Fora.tv.
is a New York Times bestseller. Incognito has been reviewed as "appealing and persuasive" by the Wall Street Journal and "a shining example of lucid and easy-to-grasp science writing" by The Independent. A starred review from Kirkus described it as "a book that will leave you looking at yourself--and the world--differently."
, Discover Magazine, Slate Magazine, The Atlantic, Wired
, and New Scientist
. Discussing both science and literature, Eagleman appears regularly on National Public Radio in America, England and Australia. As opposed to committing to strict atheism
or to a particular religious position, Eagleman refers to himself as a Possibilian
.
Baylor College of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine, located in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas, USA, is a highly regarded medical school and leading center for biomedical research and clinical care...
, where he directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action and the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law. He is best known for his work on time perception, synesthesia
Synesthesia
Synesthesia , from the ancient Greek , "together," and , "sensation," is a neurologically based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway...
, and neurolaw
Neurolaw
Neurolaw is an emerging field of interdisciplinary study that explores the effects of discoveries in neuroscience on legal rules and standards. Drawing from neuroscience, philosophy, social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and criminology, neurolaw practitioners seek to address not only the...
. He is also a Guggenheim Fellow and a New York Times bestselling author published in 23 languages.
Biography
David Eagleman was born April 1971 in New Mexico to a physician father and biology teacher mother. An early experience of falling from a roof raised his interest in understanding the neural basis of time perception. He attended the Albuquerque AcademyAlbuquerque Academy
Albuquerque Academy is an independent co-educational day school for grades six through twelve located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. It is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest and the New Mexico State Department of Education. Albuquerque Academy is also a member of...
for high school. As an undergraduate at Rice University
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
, he majored in British and American Literature. He spent his junior year abroad at Oxford University and graduated from Rice in 1993. He earned his Ph.D. in Neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
at Baylor College of Medicine in 1998, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Salk Institute. He directs a neuroscience research laboratory at Baylor College of Medicine. He serves on the editorial boards of the scientific journals PLoS One
PLoS ONE
PLoS ONE is an open access peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science since 2006. It covers primary research from any discipline within science and medicine. All submissions go through an internal and external pre-publication peer review but are not excluded on the...
and Journal of Vision
Journal of Vision
Journal of Vision is an open access online scientific journal specializing in the neuroscience and psychology of the visual system. It publishes primary research from any discipline within the visual sciences. Submissions go through pre-publication peer review and are indexed in PubMed....
. Eagleman sits on boards of several arts organizations and is the youngest member of the Board of Directors of the Long Now Foundation
Long Now Foundation
The Long Now Foundation, established in 1996, is a private organization that seeks to become the seed of a very long-term cultural institution. It aims to provide a counterpoint to what it views as today's "faster/cheaper" mindset and to promote "slower/better" thinking...
. He is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Next Generation Texas Fellow, a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies was founded in 2004 by philosopher Nick Bostrom and bioethicist James Hughes. Incorporated in the United States as a non-profit 501 organization, the IEET is a self-described "technoprogressive think tank" that seeks to contribute to understanding...
, a council member on the World Economic Forum
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland....
’s Global Agenda Council on Brain & Cognitive Sciences, and was recently voted one of Houston's Most Stylish men.
Eagleman's science and writing have been profiled in such magazines as the New Yorker, Texas Monthly, and Texas Observer, and on such television programs as The Colbert Report and Nova Science Now.
Time perception
Eagleman's scientific work combines psychophysical, behavioral, and computational approaches to address the relationship between the timing of perceptionTime
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
and the timing of neural signals. Areas for which he is known include temporal encoding, time warping, manipulations of the perception of causality, and time perception in high-adrenaline situations. In one experiment, he dropped himself and other volunteers from a 150 foot tower to measure time perception as they fell. He writes that his long-range goal is "to understand how neural signals processed by different brain regions come together for a temporally unified picture of the world."
Synesthesia
SynesthesiaSynesthesia
Synesthesia , from the ancient Greek , "together," and , "sensation," is a neurologically based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway...
is an unusual perceptual condition in which stimulation to one sense triggers an involuntary sensation in other senses. Eagleman is the developer of The Synesthesia Battery, a free online test by which people can determine whether they are synesthetic. By this technique he has tested and analyzed thousands of synesthetes, and has written a book on synesthesia with Richard Cytowic, entitled Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia
Wednesday Is Indigo Blue
Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia is a 2009 non-fiction book written by Richard Cytowic and David Eagleman documenting the current scientific understanding of synesthesia, a perceptual condition where an experience of one sense causes an automatic and involuntary...
.
Visual illusions
Eagleman has published extensively on what visual illusions tell us about neurobiology, concentrating especially on the flash lag illusionFlash lag illusion
The flash lag illusion or flash-lag effect is a visual illusion wherein a flash and a moving object that appear in the same location are perceived to be displaced from one another...
and wagon wheel effect.
Neuroscience and the Law
NeurolawNeurolaw
Neurolaw is an emerging field of interdisciplinary study that explores the effects of discoveries in neuroscience on legal rules and standards. Drawing from neuroscience, philosophy, social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and criminology, neurolaw practitioners seek to address not only the...
is an emerging field that determines how modern brain science should affect the way we make laws, punish criminals, and invent new methods for rehabilitation. Eagleman is the founder and director of Baylor College of Medicine's Initiative on Neuroscience and Law.
