A new revised edition of the classic study takes a fresh look at human consciousness and an exciting new view of the untapped potential of the human mind What is consciousness and why do we need to know? In this new fourth edition of his revolutionary study, Robert Ornstein reexamines what is known about consciousness and why this understanding is so important at this time of enormous challenge, change and potential. He begins with an exploration of how the human brain evolved as a complex system for limiting what we 'pick up' from the vast external environment to just the information we need to survive. We fill in the gaps with 'unconscious inferences' - assumptions, categorizations, expectations and habituations that allow us to operate in the world, but that limit our perception of what is, and what is possible. Going beyond the theory that creative impulses originate in the right side of the brain and rational impulses in the left, he shows how a synthesis of these two functions
