Vocabulary

Meaning:

Noun.

• a departure from what is normal, usual, or expected, typically one that is unwelcome.

Example:

Fischer’s and Eastman’s reactions to their respective situations seem so contrary, so completely inverted, that one is tempted to chalk them up to false bravado or mental abberration.

Meaning:

Verb.

• Destroy completely.
• Kill (a pest).

Example:

Fortunately, his dreams of equity in the American workplace were not so easily exterminated.

Meaning:

Noun.

• A mark stamped on articles of gold, silver, or platinum in Britain, certifying their standard of purity.

Example:

One of the hallmarks of a visual experience is that we can almost always tell whether it is the product of a real or an imagined object.

Meaning:

Adjective.

• Present, appearing, or found everywhere.

Example:

But while these automatic, continuous, nonconscious predictions of the immediate, local, personal future are both amazing and ubiquitous, they are not the sorts of predictions that got our species out of the trees and into dress slacks.

Meaning:

Adjective.

• Likely or liable to be influenced or harmed by a particular thing.
• Capable or admitting of.

Example:

I take small comfort in the fact that other pigs seem susceptible to precisely the same delusion.

Meaning:

Noun.

• An idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder.

Example:

I take small comfort in the fact that other pigs seem susceptible to precisely the same delusion.

Meaning:

Adjective.

• (of an idea/suggestion) wildly unreasonable, illogical, or inappropriate.
• (of a person or a person's behavior or actions) foolish; unreasonable.
• (of an object or situation) arousing amusement or derision; ridiculous.

Example:

I suppose I knew that my vow was absurd even as I made it, and yet, some part of me seemed sincerely to believe that chewing and swallowing were nasty habits that I could easily renounce, if only because the torpid mass that was winding its way through my digestive tract at the approximate speed of continental drift would supply all my nutritional, intellectual, and spiritual needs forevermore.

Meaning:

Verb.

• Formally declare one's abandonment of (a claim, right, or possession).
• Refuse to recognize or abide by any longer.
• Declare that one will no longer engage in or support.

Example:

I suppose I knew that my vow was absurd even as I made it, and yet, some part of me seemed sincerely to believe that chewing and swallowing were nasty habits that I could easily renounce, if only because the torpid mass that was winding its way through my digestive tract at the approximate speed of continental drift would supply all my nutritional, intellectual, and spiritual needs forevermore.

Meaning:

Noun.

• lack of contentment; dissatisfaction with one's circumstances.

Example:

popular discontent with the system had been general for several years

Meaning:

Adjective.

• foolish, stupid

Example:

We go easy on the lard and tobacco, smile dutifully at yet another of our supervisor’s witless jokes, read books like this one when we could be wearing paper hats and eating pistachio macaroons in the bathtub, and we do each of these things in the charitable service of the people we will soon become.

Meaning:

Adjective.

• of or relating to the assistance of those in need.

Example:

We go easy on the lard and tobacco, smile dutifully at yet another of our supervisor’s witless jokes, read books like this one when we could be wearing paper hats and eating pistachio macaroons in the bathtub, and we do each of these things in the charitable service of the people we will soon become.

Meaning:

Verb.

• work extremely hard or incessantly.

Example:

We toil and sweat to give them just what we think they will like, and they quit their jobs, grow their hair, move to or from San Francisco, and wonder how we could ever have been stupid enough to think they’d like that.

Meaning:

Adjective.

• having or showing sharp powers of judgment; astute.

Example:

The three-and-a-half-pound meat loaf between our ears is not a simple recording device but a remarkably smart computer that gathers information, makes shrewd judgments and even shrewder guesses, and offers us its best interpretation of the way things are.

Meaning:

Verb.

• yearn to possess or have (something).

Example:

As we have seen, we can’t do that with the kind of precision that scientists covet.

Meaning:

Adjective.

• looking or sounding bizarre or unfamiliar.
• foreign, alien

Example:

The claims made by people who have experienced events such as these seem frankly outlandish to those of us who are merely imagining those events—and yet, who are we to argue with the folks who’ve actually been there?

Meaning:

Noun.

• an event causing great and often sudden damage or distress; a disaster.

Example:

If heartbreaks and calamities can be blessings in disguise, then why are their disguises so convincing?

Meaning:

Noun.

the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence.

Example:

Then something happened—no one knows quite what, but speculation runs from the weather turning chilly to the invention of cooking—and the soon-to-be-human brain experienced an unprecedented growth spurt that more than doubled its mass in a little over two million years, transforming it from the one-and-a-quarter-pound brain of Homo habilis to the nearly three-pound brain of Homo sapiens.