Sum
Eagleman's work of literary fiction, Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, is an international bestseller published in 23 languages. The ObserverThe Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
wrote that "Sum has the unaccountable, jaw-dropping quality of genius," The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
called Sum "inventive and imaginative" and the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
hailed the book as "teeming, writhing with imagination". In the New York Times Book Review, Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, is a Rhodesian-born Scottish writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. In the late 20th century, McCall Smith became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on British and international committees...
described Sum as a "delightful, thought-provoking little collection belonging to that category of strange, unclassifiable books that will haunt the reader long after the last page has been turned. It is full of tangential insights into the human condition and poetic thought experiments... It is also full of touching moments and glorious wit of the sort one only hopes will be in copious supply on the other side." Sum was chosen by Time Magazine for their 2009 Summer Reading list, and selected as Book of the Week by both The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and The Week
The Week
The Week, styled as THE WEEK, is a weekly news magazine.-History:It was founded in the United Kingdom by Jolyon Connell in 1995. In April 2001, the magazine began publishing an American edition; an Australian edition followed in October 2008. Dennis Publishing publishes the U.K. and Australian...
. In September 2009, Sum was ranked by Amazon as the #2 bestselling book in the United Kingdom. Sum was named a Book of the Year by Barnes and Noble, The Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, and The Scotsman.
Why the Net Matters
In 2010 Eagleman published Why the Net Matters (Canongate Books), in which he argued that the advent of the internet mitigates some of the traditional existential threats to civilizations. In keeping with the book's theme of the dematerialization of physical goods, he chose to publish the manuscript as an app for the iPad rather than a physical book. The New York Times Magazine described Why the Net Matters as a "superbook", referring to "books with so much functionality that they’re sold as apps.". Stewart BrandStewart Brand
Stewart Brand is an American writer, best known as editor of the Whole Earth Catalog. He founded a number of organizations including The WELL, the Global Business Network, and the Long Now Foundation...
described Why the Net Matters as a "breakthrough work". The project was longlisted for the 2011 Publishing Innovation Award
Publishing Innovation Award
Digital Book World Publishing Innovation Award is a literary award sponsored by the magazine Digital Book World for innovation in electronic books. "The Publishing Innovation Awards will honor those making strides in this nascent medium." It was announced in 2010 with the inaugural award given...
by Digital Book World. Eagleman's talk on the topic, entitled "Six Easy Ways to Avert the Collapse of Civilization", was voted the #8 Technology talk of 2010 by Fora.tv.
Incognito
Eagleman's science book Incognito: The Secret Lives of the BrainIncognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain is a 2011 bestselling non-fiction book by American neuroscientist David Eagleman, who directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action at Baylor College of Medicine....
is a New York Times bestseller. Incognito has been reviewed as "appealing and persuasive" by the Wall Street Journal and "a shining example of lucid and easy-to-grasp science writing" by The Independent. A starred review from Kirkus described it as "a book that will leave you looking at yourself--and the world--differently."
Other writing
Eagleman has written for The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Discover Magazine, Slate Magazine, The Atlantic, Wired
Wired (magazine)
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
, and New Scientist
New Scientist
New Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...
. Discussing both science and literature, Eagleman appears regularly on National Public Radio in America, England and Australia. As opposed to committing to strict atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
or to a particular religious position, Eagleman refers to himself as a Possibilian
Possibilianism
Possibilianism is a philosophy which rejects both the diverse claims of traditional theism and the positions of certainty in strong atheism in favor of a middle, exploratory ground. The term was first defined by neuroscientist David Eagleman in relation to his book of fiction Sum...
.
Books by David Eagleman
- Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, Pantheon Books, February 2009. (Fiction)
- Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia, co-authored with Richard Cytowic, March 2009, MIT Press.
- Why the Net Matters: How the Internet will save Civilization, Canongate Books, 2010.
- Incognito: The Secret Lives of the BrainIncognito: The Secret Lives of the BrainIncognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain is a 2011 bestselling non-fiction book by American neuroscientist David Eagleman, who directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action at Baylor College of Medicine....
, Pantheon Books, 2011 - LiveWired: How the Brain Reconfigures Itself, Oxford University Press, 2012
- Cognitive Neuroscience: A Principles Based Approach, textbook co-authored with Jonathan Downar, Oxford University Press, 2013
External links
- David Eagleman's laboratory website
- David Eagleman's author website
- The Synesthesia Battery, an online resource for synesthesia.
- The Eagleman prize in mathematics and physics
- Video: David Eagleman speaking at PopTech
- Video: David Eagleman on "Six Easy Steps to Avert the Collapse of Civilization", Lecture at the Long Now Foundation, San Francisco, CA.
- Video: David Eagleman on "The Brain and the Law", Lecture at the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA), London, UK.
- Video: David Eagleman on "Synesthesia: Hearing colors, tasting sounds", Lecture at the University of Sydney, Australia.
- Why I am a possibilian, David Eagleman, New Scientist, Sept 27, 2010.
- Ten Unsolved Mysteries of the Brain, David Eagleman, cover article in Discover Magazine, August 2007.