Reality Check - book review

What is reality? Can we rely on our brains to tell us what reality is? What about our emotions? Do they come from the brain, some other part of the body, or even from something outside the body such as the soul or spirit? The subtitle of Reality Check is “What your mind knows, but isn’t telling you.” I believe it would be as accurate to say the book is about what your mind knows but can’t tell you because you wouldn’t believe it.

The author David L. Weiner writes in a style that is easy to understand even when the things he writes about are not easily understandable. He covers such topics as the anatomy of the brain, how neurons work, the impact of general relativity, and the marvel of DNA. This is one of those books that has so many good pieces of information in it, that you sort of wish it would just on and on explaining everything.

I liked the book especially in those areas where Weiner puts things into perspective such as describing our DNA as a 6 foot long thread that is so thin you could only see it with a scanning electron microscope. Yet contained in that small thread is the whole blueprint of our minds, bodies, and very existence. The difference between any two humans expressed as a percentage of this DNA is so small as to be meaningless even though we spend our entire lives proving to ourselves and others that we are different. Sometimes proving entails the expression of the best in art, music, science, or even politics while at other times that proving entails torture, killing, war, and enslavement.

Another section I found fascinating dealt with religions of the world. Quoting from the World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, published by the Oxford University Press, Weiner reports that “there are at least 10,000 distinct and different religions across the world, of which 270 have more than 500,000 adherents.” And the single largest component of religion is genetics – at least 99.99% of the time you inherit your religion from your parents. In the United States where religion is considered more changeable than in many parts of the world, Weiner states that fewer than 2% convert from one religion to another in any year. I would venture that that is much too high of an estimate.

Although Reality Check won’t give you all the answers to life’s questions, it will provide you with several hours of interesting reading and dozens of thought provoking questions.