Meaning:

Adjective.

never done or known before

Example:

Then something happened—no one knows quite what, but speculation runs from the weather turning chilly to the invention of cooking—and the soon-to-be-human brain experienced an unprecedented growth spurt that more than doubled its mass in a little over two million years, transforming it from the one-and-a-quarter-pound brain of Homo habilis to the nearly three-pound brain of Homo sapiens.

Meaning:

Verb.

• leave (a place that one previously occupied).

Example:

This frontal lobe—the last part of the human brain to evolve, the slowest to mature, and the first to deteriorate in old age—is a time machine that allows each of us to vacate the present and experience the future before it happens.

Meaning:

Noun.

a confusing and difficult problem or question.

Example:

You’ve probably been in a similar conundrum yourself.

Meaning:

Verb.

restore (a dead person) to life.

Example:

We may remember what we thought or said (though not necessarily), and we may remember what we did (though not necessarily that either), but the likelihood is depressingly slim that we can resurrect our experience and then evaluate it as we would have back then.

Meaning:

Noun.

• the action or state of being unfaithful to a spouse or other sexual partner.
• unbelief in a particular religion, especially Christianity.

Example:

If mental images of rapid breathing and flailing mailbags induce pangs of jealousy and waves of anger, then we should expect a real infidelity to do so with even greater swiftness and reliability.

Meaning:

Verb.

• Occur; happen.
• [Botany] (of a plant or leaf) give off water vapor through the stomata.

Example:

This is a clever method for predicting future feelings, because how we feel when we imagine an event is usually a good indicator of how we will feel when the event itself transpires.

Meaning:

Verb.

• refuse to accept or be associated with.
• deny the truth or validity of.

Example:

Only later—if we have the time, energy, and ability—do we rapidly repudiate that assumption and consider the possibility that the real world may not actually be as it appears to us.

Meaning:

Verb/Noun.

• walk or move in a leisurely manner.

Example:

But if the typically tight bond between experience and awareness leads us to suspect that the distinction between them is an exercise in hand waving, you need only rewind the tape a bit and imagine yourself back at the café at precisely the moment that your eyes were running across the newsprint and your mind was about to mosey off to contemplate the sounds and smells around you.

Meaning:

Noun/Verb.

• Formal term for bet.

Example:

Now, I will wager that you did not accept my challenge.

Meaning:

Adjective.

• Enough or more than enough. Plentiful.
• Large and accomodating
• Fat.

Example:

We have already seen how brains make ample use of the filling-in trick when they remember the past or imagine the future, and the phrase “filling in” suggests an image of a hole (for example, in a wall or a tooth) being plugged with some sort of material (Spackle or silver).

Meaning:

Noun.

• Skill in performing tasks, especially with the hands.

Example:

It’s hard to say which is the more admirable component of this feat: Ben’s mental or manual dexterity.

Meaning:

Noun/Verb.

• (of a person or small animal) move hurriedly with short quick steps.
• a situation of hurried or confused movement.

Example:

When I’d get stuck, I’d call Ericsson up for advice, and he’d inevitably send me scurrying for some journal article that he promised would help me understand my shortcomings.

Meaning:

Adjective.

• Seeming difficult to deal with in anticipation; intimidating.

Example:

When I first set out to train my memory, the prospect of learning these elaborate techniques seemed preposterously daunting.

Meaning:

Noun.

• A state of being distant, remote, or withdrawn.

Example:

What’s more, he seems to cultivate the sense of aloofness and inaccessibility that are a prerequisite for any self-respecting guru.

Meaning:

Adjective.

Unjustly inflicting hardship and constraint, especially on a minority or other subordinate group.

Weighing heavily on the mind or spirit; causing depression or discomfort.

(of weather) excessively hot and humid.

Example:

A hundred years of progressive education reform have discredited memorization as oppressive and stultifying—not only a waste of time, but positively harmful to the developing brain.

Meaning:

Verb.

Cause to lose enthusiasm, especially as a result of a tedious or restrictive routine.

Cause (someone) to appear foolish or absurd.

Example:

The last century has been an especially bad one for memory. A hundred years of progressive education reform have discredited memorization as oppressive and stultifying—not only a waste of time, but positively harmful to the developing brain.

Meaning:

Noun.

• A person's inherent qualities of mind and character.
• The way in which something is placed or arranged, especially in relation to other things.

Example:

Her circumstances, perhaps combined with an innate disposition, caused her to become gloomy, even depressed.